Perseverance is like any other mindset skill. It’s not something that you either have or don’t have, it is a skill that can be trained, improved, or lost without practice. Perseverance can open up doors that you otherwise couldn’t walk through. As you face difficult tests, intimidating presentations, and complex classwork, perseverance will be the difference between you succeeding or falling short of your goals.
The definition of perseverance is as follows: “persistence in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.” How do we train persistence when facing difficulty? Let’s look to athletes and understand how they train this crucial skill. In a variety of sports, athletes will go through grueling practices. At the very end of a long and difficult practice, there will be some form of conditioning: pushups, situps, running sprints, etc. Why do they do that last little spurt of conditioning at the end? Because a pushup is easy for an athlete at the beginning of practice. It’s not so easy after you are tired, covered in sweat, and aching from a full practice of being tested physically. That last minute conditioning isn’t to make the body physically stronger, but to make the mind stronger, pushing through fatigue purposely.
Muhammad Ali famously said, “I don’t count my sit-ups; I only start counting when it starts hurting because they’re the only ones that count.” He didn’t bother worrying about the reps that were easy to get because he wanted to improve his perseverance. His ability to work at the highest levels when he was tired and facing difficulty allowed him to reach the championship in boxing. He was incredibly talented and had many physical tools working for him, but nothing was more beneficial than his mindset.
How can we apply perseverance training to academics? The concept is no different. The goal is to push through and do extra when you are tired, mentally drained, and feel like your brain is at capacity. When reading, I used to go until the lines started to blur. We all know the feeling, where one line splits into two and you feel like you can’t focus anymore. As soon as I would see lines blurring, I would tell myself “10 more pages.” I would set a goal in my mind and would not let myself off the hook until the goal was complete. Even if every line blurred and I felt like I wasn’t capable, I would make myself push through those 10 extra pages. Then, I would test myself on it and recap those pages to make sure I got something out of it.
It could be an extra set of math problems, an extra video to watch about science, or another round of quizzing yourself on flashcards for history. The concept remains that if you want to increase your perseverance, you have to push yourself AFTER things get difficult. Going that extra step consistently will give you the practice that you need.
Why do we practice perseverance? Because when you really need it, you will perform the way that you practiced. If you are facing a 3 hour long, difficult standardized exam, your perseverance will be what it has been. If you’ve been doing that extra and teaching yourself to push past your limits, you will be able to do that on the exam and keep a clear, focused mind while finishing the test. If you haven’t worked on your perseverance, you might find yourself asleep during the test, or at best, unfocused and not performing at your best for all 3 hours.
Think about your perseverance today. Write down the moments of difficulty that you typically feel in academics. Then, come up with a plan on how you can do just a little bit extra. Keep yourself accountable to doing the extra and you will have the confidence of knowing that you can persevere through anything! Mindset makes the difference.