The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

― Lao Tzu

So far in the second part of this challenge, you have identified your strengths and learned about the value of being true to yourself. In this chapter and the next, we are going to talk about two other things that might be necessary for moving forward in being true to the best of ourselves – especially in the face of stress and whatever obstacles we may face.

In this chapter, we will be focusing on one of the simple strengths that we are exercising every time we decide not to give up. In the next chapter, we will focus on courage itself – although it will not just be physical courage but other forms of courage we may need much more often.

This first simple strength that we are going to talk about in this chapter is perseverance, and we are also going to talk about two of its close cousins, who I think you will really enjoy meeting!

But first, I want you to let you know about a few people you may have heard of who had to persevere after they failed, fell down, or were defeated.

When he was a young man, Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper because his boss thought he lacked imagination and had no original ideas.

Before they hit it big, the Beatles were turned down by the Decca recording company by an executive who said, “We don’t like their sound and guitar music is on the way out.”

Before she became rich and famous and beloved around the world, Oprah Winfrey was told that she was fired from her job as a news anchor because she “wasn’t fit for television.”

Before becoming what many people think is the greatest basketball player of all time, after he was cut from his high school basketball team, Michael Jordan went home, locked himself in his room, and cried.

Before becoming famous for writing the Harry Potter books and making more than a billion dollars, J.K Rowling was a struggling single mother on welfare whose book was rejected 12 times.

This next person is probably the closest to a legend that the United States has ever had. But before he became what many think is the best president in U.S. history, Abraham Lincoln’s fiancé died, he failed in business twice, had a nervous breakdown, and was defeated in eight elections.

The final person that I want to mention did not speak until he was four years old, did not read until he was seven; causing his teachers to think he was mentally handicapped, slow, and anti-social. Albert Einstein eventually won the Nobel Prize and changed the face of modern physics!

These are prime examples of the power of perseverance or simply refusing to give up. This power is often expressed in a simple saying that probably has a version in nearly all languages and cultures around the world, “The longest journey begins with a simple step.” As you think about what you want in your life, perseverance is a great equalizer that makes it possible for even the smallest, weakest, and most flawed among us to have a chance.

Why is this simple strength so powerful and so important for our happiness and success? Fortunately, there have been enough research psychologists who didn’t give up until they got some answers!

First, perseverance makes it more likely to attain difficult goals. That is, perseverance is generally rewarded with success – maybe not every time, but it usually is eventually, and that is the point!

Second, perseverance enhances our enjoyment of success. If we make it the first time without having to really try, then reaching that goal may not mean as much to us.

Third, perseverance can also have benefits that have nothing to do with our original goals. Going out for the netball team until we make it as a child won’t translate into an adult career in net ball, but it may teach us an incredibly important lesson about persevering in other ways that will help us succeed as an adult.

Fourth and last, perseverance can increase our sense of self-efficacy – which is the belief that we can do what it takes to reach one of our goals.

So, this is perseverance and why it is so important. But I also mentioned two of its close cousins and how much I thought you might also like to meet them! You will hear more about the first of these cousins in the special video for this chapter. The word for it has been in the title of a couple famous western movies as well as what we sometimes call something that becomes stuck between our teeth. The word is “grit” and its meaning here is“perseverance – plus!”

This kind of grit has been studied by Angela Duckworth who has shown it to often be more important for success than things like IQ or physical strength. It turns out that grit may also be something that is a lot easier for us to increase. I said that grit is perseverance plus, and I literally meant it. The two parts of grit are, one, perseverance and, two, having a long-term goal or purpose that you maintain and continue to be passionate about. The idea is that when you put them together, they produce more beautiful music than just John Lennon or Paul McCartney alone.

So, perseverance alone is very good, but if you can combine it with the kind of authentic passion or purpose we have been talking about – watch out! Out of those things that you love to do, try to find the ones that you love the most. Out of those ways that you can experience flow, see if you can organize them around a long-term goal that is true to who you are and what you want most. If you do these things and use your strengths to “follow your bliss,” like Joseph Campbell talks about – well, that is where you get a Michael Jordan, Oprah, J.K. Rowling, Honest Ab, or the best of who you can be!

The other encouraging but also challenging cousin of perseverance is called “growth mindset” – which has been contrasted with what psychologist Carol Dweck calls “fixed mindset.” While both of these mindsets are related to how successful we are, they really come into play when we fail. When you fail a test, are rejected, lose a job, or don’t make the team – the temptation is to adopt a fixed mindset that says the reason you didn’t reach your goal was because of something inherent about you that you can’t change.

In contrast, that “growth mindset” cousin was raised on generous helpings of positive appraisal and the possibility of stress-related growth. Growth mindset is the perspective that rather than being a final statement on the inherent limitations of who you are and what you can do, a failure or set-back is actually an opportunity to learn so that you can do better next time and eventually be successful. Combine this with that long-term passion and purpose thing that Angela Duckworth talks about, and you are really on your way!

So, however you ranked on perseverance in the VIA survey, you really have no excuse, and you should invite the cousins over. Perseverance means simply taking another one of those single steps, grit adds a purpose that we are passionate about and asks if this is something we really want, and growth mindset says, “Okay, I am going to perform a Jedi mind trick when the inevitable happens. When I fail, I am going to use it as the occasion to learn what I need for getting it right next time!”

So, first be clear about what you really want. That is why we began by trying to help you identify that in the first part of this challenge. Once you get a good idea of what would genuinely make you happy and the strengths you can use to make it happen – that is where perseverance comes in to enable you to bring it all home. The good news is that if you just keep at it, you are much more likely to eventually get there!

Finally, growth mindset may bring us a more powerful message than the often quoted words of Friedrich Nietzsche who said, “What doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.” Growth mindset says that what doesn’t kill me, even if I really fail in the process, may not only make me stronger but also wiser and probably a lot happier.

Workbook Tasks for the Chapter

The tasks for this chapter will help you better understand the value of grit, use your strengths to experience flow and increase your happiness, and about how to know when and how to best exercise perseverance.

First, there is a video about that cousin “grit” that we talked about. It is a TED talk by Angela Duckworth who first began to study grit and show how important it can be. She was a student of Martin Seligman, the primary founder of positive psychology. This video will help you better understand why grit may be so important in helping you reach your goals.

Second, there is an activity that involves using one of your top strengths to put yourself in the experience of flow. We may often be using our top strengths when we are in flow and this activity may help you find new ways to experience flow. It may also help you see how beneficial it can be for success and living our lives to the fullest. If you remember the sailboat metaphor that was introduced in Chapter 7, the experience of flow is often like having the wind at our backs when we lift the sails in using our top strengths.

Third, there a writing activity that asks you to list your three of your top strengths that you think may most enable you to increase your happiness and well-being in the future. This will increase your motivation to use your strengths and help you get a better idea of how and when to best use them.

Finally, there are reflection questions about when it might be most important for you to persevere, when it might be best not to persevere, and what might help you best know how to decide between the two. Of course, this is a related to Serenity Prayer written by the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr:

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

Like all of the VIA strengths, just as we may sometimes not use them enough, there are others times when we may use them too much. Perseverance is one of those strengths where the wisdom to know the difference when to keep going and when to stop trying may be especially important.