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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Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan Doyle with you.

Once again, welcome friends to the daily podcast.

Great to be with you this morning.

I'm really enjoying doing these.

I've got to tell you the truth every day is different.

Some days I'm like on top of the world.

I've got my training done.

I've had everything organized and I'm just rocking to the studio,

ready to rip it apart some days.

You know, it's a, it's harder.

You've got to find the inspiration, the content.

And I share that with you because it's kind of in relationship to

today's measures, which we're going to unpack in just a moment.

We've got to show up.

We got to show up when we feel good.

We got to show off when we don't feel good, we've got to bring

our best as often as possible to the things that really matter.

That was a really, uh, didn't episode, maybe three episodes ago.

When we talked about pat Riley, the coach of the LA Lakers, who said,

you know, the thing about commitment is you're either in or you're out.

And commitment is really what you do when you don't feel like doing it.

So we're going to riff on that a little bit today before we do,

please make sure you've subscribed.

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version, you're going to find access to a whole bunch of links.

There'll be links, uh, free access to my book, bridging the gap.

You can book me to speak.

There's a whole bunch of other stuff.

There.

There's a link across to the YouTube channel where you can

see me doing this same episode.

Uh, well, not exactly the same episode, the same content in a

video version where, um, you know, I just put that video out each day.

So it's all there in the show notes, friends.

Welcome a board.

Let's do this.

I want to start with a quote today from the author, Tobias Wolff like that.

And then Tobias.

Um, Tobias Wolf.

There's a really cool quote that just jumped out at me.

And I sort of wanted to share it with you.

He says this, we are made.

To persist.

That's how we find out who we are.

We are made to persist.

That's how we find out who we are.

Really important insight.

And I would just really want to share this with you.

I hope we can find ways to apply it to your life.

If you listen to me regularly, you know, some of my.

I guess my mantra is the things that occupy my thinking.

Uh, over a longer period of time.

I think that we're in an interesting cultural moment.

The.

I guess technology in some ways has made life in some ways, very comfortable.

And very secure.

Now I know we could all point to ways that life still has its challenges and

all sorts of problems that we can face.

But I like to say to people that if you have a flushing toilet, you're basically.

So far ahead of every other human that ever lived that, uh, even if things

are bad for you at the moment, if you have electricity and a flushing toilet,

you're in a pretty good place though.

That said my, my older brother at the moment is on a mission trip overseas.

And, uh, he's been in a really remote area and I'm not even

sure they had a flushing toilet.

So I guess when he gets back, he's going to be able to talk

to us all about gratitude.

But friends, this is a culture we inhabit that is big on consumption.

It's big on distraction.

I think I say that almost every single episode.

So there are multiple ways.

To, uh, to check out there are multiple ways to not do difficult things.

There's endless forms of distraction.

So finding the ability to persist is probably a little harder

than it's been culturally.

If you think about it going back centuries.

You know, if you were subsistence agriculture I'd until what?

Maybe the.

Oh, gosh, you'd have to be hard to pick an exact time, but probably the early

modern period, I guess you'd say that.

Uh, agriculture became, you know, productive enough that there was surplus.

So people could access food probably a little more easily, but

until quite recently, subsistence farming was how most people lived.

Right.

And so you didn't get a choice of whether or not you wanted to do difficult things.

You had to do difficult things, because if you didn't, you literally died.

So I want to frame this by saying here we are in a culture.

With many benefits, but some things have changed how we interact

with reality, which is this quote today around persistence.

So what Wolf is saying is that it's in the journey of persistence.

It's in sticking at difficult things that we actually discover who we really are.

There's a few ways in life.

You can learn who you really are.

Remember.

Doing my second master's program in philosophical anthropology.

There was really struck by this idea of, you know, one of the crucial ways we

discover who we are as in relationships.

Right.

So, you know, interactions with other people, we slowly get a

sense of who we are in the world.

So there's a few key ways that we get a sense of identity.

We get it through family, we get it through all sorts of

encounters in life experiences.

But what Wolf is saying here today,

Is that one of the other crucial ways that we discover our

sense of self, our identity.

Is in this area of persistence, doing difficult things that shape who we become.

I want to give you two quick examples.

When I was back in high school, this examples in my book, bridging the

gap, and you can grab a free copy here in the, in the show notes.

I, uh, in the, my final couple of years of high school.

We, uh, I went to a school that had a huge focus on.

On sport.

And I gave 250% to, you know, getting into the highest team that I could.

And, you know, I trained really hard and I did everything and I

just showed up and gave a 200%.

And I didn't make it.

And there was actually a tour squad selected that I didn't make.

And I looked back all these years later and I write about it in a book.

It was at the time devastating.

It was quite something.

And I wrote in the book that it took me years later that I realized that

it was actually in that experience of trying and trying and trying.

That the real magic was.

I thought that what I'd experienced was a failure, but what I'd actually

experienced was a kind of success.

What was the success?

I'd learned about persistence.

I'd learned about hard work.

I didn't get the actual result.

But are you looking back now?

I can see that I probably had it backwards.

I thought that the ideal result was simply making the team, but the real result was

the shaping of character and identity that came through the relentless persistence.

So, I guess one of the questions is, so Jonathan, are you saying

we persist at everything?

No.

Of taught for many years.

The way, you know, when to stop is if you are experiencing, um, Um, significant

negative outcomes either psychologically.

Or in relationship to other people or in your health.

So when do you stop you stop?

When there are significant negative consequences to you or

the people you love now, again, there's some nuance there, right?

Because.

I run ultra marathons and there's this, there's a lot of pain involved.

There's a lot of hardship and suffering.

So you could apply the logic.

I just offered and said, well, don't have the money you're doing.

You should stop when it hurts.

I think there's a real wisdom here to live.

Well, you have to know that there are some things worth persisting in,

in some, some things that are not.

And that's the other example I wanted to give was, you know, my, um, relationship

with running, I am not a born runner.

I'm like five foot eight.

I'm built really solidly.

Right?

So I've got this kind of Irish peasant build.

Uh, from a long line of Irish peasants.

Um, I'm built really quite thick.

And so running for me, like I've been listening to It's his book

about running is a fantastic guy and a really interesting writer.

And, you know, he runs amazing ultra marathons, but

he's built like a Greyhound.

It was built more like a.

Like a, uh, like a Rottweiler, I guess.

So I want to share with you that for me running.

Has been just a long journey into solitude and pain over a long period of time.

But.

It's the persistence part.

It's, it's taught me how to keep going when things are difficult, it teaches

me to keep going when I want to stop.

And there's this funny thing that happens.

This battle it's waged between my physical body, my rational mind, and I guess

my soul or spirit, that's kind of a.

In re in dialogue with those two other parts of me.

So I just want to say to you today, what is in your life at the moment that you

are finding it hard to persist in because.

I think that he's right to bias Wolf, that if you can find the grit,

if you can find the commitment, if you can find the ability to keep

going in the things that matter and what are the things that matter?

Well, I think the things that matter are the things that shape our character

and the things that bless other people.

And the things that bring light and growth and beauty into the world.

So you might be a doctor or a nurse or a teacher, or you might have

some leadership role somewhere, you know, If things are difficult for

you, ask yourself the question, are these difficult things worthwhile?

Are they bringing more light and goodness into the world?

Even if they're difficult, I spent many years erroneously believing.

That if things were difficult or uncertain or confusing, then they must not be.

The will of God, for me, they must be, you know, maybe I'm meant to walk away

from it's taken me a lot of years to go.

You know, there are some things that are just difficult.

There are some things that are just hot and you got to keep going,

keep persisting, keep pressing on.

Raising good kids building a great career, writing a great book.

You know, some things we just got to keep going, keep doing.

So I just want to encourage you today.

Whatever you're facing.

Whatever you are going through.

Stick with it, if it meets those criteria.

All right.

So there's our criteria.

If it's causing physical, psychological harm to yourself or others, it's

probably worth putting it aside.

But if it's bringing light and growth and character and forward momentum into

the world, and I think you're probably.

Have a good think and pray about sticking with it.

So one more time from Tobias Wolff, we are made to persist.

That's how we find out who we are.

You know, sometimes it's only in hindsight, isn't it?

You.

It's been how many years?

I guess it's been 31 years.

Since I was trying out for that high school team.

But that message is still shaped me all this time later.

You know, so sometimes the lessons come later and they, uh, as they

shape our character, All right.

My friends, that's it for today, persist, persist, persist at the right things.

Press on.

Let this be a moment of encouragement for those of you who are unsure

about what you're doing and where you're heading, find those things

and persist my friends persist.

The cosmos is with you.

God is with you.

If you are bringing light and goodness and growth into the world, press on.

All right.

Make sure you've subscribed my friends.

Go and check out all those show notes.

Book me to speak.

Find out about all that good stuff.

It's all there.

But for now god bless everybody my name's jonathan doyle this has

been the daily podcast and you and i are going to talk again tomorrow