Persistence is a very tricky and complex concept to explain, never mind even being persistent all in itself.  The person being persistent has a series of steps that they must take. Situations that require physical persistence may include the following scenarios such as healing a broken bone, recovering from a sickness, relearning a task that was once lost, losing weight, learning a new task to improve oneself, while situations that require psychological persistence may include overcoming a social fear, learning to live life again after a near death experience, losing a loved one, recovering after a traumatic event such as rape or assault, coming back home from war. These types of persistence for very different from each other.

Each of these types of persistence requires different steps and tasks to accomplish the goal desired. For example, for a person struggling to lose weight, the goals are set, eat healthier, exercise daily, and possibly take vitamins. The steps are clear cut and simple to follow. Now the physical persistence that occurs, one must push oneself to follow the goal by doing a multiple of things, such as, writing things down, tracking your movement, and setting up time frames to accomplish the goals set. As hard as those tasks may be, they are clear cut and what must be done is simple. Sometimes, the person must be ready and willing to make the change, ready to be physically persistent.

On the other hand, psychological persistence is quite a bit different and a little harder to make a clear cut plan with steps to follow. For example, for a person who just lost a loved one, whether to death or a mental illness, there is no set plan, no guidelines to follow for them to carry on with their life. The person wants to be persistent and live life normally again, but there is no set list or guidelines and no schedule to follow to make life easier and or better. The person knows that they have to grieve and do everyday things at the same time, they also learn to live without the person they once loved or learn to live with a person they used to know but no longer do. One must also realize their life has forever changed and then be alright again. They know what they have to do, but their mental state is not up to par, they are not ready, it will take time. In the article 6 ways to be Persistent, the author quotes, “…They let their fears and doubts paralyze them from moving persistently toward their goals.  Or perhaps, their motivation is no firm enough to drive them to work on it.” (Macabasco).

There is no set time or clock for any of the psychological persistence a person must go through. One cannot make a schedule. Seven am, wake up eat, shower, brush teeth, get dressed. Eight am, go to work until 6 pm. Seven pm, prepare for next day, eat dinner, clean up, cry for two hours. Ten pm, go to bed repeat until one feels better. Unfortunately it does not work that way. Even others, cannot assist as well as one could if it were a physical persistence. In a student’s essay they wrote that their friends didn’t know what to say or how to help. (Preceding to Move Forward)

Another difference is the way people react and treat a person being persistent. When a person is physically being persistent others can see it. They see the struggle and that makes it easier to help the person struggling.  For example, a person trying to lose weight clearly has a plan a goals to accomplish, others can see these plans. They can see the difference of food intake, the increase of exercise, or watching them calculate both.

For a personal being psychologically persistent, others have a harder time seeing it which makes helping extremely difficult. For instance, I have a social anxiety not seen by others. The first time you meet me I come across shy and quiet but I am anything but. It takes me a long time to become comfortable around people. Since I do not wear a sign saying “I have social anxiety, go easy on me.”  People tend to ignore me and think I am shy or antisocial. They do not see how hard I am trying to be in public or around large groups, therefor they cannot help me or make it easier for me.

While there are different ways to be persistent depending on what type of situation a person is in, there are also similarities. In the article “7 Sure- Fire Way to Develop Persistence”, the article gives seven steps, of that a few would be appropriate for both a psychological and physical situation. The step that is similar in the article is the first step, “Learn the life of successful people”, that in order to become persistent one must learn the ways of an already successful person. (Latumahina)

For a physical persistence, one must learn from a trainer or someone who has done the same thing you are trying to do. For example, if a person is trying to learn to walk again, that person would go to a trainer and hang out with people who have lost that ability and gained it back as well as people going through it. A person being psychologically persistent in the aspect of experiencing the death of a parent, taking the step to go to a group meeting for people who have experienced the same loss who have made progress would be beneficial.

Which is harder, physical persistence, or psychological persistence? It is not clear cut. Physical persistence may have a guided time line along with steps to take and psychological persistence does not have a timeline but does have steps to take. Both types of perseverance, psychological and physical, require a ready mind. To say which persistence is harder, is to guess blindly without any knowledge. It depends on the situation, one physical persistence might be hard to overcome then one psychological persistence.  The goal is to “Keep a Positive Mental Attitude” (Macabasco), if one loses that there is a strong chance to fail at the goal desired. A positive mind is the one common thread among both types of persistence.

 

Works Cited

Latumahina, Donald. “7 Sure-Fire Ways to Develop Persistence.” Life Optimizer RSS. Life Optimizer, n.d. Web. 06 Apr. 2015.

Macabasco, Lou. “6 Effective Ways to Become Persistent.” Lifehack RSS. Lifehack, n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2015.

Arruda, J. “Preceding to Move Forward.” Thesis. Bristol Community College, 2015. Web.