Perseverance is an important and necessary part of our lives. Perseverance stops us from giving up when things get hard. It helps us get back on track after a setback. Perseverance keeps us working on our goals and dreams, especially when we would prefer to hide under the covers and give up.
Perseverance keeps us moving forward in life, even when it’s difficult, which is why it’s such an essential part of our lives.
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Let’s dive into 12 reasons why perseverance is important in our lives.
1. Nothing gets finished if we give up
Perseverance is needed to finish things. If you give up, you never finish.
Starting is often the easy part (though starting can come with its own set of challenges) but finishing can be much harder.
To finish we have to invest our energy, time, and sometimes money, for extended periods of time. It can involve lots of hard work, having to make sacrifices, and a ton of self-doubt. Seeing a project through to completion can mean dealing with a lot of complex emotions. To finish, we have to rise above any feelings of doubt, inadequacy, or imposter syndrome.
Struggling to finish what you start? An excellent book that can help is Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done by Jon Acuff.
2. All of the important things in life involve perseverance
A successful career, a strong relationship, starting a business, getting a degree, and raising a family, all take perseverance.
When you think about it all of the important things worth doing involve perseverance, time, and often hard work.
Related post – The Importance of Finishing What You Start
3. Our big goals take a LOT of hard work
Most of the time our big goals take a LOT of work.
While society seems to be big on instant gratification via quick dopamine hits (think of all those pings and likes you respond to straight away), the truth of the matter is, a lot of the things that are worth achieving are going to take time, energy, and hard work.
Hard work doesn’t quite fit in the instant gratification category but this is where perseverance fits in.
Inspiring quotes and Instagram feel-good messages often gloss over this part. They might motivate us to get started but we still have to deal with doing the work. We have to invest our time and energy to power through that work.
Related post – Should You Keep Your Goals to Yourself?
4. Finishing feels GREAT!
Finishing gives us a sense of accomplishment. Achieving our goals and finishing what we start feels great!
Achieving our goals and dreams gives us the confidence, drive, and motivation to move on to our next big project. Each achievement builds on the last.
It’s a FABULOUS feeling to achieve things that are really important to us.
Related post – How to Do More of What Makes You Happy
5. Everyone fails
Failure is part of life. Look I’m not saying it’s a fun part but it is an inevitable part. If you try new things, you will fail.
If you don’t ever try, you might think that you don’t fail but ultimately not trying at all is still a form of failing.
You don’t try because you are overwhelmed or frozen by fear. Letting fear control your life will still feel like failing.
When we fail, it can be soul-crushing. Failing can feel like our hearts have been broken. But failing teaches us lessons. It makes us stronger and more resilient which helps us persevere.
In his book, Why People Fail, author Siimon Reynolds dives into 16 obstacles to success and how you can overcome them.
Related post – How to Deal with the F Word – Dealing with Failure
6. Challenges are inevitable and a part of life
Everyone has their challenges. Even those beautiful people on Instagram that you think have the ‘best’, ‘perfect’ lives all have their struggles (they just keep them well and truly hidden).
We all have to deal with challenges and setbacks.
Perseverance helps us get through these challenges.
7. Perseverance is about getting back up again
Not only do we have to face challenges but we need to overcome them. We have to move through them and come out the other side. We fall down, we get back up again. That’s the process.
It’s getting back up after the fall that is the important part. Well, that and learning from the fall (which usually comes after the fact).
It goes without saying that this is where many of us come unstuck. Me included!! Sometimes getting back up takes us a lot longer than we want it to. This can result in frustration, overwhelm, and feelings of inadequacy.
We give ourselves a hard time and beat ourselves up because of how long it takes us to get back up again. At least that’s what I used to do to myself all the time. It’s a terrible feeling!
Part of learning how to get back up is understanding that we need to be patient with ourselves and that sometimes bouncing back takes as long as it takes!
Ultimately, perseverance, hope, tenacity, and a belief in ourselves help us get back up again.
I just started reading an interesting book – Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness by Steve Magness. If you think it might benefit you, take a peek inside. 🙂
8. Success often happens right before you give up
Unfortunately, many of us give up just before we achieve the success we were so diligently and passionately working toward.
We might feel like we are facing an uphill battle, so we give up. We might think we can never reach our goal no matter how hard we try, so we quit.
There are times when we SHOULD stop what we are working on and try something else and there are definitely times when we shouldn’t.
Figuring out which of those choices is the one we should be following is the challenging part.
Related post – Define Your Own Version of Success
9. Lead by example
If you want to teach your children how to finish what they start then you need to lead by example and demonstrate what perseverance is all about.
It’s one thing to tell your children to keep going with something they are struggling with, but if you are giving up on your own plans the minute something goes wrong or things get hard, you are showing your children the very opposite of what you are telling them to do. It’s confusing for them.
Lead by example and demonstrate that perseverance is important.
10. You might not know what the real problem is…yet
Sometimes we need to work out what the real problem is before we can fix it. If we don’t persevere, we may never know what the exact problem is.
We can’t fix what we don’t know, so persevering can help give us time to figure things out.
Another thing to consider is that sometimes what we think is the problem isn’t the real problem at all and it may be something completely different that we need to deal with.
11. Perseverance helps increase your self-worth
When we persevere, we keep moving forward.
The element of hanging in there when things get challenging gives us the confidence to deal with our issues. It teaches us that we have what it takes to deal with hard situations and that we are capable of seeing things through to completion.
This gives us a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.
This sense of accomplishment gives us confidence and improves our self-worth.
Related post – 12 Important Things to Remember When You Feel Not Good Enough
12. Perseverance helps us grow
As much as we don’t like dealing with delays, difficulties, and hardship, they teach us valuable lessons. Sure, we would probably prefer not to be having our challenges in the first place but that’s not the point.
Stuff happens. Life happens. We don’t get a say in some of it happening.
It’s often only with hindsight that we can see the lesson.
When we persevere and push through we learn coping mechanisms and ways to deal with stress. We learn what strategies and techniques work specifically for us, instead of taking a one size fits all approach to stress management.
By persevering, we learn about ourselves.
Why Perseverance is important
Perseverance is about not giving up. It’s about believing in yourself, even when it’s challenging and difficult, and going after what you want. Know what you want, persevere, and make great things happen.
Read Next – How to Do What You Say You’re Going to Do and Why It’s So Important