Video Length: 22 minutes & 3 seconds

Transcription below, edited slightly for clarity

I don't have to be the one to tell you that 2020 has been a whirlwind, but whether you are starting a business, whether you're in a relationship, you're navigating a marriage, or you are moving, or you have a big goal in front of you, perseverance is a quality that many of us aspire to have, & can oftentimes or sometimes feel like a challenge. 

So, today I'm going to share two powerful strategies to help you persevere with one caveat, at the end, so stay tuned for what that is. It's really important to think about. I also want to share what's possible when we take these strategies & actually implement them into our life & I want to share a client testimonial who launched an online course. No one purchased within that first week of the launch. 

What do we do when we launch something, when we do the thing like we've persevered all this way, we do the thing we've been working toward for so long, & then the outcome isn't what we thought it would be? What happens then?

Then we get to take a step back, use that opportunity just like my client did, & in fact see it as a blessing in disguise which, oftentimes, it is. If something doesn't work the way we thought it was going to work, there's often so much information there. 

Just like my client who realized that a large part of why this didn't work is because the focus was completely off from where we had originally started from. What his original goal & focus was for this business, not only in an online course, but his greater business concept as a whole. Having this blessing in disguise to take a step back & say “Whoa, what happened here?” actually invited him & allowed him to clarify, with even more confidence, what his business was. What the foundation was that he was standing on, & then, brainstorm a bunch of new possibilities that were so much greater than this one narrow vision course & one narrow vision outcome that fear had actually latched on to for him. 

All right, so let's dive right in to strategies (one surprising caveat at the end for how to persevere) the first strategy is self-compassion. I studied this a ton when I was training for Positive Psychology back when I thought I was going to obtain my PhD. I was writing my master's thesis, & I dove all in Kristin Neff’s research, who is kind of the center point of self-compassion in the Positive Psychology field. 

So, as defined by the research, self-compassion has three traits to them. In all the research (it was surprising to me at first, maybe not surprising in hindsight) but self-compassion --  when we have these three traits in mind, when we do the practices to strengthen these three aspects of self-compassion -- it helps in goal attainment. It helps in studies specifically looking at weight loss & academic rigor & academic success. 

Self-compassion has such great benefits for us, & the research suggests that self-compassion isn't our automatic response to goal attainment & to something like perseverance. Oftentimes we revert to things like self-criticism & punishment as opposed to rewarding ourselves & celebrating & being kind to ourselves in the midst of challenge & in the midst of success, even. 

So, these three aspects of self-compassion. One is self-kindness,

as opposed to self-judgment. That might be what you typically think of when you think of self-compassion, you're kind to yourself. 

The second is common humanity versus isolation.

This is a really important thing to consider & a really easy tool & mindset shift to implement right away as well to get you back into this place of self-compassion. Common humanity is this idea of everyone (even if they're not going through exactly what I'm going through) can relate to what I'm going through, or in other words, I am not alone in this struggle. I am not alone in this challenge.

Let's say you're a parent on a playground & your child is throwing an absolute tantrum & everyone else seems to have perfectchildren, & everything is going right & it looks easy for them. In those moments, to bring ourselves back to self-compassion is to remind ourselves that these children also have tantrums at home, that these parents also navigate the challenges that come with being a parent, in addition to these moments that we might see on the surface of all fun & games. So that is common humanity, the second component of self-compassion.

The third is mindfulness versus over identification,

to be mindful & to be present of everything that's going on in our life. So that's not to dismiss anything, even the negative emotions, but rather to be mindful of them, instead of over identifying with them. 

In the Yes& Experience, which is my group program, the past few calls we've talked a lot about blanket statements, especially because last month's focus was self-doubt, & we noticed how powerful these blanket statements were & especially how popular they were with our self-doubt voices. It can be easy to say, I'm bad at math, as opposed to, I'm really struggling with this one specific challenge, with this one specific question. 

Likewise, we could say I failed as a business owner, if something like the course didn't launch as we thought it would on the first day, the first week. However, what's more specific & more mindful is to say, this specific launch didn't bring in clients, at least not yet in this moment. So again, to stay present, to stay mindful & to not fall into that over identification or those blanket statements.

So, those three components will bring yourself back into self-compassion, a really powerful way to persevere, & as the research suggests, a really powerful strategy to attain your goals & to maintain your goals. Not only to achieve one of them, but to also not experience burnout on the other side of it since you've been kind to yourself the whole time & you've been building awareness.You've been noticing the world around you rather than criticizing yourself & going in & having these over identifying blanket statements that make everything feel 10x as bad as it actually is.

Kristen Neff, I mentioned is the leader of this (at least in the Positive Psychology world) & you can visit her website at https://self-compassion.org for her practices, she has some really powerful practices to implement & return to self-compassion.

The second strategy for maintaining your drive, for persevering through no matter what your navigating, is systems. I am a HUGE fan of systems & systems do something for us that maybe we feel we don't have the time to do at first. However, in the long run, it helps us to reduce something called decision fatigue.

So, in the present moment, I am going to imagine myself as someone who's really overwhelmed. I am trying to organize all my client meetings versus my VA meetings & these collaborations that I have going on, & it feels like I'm in this reactive state & trying to get everything done & trying to get back to the top of the water, to not be drowning anymore. When we're in that state, that reactive state, we can sometimes just keep reacting & never take the time to step back, or proactively step back & set systems in place for ourselves, so that we're not in that place of reactivity & overwhelm.

Systems can help so that the things that can be automated, are automated & therefore we're not making so many decisions that when it comes to making a decision we actually have to make that's really important, we're already burnt out & exhausted by that point. We want to avoid that.  

In the book called The One Thing, (which some of you have heard me state before because I absolutely love this book), they mentioned a few activities that are known to diminish willpower & willpower I think has a very strong correlation to perseverance. We want the willpower to be able to persevere.

These are some activities that diminish willpower:

implementing new behaviors

filtering distractions

resisting temptation

suppressing emotion

restraining aggression

taking tests

trying to impress others

coping with fear

doing something you don't enjoy

selecting long term over short term rewards

Implementing new behaviors, for instance, to make that decision & to start a new routine takes some effort & maybe intentionally we're not setting up a system for ourselves. However, flip that & see if there is an opportunity with implementing new behaviors; maybe you can create a system.

Perhaps you have a workout class (if you're trying to implement a workout routine) that is the same time every day that you sign up for & if you cancel, you're charged. An incentive or some motivation for you to follow through with this thing that you're building, this new habit you're building. There are some aspects of it that you can systematize, & maybe something that you can't.

However, the ones that you really can, that I see in this list, for instance: resisting temptation or filtering distractions. A good example of this, a really easy example of this, is our phones & our computers & the notification systems that are oftentimes automated. They're automatically set to notify us of a new message of someone liked our post or whatever it is -- they automatically pop up & that becomes a distraction.

Even if we think we're not being distracted, we definitely are. Our mind goes there for a second & if we can reduce that from even happening in the first place, we won't have to continually pull ourselves back to the tasks that we were doing, & we don't have to use that motivation to look at the distraction & then come back, look at the distraction & then come back.

So, put systems in place for yourself that reduce the decision fatigue, that reduce the distractions, that automate the things in a way that works for us, as opposed to against us, in all the different areas that we can.

A few of my favorite ways of doing this & implementing systems to reduce decision fatigue, which again, in turn helps our motivation & perseverance -- is to set recurring calendar events. Some of you, especially if you were in August’s Experience challenge, you have seen my calendar. I have a lot of events, a handful of events, that recur every single week & automating these to recur every single week reduces any decision that comes with making them. 

Furthermore, I don't have to think about things as much, which is great because I don't need to think about those things. I know that every week I'm going to have a Weekly Spark at 10:30am on Tuesdays, I know that every week. I'm going to have about 8-10 client sessions, so I put those in my calendar even if those client sessions aren't in my calendar yet. I can still block off 8-10 hours each week of time for clients & then when it comes to scheduling I don't have to first think “Hmm, how many hours again do I have to reserve for clients?” or overbook myself & then be in this place of overwhelming reactivity like I talked about before.

It reduces not only the decision making, but the planning, & then eases my planning for anything else that I want to fit into my schedule. So, recurring calendar events are a big one for me that helps reduce that decision fatigue & helps to maintain my momentum, because I'm not expending energy where I don't need to expend energy.

A few other examples that I'll list off quickly: scheduling for my clients -- a system to schedule for my clients, I use Acuity. There are many different scheduling systems that again, just reduce any input from you, you set your calendar, you automate it so that it syncs with your calendar, & then your clients have the autonomy to choose & reschedule & cancel & do everything that they need to do on their own rather than a million emails going back & forth. 

Another thing is automatic payments, or if you accept checks as payments to postdate checks, that can be for rent. Oftentimes landlords can accept postdated checks. Maybe for your service provider you can post date checks, which means you send all 12 at once but they won't be submitted until the date they're actually written for. That way you just don't have to think about it for the rest of the year, the rest of the six months, or however long you're submitting payments for. 

To block structure your days, to have big blocks in your days for tasks rather than constantly switching task to task to task. A morning routine, a capsule wardrobe & using the “one thing mentality” (which I mentioned from the book) to prioritize my day. So, at the beginning of each day I have a morning routine that sets my mind, that allows me to ease any stress, that puts me in a good state of mind so that I can persevere or I know where to not persevere. *Coming up the caveat in a moment.

Then at the very end of my journal exercise each morning I say, “What is the one thing today?” The one thing I want to get done. Likely there are more than one thing that I'm doing in a day, but it allows me to prioritize & to keep top of mind. Maybe if I have a client that day, that is the one thing that's my main focus, & so I write down whoever I'm working with that day. That person is the one thing, the most important part of my day. So, throughout the day if I feel myself getting distracted or overwhelmed or pressured to do all these other things, I remind myself what I wrote down in the morning.

The one thing was my client, did I show up for him or her as fully as I could? Was it a great session? Am I there replying to messages that clients may have sent me? Then it’s a day well done & then I can rest…which leads me to the caveat, the caveat. 

Ask yourself, do you need to persevere? More than systems, more than automating calendar events or practicing self-compassion practices throughout your days & trying to just get through the next thing, I highly encourage you to take a step back whenever you are feeling that drive & that pressure to persevere, & ask yourself if you need to be persevering, or if you want to be persevering with this specific thing.

A good example I'll use for my own business. I wrote a weekly blog, every single week for a long time, I think I have 80 some blogs on my website. For me it was a great way to write, & I wanted to be consistent & show up consistently for you, for my audience as much as I could. That's why I implemented the weekly blog, I was also playing with different content strategies at the beginning of my business. 

However, once I started writing my book earlier this year, I was feeling very overwhelmed & there was a voice in the back of my mind that said “But you have to keep showing up consistently with your blog. You have to keep doing that.” & I could have adopted self-compassion practices, I could have automated some things, I was automating that calendar event to write the weekly blog. But in taking a step back, I reminded myself why that blog was implemented in the first place, why it was important to me, which was to be consistent for you & to have writing as a consistent part of my practice, because I knew that was going to be a part of my business. 

When I looked at that, I saw that I was fulfilling those two things in different means. I no longer had to (or even wanted to) write a weekly blog to maintain that consistency for you. I was showing up in different ways, at the time, or to write because I was suddenly writing a book. I definitely had writing in my weekly schedule & in my routine & within my business structure. 

So, give yourself permission to step back when you are asking yourself “How can I persevere through this?” to first clarify for yourself. 

Do you want to be persevering through this? 

Do you need to be persevering through this? & then 

Why? Why are you going to persevere through this? 

That holds so much power to clarify for yourself. Why the perseverance even has to take place, or why you want it to take place.  I would say even emphasis on the wanting it to take place, because if you know your why, why you have this in your daily routine, in your goals, in whatever it is that you're persevering through your relationship. If you know the why of it, that's the foundation you can stand on & return to if you're ever feeling challenged or overwhelmed or distraught.

A bonus to this is to take a break completely. Similar to self-compassion, taking a break is another thing that we often don't think of or give ourselves permission to do when it comes to perseverance & motivation. However, taking a break, both by the research & my personal experience & watching clients do this, is so powerful for perseverance because it revitalizes us. It gives us the space to brainstorm & be bored & come up with new ideas that we never would come up with when we're in reactivity or in stress.

To give ourselves space to enjoy the process & the journey that you're going on, so that you want to continue, so that you know why you're building this thing or creating this thing or staying with it, because you're also enjoying it along the way. So please, give yourself permission, not only to clarify your why & to take a step back, give yourself permission to say if you want to do this or not, but also give yourself permission to completely take a big break from it. Set a boundary for yourself if that feels comfortable. 

Say “I'm going to give myself one week off from writing my book.” Which I did two weeks ago & then last week I finished my book! Give yourself that boundary of how long you want to take a break & then after that boundary is complete, after that timestamp, come back in. Ask yourself if you're ready, ask yourself if there's any fears that are self-sabotaging as opposed to just needing that break. You already had the break so you know that this has been taken care of, at least a little bit. Give yourself that space, even if it's an hour, even if it's a 30-minute walk, even if it's a 10-minute nap.

It's not all about grinding & scrunching our face & getting caught up in the task at hand. It's also about taking a step back from the task, remembering your why. & also, just enjoying the rest & enjoying yourself & taking care of yourself.

So, there you have it, two strategies. You have self-compassion, you have systems & automation for how to persevere, with this bonus caveat -- which is to remind yourself why, or if you even want to be persevering, & also to give yourself permission to take a break. 

With this, if your question is:

How do I persevere through this? 

Do I want to persevere through this?

What are some strategies that I can persevere through this?

Whatever your question is in relation to perseverance; I have a tool for you to answer that question & reduce decision fatigue. You will be guided through the process in just 15 minutes, & it's completely free. I highly recommend you take advantage of this: it's my decision quiz. 

You can find it at yesandbymarin.com/decide. It walks you through step-by-step in a very customizable way. Ask your question, walk through your dreams & your goals & your values & your fears & then come up with not only with a solution, but a next step, your first action step to then implement that decision into your life. 

So, visit yesandbymarin.com/decide to get that decision quiz in your inbox & utilize it to answer your question about if you want to persevere, how you can persevere, or what strategy you want to use to persevere. 

I'm here for you in full support including every single Tuesday at 10:30ish CT for your Weekly Spark. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your Tuesday, & I will see you again next week!

If you enjoyed this exercise and would like to integrate these types of concepts and practices in your life, Yes& has recently launched a group program called the Yes& Experience. Each month, we focus on one concept and you get exercises delivered directly to your email, and have the opportunity to join group coaching calls and dive even deeper, together. 

Prices will rise soon as we are growing, so be sure to check it out now and take advantage of our Founder’s rates starting at just $19 per month.

Until then, you know where to find me on Instagram on YouTube. These videos will be happening every Tuesday now, so look forward to those and get on my mailing list so that you can receive replays, and also receive the PDFs that accompany each little mini workshop.