How Do Psychological Persistence and Physical Persistence Differ

 

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. One must first figure out what type of persistence they are using and or trying to understand, physical persistence, or psychological persistence. Situations that require physical persistence may include the following scenarios, healing a broken bone, recovering from a sickness, relearning a task that was once lost, losing weight, learning a new task to improve oneself etc., 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 etc.

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. The person must be ready to make the change, ready to be physically persistent. On the other hand, psychological persistence is completely different and quite a bit harder to make a clear cut plan and 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. 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. “…They let their fears and doubts paralyze them from moving persistently toward their goals.  Or perhaps, their motivation is not 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)

There is a completely different ways to be persistent depending on what type of situation a person is in. In the article “7 Sure- Fire Way to Develop Persistence”, the article gives seven steps that would be appropriate for both a psychological and physical situation. The article says in 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.

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. Print.

In my opinion, perseverance is doing something despite difficulty in order to achieve success. According to Merriam-Webster’s definition of persistence is “the quality that allows someone to continue doing something or trying to do something even though it is difficult or opposed by other people”. But what qualifies something as difficult? I feel differs person to person. For me, I struggle to be around people, even people I have known for a long time.

I feel as though everyone is staring at me, judging, even though I know no one is even glancing in my direction. All those eyes on me, I’m bound to do something ridiculous. I spent all of my middle school and high school career afraid to be myself and always trying to impress the other kids. It never worked and I made a bigger fool of myself than I ever could have by being myself, but still fear of disappointing random people is a fear of mine. I worked so hard at trying to making people like and accept me and it didn’t work.

I took two years to find myself and where I came from after high school because I was terrified of going to college. What would the other students say when I asked a question they thought was stupid? Would anyone talk to me? All of these questions swirled in my head. I was terrified. I knew I didn’t want to spend my college career kissing up to people and doing what I thought everyone wanted me to do, but how do I be myself and have enough confidence and strength. I decided to just take the plunge. I had already been trying to put myself in social situations more, so I thought why not?

I found an online article literally called “3 ways to be Persistent”, as I sat down to read it I noticed it was telling me to do many of the things I was already doing. The article told me to, little by little try to work on my goal, baby steps.

My first semester I took three classes. I took math, history and psychology. I figured three classes to get adjusted to the school setting again. I loved my classes. I loved the topics. I had always been great at math and psychology. History I was good at but never found an interest in.

First day of class, the most dreaded day for me. The day where you have to introduce yourself to the class. My first class was psychology, my professor finally called in me to introduce myself. “Hi, my name is Desirae. This is my first year at BCC and I have no idea what I want to study.” It felt like those tiny sentences took hours to come out. I could have even sworn I heard chuckles when I said I had no idea what to study. I sank back into my seat, I just had to keep thinking, “baby” steps.

The other classes went the same way, making me feel little and that I never should have come to school. I read another article that says persistence can be shaped by how you were raised. I thought to myself as I read that, “great, I have had about ten different families in my life and they all raised me different.” The more I thought about it, I was raised by many families and many values and lessons were taught, I could use that.

As the semester went on I became very interested in my psychology class, even sharing ideas and stories with the class. I started to feel safe even with all the people around me. The interest in learning about the subject made the people around me easier to handle. It wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns though.

My math class proved to be a bit tougher to handle. My professor quickly found out I was good at math. I then was constantly called to the board to show the other students how to do the problems. I could feel the hate from their eyes as I solved the problem. To make matters worse the professor once said, “If anyone has questions, ask her.” I was mortified. A few weeks into that class and I was already being called upon regularly.

The stares, whether there or not eventually really got to me. I stopped coming for a few classes. I couldn’t handle it. According to the article, I broke a big rule, stay motivated. I just had to start again, accept that I failed, and try again.

When I went back to math I was so far behind and I couldn’t catch up. I failed math. Failed. I failed only one class in my lifetime before. This was when I realized and became strong enough to say to myself that I am in college for myself, no one else. I knew I could do it because I had been doing it in psychology.  By the end of psychology class I was comfortable talking about controversial topics with the class. I wasn’t afraid. I didn’t care if they didn’t agree. I was starting to be myself. By the time the second semester began I knew I had to be me for me. I couldn’t fail another class because of people.

Although I am still shy I show up and participate. It’s a struggle every day I go to class. I just keep the goal of passing and bettering my life in my head. I know that I will never quite feel comfortable in front of strangers, but by pushing through it I become better at interacting with people on a daily basis, even people I know well. Striving for just a little ease and pushing through the pain to achieve my goals. That is the exact definition of perseverance.

 

Works Cited

“How to Be Persistent.” WikiHow. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Mar. 2015.

“Not Just Smart, but Persistent as Well.” The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 19 May 2011. Web. 30 Mar. 2015.

Perseverance, doing something despite difficulty in order to achieve success. What qualifies something as difficult? It differs person to person. For me, I struggle to be around peopl, even people I have known for a long time. I feel as though everyone is staring at me, judging, even though I know no one is even glancing in my direction. All those eyes on me, I’m bound to do something ridiculous. I spent all of my middle school and high school career afraid to be myself and always trying to impress the other kids. It never worked and I made a bigger fool of myself than I ever could have by being myself, but still fear of disappointing random people is a fear of mine. I worked so hard at  trying to making people like and accept me and it didn’t work. I took two years to find myself and where I came from after high school because I was terrified of going to college. What would the other students say when I asked a question they thought was stupid? Would anyone talk to me? All of these questions swirled in my head. I was terrified. I knew I didn’t want to spend my college career kissing up to people and doing what I thought everyone wanted me to do, but how do I be myself and have enough confidence and strength. I decided to just take the plunge. My first semester I took three classes. I took math, history and psychology. I figured three classes to get adjusted to the school setting again. I loved my classes. I loved the topics. I had always been great at math and psychology. History I was good at but never found an interest in. First day of class, the most dreaded day for me. The day where you have to introduce yourself to the class. My first class was psychology, my professor finally called in me to introduce myself. “Hi, my name is Desirae. This is my first year at BCC and I have no idea what I want to study.” It felt like those tiny sentences took hours to come out. I could have even sworn I heard chuckles when I said I had no idea what to study. I sank back into my seat. The other classes went the same way, making me feel little and that I never should have come to school.  As the semester went on I became very interested in my psychology class, even sharing ideas and stories with the class. I started to feel safe even with all the people around me. The interest in learning about the subject made the people around me easier to handle. It wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns though. My math class proved to be a bit tougher to handle. My professor quickly found out I was good at math. I then was constantly called to the board to show the other students how to do the problems. I could feel the hate from their eyes as I solved the problem. To make matters worse the professor once said,”If anyone has questions, ask her.” I was mortified. A few weeks into that class and I was already being called upon regularly. The stares, whether there or not really got to me. I stopped coming for a few classes. I couldn’t handle it. When I went back to math I was so far behind and I couldn’t catch up. I failed math. Failed. I failed only one class in my lifetime before. This was when I realized and became strong enough to say to myself that I am in college for myself, no one else. I knew I could do it because I had been doing it in psychology.  By the end of psychology class  I was comfortable talking about controversial topics with the class. I wasn’t afraid. I didn’t care if they didn’t agree. I was starting to be myself. By the time the second semester began I knew I had to be me for me. I couldn’t fail another class because of people. Although I am still shy I show up and participate. Its a struggle everyday I go to class. I just keep the goal of passing and bettering my life in my head. I know that I will never quite feel comfortable in front of strangers, but by pushing through it I become better at interacting with people on a daily basis, even people I know well. Striving for just a little ease and pushing threw the pain to achieve my goals. That is the exact definition of perseverance.

My name is Desirae Sullivan and I am 21 years old and this is my second semester at BCC. I graduated at Westport High School in 2012. I then took 2 years off to meet my biological family in Arizona and Oklahoma. I had been in foster care for 13 years, I thought it was time to meet my biological family. It was a terrible but necessary experience. I stayed out West for two years, adapting to the weather and in turn my family. Culture shock was a new word I learned very well. After two years away from Massachusetts I decided to move back. I missed my home town. I missed chourico, coffee milk, and Sam’s meat pies. I can say that what I missed the most was the way people talked to each other. The  way people spoke to each other and the grammar the used was very different and uncomfortable to me.  I now live with my boyfriend  and two cats in our apartment in the city. I love being back in college. This is my turn around point in life. I am at a point in life where I am taking control and shaping my life. This is me, and that is a little bit about me and my life.