Perseverance Archives - Page 2 of 2

The Illusion of Choice

May 13, 2014 by Joycelyn Campbell 4 Comments

You always have a choice.

Isn’t that what everyone says? No matter what happens, you can choose how to respond. And if you want things to be different, well then just make different choices.

Making a different choice sounds so simple. And it’s appealing to believe you can do it if you really want to. But if you don’t make a different choice, does that mean you really don’t want to? Does it mean you lack self-control or will power? Does it mean you’re trying to sabotage yourself?

If you believe that you could make a different choice but don’t, why don’t you?

When we believe we could make a different choice, but we fail to do so, we’re forced to explain ourselves—at least to ourselves. So we get busy rationalizing, making excuses, or berating ourselves. It’s the start of a vicious cycle, one that can go on for years or even decades. Not only is this a waste of time, it’s also counterproductive to changing behavior.

The truth is that we don’t always have a choice. In fact, we rarely have a choice. We keep doing the same things we’ve always done because that’s how our brain is wired. It conserves precious energy by turning as many behaviors as possible into routines and habits. Once those routines and habits are in place, they’re extremely difficult to disrupt. When faced with a familiar situation, you and I and everyone else will likely as not do what we’ve always done in that situation, even if we want to make a different choice.

Minute by minute, second by second, the unconscious part of your brain is absorbing and processing an unbelievable amount of data, all but a small fraction of which you’re not consciously aware of. So at the moment you’re faced with that familiar situation, your unconscious is picking up on signals, making connections, and initiating the usual response long before you can consciously entertain the idea of doing something different. When it comes to routines and habits, consciousness is simply no match for the speed of the unconscious brain.

As long as you don’t recognize what’s going on, you’re up against an unseen enemy. The challenge is to use the brain’s labor-saving mechanisms instead of being used by them. That’s where intention comes in.

The time to decide how you want to respond in a familiar situation is not when you’re in that situation but when you have some distance from it and can think clearly about it. If you know what you’re up against, you can come up with a plan to outwit your unseen enemy and even turn it into an ally. The plan involves IAP:

Intention
Attention
Perseverance

The IAP process is based on the way the brain actually works.

(1) Plan ahead. Formulate a clear and specific intention.
(2) Don’t count on remembering. Come up with a way to keep your attention focused on your intention.
(3) Assume you won’t be perfect out of the gate. Your unconscious brain is stubborn and set in its ways. With perseverance, however, your desired response will become the automatic one.

Fortitude: Don’t Leave Home Without It

April 28, 2014 by Joycelyn Campbell 4 Comments

Fortitude is the mental toughness that keeps you going when the going gets tough. Fortitude helps you deal with adversity, overcome obstacles, and keep on keeping on instead of giving up. If you’re going to take on any kind of a challenge, you’ll need a heavy dose of fortitude.

Fortitude is kind of an old-fashioned concept and isn’t too popular in a lot of circles. Acknowledging the need for it implies that you’re likely to face difficulties, that things won’t always—or ever—go smoothly or quickly or the way you want them to. Further, it implies there’s value in being able to overcome and learn from the problems that beset you rather than, say, caving in, blaming others (or bad luck), or throwing a temper tantrum.

There’s an interesting correlation between fortitude, expectations, and success. The people who have succeeded in accomplishing what they set out to do generally expected to succeed. But they also expected it wouldn’t be easy. People who expect success to come easily aren’t prepared for the difficulties and even setbacks they encounter. They tend to quit and to blame the circumstances instead of recognizing their own lack of fortitude. It just wasn’t in the cards.

Unpacking this single word exposes all kinds of great qualities, including:

Strength
Courage
Endurance
Determination
Resilience
Perseverance

Fortitude isn’t showy. It’s an inner strength that rests on a belief in yourself and in what you’re doing. It doesn’t mean you don’t have doubts; it just means you don’t give in to them. It doesn’t mean you don’t get tired or temporarily discouraged; it just means you take a break and then get back to work. It doesn’t mean you don’t feel like quitting; it just means you stay the course instead.

Whether or not System 1 (your unconscious) will help you or hinder you in situations requiring fortitude depends on whether it sees what you’re doing as a mater of survival or as a threat to your survival. But System 1 isn’t really the place to look for mental strength or toughness. You have to use System 2 (the conscious part of your brain) to override fatigue, fear, uncertainty, temporary defeat, setbacks, and obstacles. If you’re clear about what you want–and why you want it–you can use your brain to keep you on the path to achieving it.

I put fortitude at the top of my list because without it, you’re hamstrung before you even begin.

Perseverance Is Magic

July 21, 2013 by Joycelyn Campbell 5 Comments

Perseverance Trail Head (Photo credit: AlaskanLibrarian)

After creating an intention and choosing a tool or technique to help focus our attention on it, we will surely achieve quick and easy success.

Are you laughing? That was supposed to be a joke. Remember, doing something intentionally and deliberately—and staying focused on it—requires conscious attention. If we’ve already got a habit in place that we’re trying to change, we have to convince our brain to go along with the plan, and that isn’t going to happen overnight.

The problem is that we’d prefer instant gratification, while our brain requires persistent effort on our part to convince it that we really do want X instead of Y. When at first we don’t succeed, we might decide it’s not worth the effort. Why bother? Just go with the flow. Or we might chalk it up to being weak or lacking discipline or having no will power. So we give up—to prove the point, apparently.

Perseverance isn’t the same as dogged persistence. Sometimes there’s a good reason to stop attempting to do something. One of the reasons for paying attention is that we might recognize that it isn’t precisely A we want; it’s more along the lines of B. Or we might realize we’ve bitten off too big a chunk and need to pare down our intention. Perseverance just means we keep moving toward the desired outcome. It’s incredibly simple. We don’t need to chastise ourselves. We don’t need to make up excuses. We just pick up where we left off and keep going. It isn’t a competition or a race. It doesn’t matter when we get where we’re going, just that we get there.

Continuous effort—not strength or intelligence—is the key to unlocking our potential. ― Winston Churchill

It helps to have a cheerleader—a person or a group of people—who can encourage us. We don’t need someone to call us out on our failure to achieve instant results. We need someone who recognizes that what we’re trying to do isn’t easy, not because we’re incapable or lazy, but because we’re human and our brain is very set in its ways.

Perseverance gets a bad rap in some quarters. It isn’t flashy or catchy or stylish. It’s often linked with discipline and endurance and sounds like something that’s good for you or that builds character. But perseverance is the key to accessing the brain’s autopilot. It really is magic.

You always have a choice.

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