How can you know when to persist at something and when it’s time to let go and move on? In today’s episode I share a great insight from author Tobias Wolf that will help you realise why persistence matters and how to know when to press on.
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Transcript
Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan Doyle with you.
Speaker:Once again, welcome friends to the daily podcast.
Speaker:Great to be with you this morning.
Speaker:I'm really enjoying doing these.
Speaker:I've got to tell you the truth every day is different.
Speaker:Some days I'm like on top of the world.
Speaker:I've got my training done.
Speaker:I've had everything organized and I'm just rocking to the studio,
Speaker:ready to rip it apart some days.
Speaker:You know, it's a, it's harder.
Speaker:You've got to find the inspiration, the content.
Speaker:And I share that with you because it's kind of in relationship to
Speaker:today's measures, which we're going to unpack in just a moment.
Speaker:We've got to show up.
Speaker:We got to show up when we feel good.
Speaker:We got to show off when we don't feel good, we've got to bring
Speaker:our best as often as possible to the things that really matter.
Speaker:That was a really, uh, didn't episode, maybe three episodes ago.
Speaker:When we talked about pat Riley, the coach of the LA Lakers, who said,
Speaker:you know, the thing about commitment is you're either in or you're out.
Speaker:And commitment is really what you do when you don't feel like doing it.
Speaker:So we're going to riff on that a little bit today before we do,
Speaker:please make sure you've subscribed.
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Speaker:And I want you to check out this show notes here on the podcast
Speaker:version, you're going to find access to a whole bunch of links.
Speaker:There'll be links, uh, free access to my book, bridging the gap.
Speaker:You can book me to speak.
Speaker:There's a whole bunch of other stuff.
Speaker:There.
Speaker:There's a link across to the YouTube channel where you can
Speaker:see me doing this same episode.
Speaker:Uh, well, not exactly the same episode, the same content in a
Speaker:video version where, um, you know, I just put that video out each day.
Speaker:So it's all there in the show notes, friends.
Speaker:Welcome a board.
Speaker:Let's do this.
Speaker:I want to start with a quote today from the author, Tobias Wolff like that.
Speaker:And then Tobias.
Speaker:Um, Tobias Wolf.
Speaker:There's a really cool quote that just jumped out at me.
Speaker:And I sort of wanted to share it with you.
Speaker:He says this, we are made.
Speaker:To persist.
Speaker:That's how we find out who we are.
Speaker:We are made to persist.
Speaker:That's how we find out who we are.
Speaker:Really important insight.
Speaker:And I would just really want to share this with you.
Speaker:I hope we can find ways to apply it to your life.
Speaker:If you listen to me regularly, you know, some of my.
Speaker:I guess my mantra is the things that occupy my thinking.
Speaker:Uh, over a longer period of time.
Speaker:I think that we're in an interesting cultural moment.
Speaker:The.
Speaker:I guess technology in some ways has made life in some ways, very comfortable.
Speaker:And very secure.
Speaker:Now I know we could all point to ways that life still has its challenges and
Speaker:all sorts of problems that we can face.
Speaker:But I like to say to people that if you have a flushing toilet, you're basically.
Speaker:So far ahead of every other human that ever lived that, uh, even if things
Speaker:are bad for you at the moment, if you have electricity and a flushing toilet,
Speaker:you're in a pretty good place though.
Speaker:That said my, my older brother at the moment is on a mission trip overseas.
Speaker:And, uh, he's been in a really remote area and I'm not even
Speaker:sure they had a flushing toilet.
Speaker:So I guess when he gets back, he's going to be able to talk
Speaker:to us all about gratitude.
Speaker:But friends, this is a culture we inhabit that is big on consumption.
Speaker:It's big on distraction.
Speaker:I think I say that almost every single episode.
Speaker:So there are multiple ways.
Speaker:To, uh, to check out there are multiple ways to not do difficult things.
Speaker:There's endless forms of distraction.
Speaker:So finding the ability to persist is probably a little harder
Speaker:than it's been culturally.
Speaker:If you think about it going back centuries.
Speaker:You know, if you were subsistence agriculture I'd until what?
Speaker:Maybe the.
Speaker:Oh, gosh, you'd have to be hard to pick an exact time, but probably the early
Speaker:modern period, I guess you'd say that.
Speaker:Uh, agriculture became, you know, productive enough that there was surplus.
Speaker:So people could access food probably a little more easily, but
Speaker:until quite recently, subsistence farming was how most people lived.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And so you didn't get a choice of whether or not you wanted to do difficult things.
Speaker:You had to do difficult things, because if you didn't, you literally died.
Speaker:So I want to frame this by saying here we are in a culture.
Speaker:With many benefits, but some things have changed how we interact
Speaker:with reality, which is this quote today around persistence.
Speaker:So what Wolf is saying is that it's in the journey of persistence.
Speaker:It's in sticking at difficult things that we actually discover who we really are.
Speaker:There's a few ways in life.
Speaker:You can learn who you really are.
Speaker:Remember.
Speaker:Doing my second master's program in philosophical anthropology.
Speaker:There was really struck by this idea of, you know, one of the crucial ways we
Speaker:discover who we are as in relationships.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So, you know, interactions with other people, we slowly get a
Speaker:sense of who we are in the world.
Speaker:So there's a few key ways that we get a sense of identity.
Speaker:We get it through family, we get it through all sorts of
Speaker:encounters in life experiences.
Speaker:But what Wolf is saying here today,
Speaker:Is that one of the other crucial ways that we discover our
Speaker:sense of self, our identity.
Speaker:Is in this area of persistence, doing difficult things that shape who we become.
Speaker:I want to give you two quick examples.
Speaker:When I was back in high school, this examples in my book, bridging the
Speaker:gap, and you can grab a free copy here in the, in the show notes.
Speaker:I, uh, in the, my final couple of years of high school.
Speaker:We, uh, I went to a school that had a huge focus on.
Speaker:On sport.
Speaker:And I gave 250% to, you know, getting into the highest team that I could.
Speaker:And, you know, I trained really hard and I did everything and I
Speaker:just showed up and gave a 200%.
Speaker:And I didn't make it.
Speaker:And there was actually a tour squad selected that I didn't make.
Speaker:And I looked back all these years later and I write about it in a book.
Speaker:It was at the time devastating.
Speaker:It was quite something.
Speaker:And I wrote in the book that it took me years later that I realized that
Speaker:it was actually in that experience of trying and trying and trying.
Speaker:That the real magic was.
Speaker:I thought that what I'd experienced was a failure, but what I'd actually
Speaker:experienced was a kind of success.
Speaker:What was the success?
Speaker:I'd learned about persistence.
Speaker:I'd learned about hard work.
Speaker:I didn't get the actual result.
Speaker:But are you looking back now?
Speaker:I can see that I probably had it backwards.
Speaker:I thought that the ideal result was simply making the team, but the real result was
Speaker:the shaping of character and identity that came through the relentless persistence.
Speaker:So, I guess one of the questions is, so Jonathan, are you saying
Speaker:we persist at everything?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Of taught for many years.
Speaker:The way, you know, when to stop is if you are experiencing, um, Um, significant
Speaker:negative outcomes either psychologically.
Speaker:Or in relationship to other people or in your health.
Speaker:So when do you stop you stop?
Speaker:When there are significant negative consequences to you or
Speaker:the people you love now, again, there's some nuance there, right?
Speaker:Because.
Speaker:I run ultra marathons and there's this, there's a lot of pain involved.
Speaker:There's a lot of hardship and suffering.
Speaker:So you could apply the logic.
Speaker:I just offered and said, well, don't have the money you're doing.
Speaker:You should stop when it hurts.
Speaker:I think there's a real wisdom here to live.
Speaker:Well, you have to know that there are some things worth persisting in,
Speaker:in some, some things that are not.
Speaker:And that's the other example I wanted to give was, you know, my, um, relationship
Speaker:with running, I am not a born runner.
Speaker:I'm like five foot eight.
Speaker:I'm built really solidly.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So I've got this kind of Irish peasant build.
Speaker:Uh, from a long line of Irish peasants.
Speaker:Um, I'm built really quite thick.
Speaker:And so running for me, like I've been listening to It's his book
Speaker:about running is a fantastic guy and a really interesting writer.
Speaker:And, you know, he runs amazing ultra marathons, but
Speaker:he's built like a Greyhound.
Speaker:It was built more like a.
Speaker:Like a, uh, like a Rottweiler, I guess.
Speaker:So I want to share with you that for me running.
Speaker:Has been just a long journey into solitude and pain over a long period of time.
Speaker:But.
Speaker:It's the persistence part.
Speaker:It's, it's taught me how to keep going when things are difficult, it teaches
Speaker:me to keep going when I want to stop.
Speaker:And there's this funny thing that happens.
Speaker:This battle it's waged between my physical body, my rational mind, and I guess
Speaker:my soul or spirit, that's kind of a.
Speaker:In re in dialogue with those two other parts of me.
Speaker:So I just want to say to you today, what is in your life at the moment that you
Speaker:are finding it hard to persist in because.
Speaker:I think that he's right to bias Wolf, that if you can find the grit,
Speaker:if you can find the commitment, if you can find the ability to keep
Speaker:going in the things that matter and what are the things that matter?
Speaker:Well, I think the things that matter are the things that shape our character
Speaker:and the things that bless other people.
Speaker:And the things that bring light and growth and beauty into the world.
Speaker:So you might be a doctor or a nurse or a teacher, or you might have
Speaker:some leadership role somewhere, you know, If things are difficult for
Speaker:you, ask yourself the question, are these difficult things worthwhile?
Speaker:Are they bringing more light and goodness into the world?
Speaker:Even if they're difficult, I spent many years erroneously believing.
Speaker:That if things were difficult or uncertain or confusing, then they must not be.
Speaker:The will of God, for me, they must be, you know, maybe I'm meant to walk away
Speaker:from it's taken me a lot of years to go.
Speaker:You know, there are some things that are just difficult.
Speaker:There are some things that are just hot and you got to keep going,
Speaker:keep persisting, keep pressing on.
Speaker:Raising good kids building a great career, writing a great book.
Speaker:You know, some things we just got to keep going, keep doing.
Speaker:So I just want to encourage you today.
Speaker:Whatever you're facing.
Speaker:Whatever you are going through.
Speaker:Stick with it, if it meets those criteria.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:So there's our criteria.
Speaker:If it's causing physical, psychological harm to yourself or others, it's
Speaker:probably worth putting it aside.
Speaker:But if it's bringing light and growth and character and forward momentum into
Speaker:the world, and I think you're probably.
Speaker:Have a good think and pray about sticking with it.
Speaker:So one more time from Tobias Wolff, we are made to persist.
Speaker:That's how we find out who we are.
Speaker:You know, sometimes it's only in hindsight, isn't it?
Speaker:You.
Speaker:It's been how many years?
Speaker:I guess it's been 31 years.
Speaker:Since I was trying out for that high school team.
Speaker:But that message is still shaped me all this time later.
Speaker:You know, so sometimes the lessons come later and they, uh, as they
Speaker:shape our character, All right.
Speaker:My friends, that's it for today, persist, persist, persist at the right things.
Speaker:Press on.
Speaker:Let this be a moment of encouragement for those of you who are unsure
Speaker:about what you're doing and where you're heading, find those things
Speaker:and persist my friends persist.
Speaker:The cosmos is with you.
Speaker:God is with you.
Speaker:If you are bringing light and goodness and growth into the world, press on.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Make sure you've subscribed my friends.
Speaker:Go and check out all those show notes.
Speaker:Book me to speak.
Speaker:Find out about all that good stuff.
Speaker:It's all there.
Speaker:But for now god bless everybody my name's jonathan doyle this has
Speaker:been the daily podcast and you and i are going to talk again tomorrow
