Self Reliance Principle #6: Perseverance

Do you ever feel stuck in life? And do you ever feel like no matter what you do, you can't seem to get ahead? If so, it turns out that this is the best time to exercise perseverance.

Often, when we feel overwhelmed and we start wondering why we even try to do the things that we're trying to do, the temptation is very strong to give up and stick with simpler tasks. I've been there and I do this often. Most of the time, I turn to relaxing and playing video games or watching TV.

However, sometimes I decide to stick with the task at hand and push forward to the end, and something good happens. Often I find ways to speed up the task -- that is, I learn how to do it more efficiently and with less effort. Sometimes I find an alternative solution that's just as good as what I was trying to accomplish. Either way, when I actually finish something, I usually take a brief moment to take pride in the accomplishment.

Then comes what I like to call the "establishment principle." Once you establish something (build an item, create a work, strengthen a relationship), it generally cannot be undone, and in most cases it ends up laying down a framework for accomplishing more difficult tasks, or to make other tasks simpler. For example, if a lawn mower is built, it becomes much easier and faster to cut the grass. If you make a hammer, you can more easily build a home. If you compose a piece of music, you can take what you learned to compose other similar pieces more quickly.

But starting from scratch, coming out of debt, or just being overwhelmed with tasks at home, it's just going to take a long time to pull up to the next level. That's where perseverance comes in. First, you must realize that it's your own responsibility to do what needs to be done, and then to never give up. 

James E. Faust said, "Perseverance is demonstrated by those who ... don't give up even when others say, 'It can't be done.'" I can't tell you how many times I have lived this idea, especially when it comes to programming. A couple of years ago, my place of work needed to pull together this really complicated file. They turned to consultants that talked about how difficult the task would be and how it would take almost two years and how expensive it would be. They pulled me in and told me what they wanted, and it was crazy, requiring code to write code, and I said, "I'll figure out a way." Two weeks later I had working code, and it did exactly what they wanted.

Here are the four steps of perseverance as listed in the Self Reliance manual.

1) Keep a positive attitude -- list your blessings.

2) Remember to work together -- don't be afraid to ask for help from friends, neighbors, etc.

3) Replace fear with faith -- doubt is the #1 thing that breaks our forward motion -- if you turn to God, he can help you overcome.

4) Move forward with patience and courage -- never give up and endure with faith.

People always ask me where I find the time to do all the things I've accomplished (while at the same time, I'm usually frustrated with how much I'm NOT accomplishing -- how much more is left to be done -- I suppose that never goes away). Either way, the answer is right here: Don't quit. Push forward and eventually you'll be flying.

Self Reliance Principle #5: Use Time Wisely

Looks like I took a couple of months off on this blog; other things have been taking precedence, and then it fell off my radar. It's the story of my life. There are so many important things I would like to get done, but more "urgent" fires need putting out, and then I forget. Often I feel that I'm stuck and there is no direction in life.



In Alice in Wonderland, the Cheshire Cat teaches that if you don't know where you're going, then it doesn't matter which way you go, and that's when you really feel lost. Often the battle is to first decide exactly where you want to end up. It's not enough to say, "I want to get out of this situation." You must know what you want to do instead and then it becomes easier to find how to get there.

Thus it helps to set goals. You can set lifetime goals, five-years-from-now goals, yearly goals, monthly goals, and even weekly goals. These provide direction and help us to achieve tasks we wish to accomplish.

In the realm of self reliance, goals can help you get out of debt, find a better job, organize your finances, and even in promoting a business.

Then once you have good long-term goals, it helps to have daily mini-planning sessions to help organize the time of the day. What do you want to work on that day? How can you push forward?

The Self Reliance lesson manual suggests the following 5-point plan for optimizing daily time.

• List Tasks: Make a this list in the morning of things you want to accomplish.
• Pray: Review the list, pray for guidance, and commit to do your best.
• Set Priorities: Determine which tasks are the most important -- perhaps putting a "1" on the highest priority, and a "2" on the next, and so on.
• Set Goals, Act: Follow the Spirit to know how to proceed, and work down the list.
• Report: At the end of the day, pray to God and report on how you did, and ask how you can do better.

Okay, a little honesty here: I don't have time to do all that every single day, but I've incorporated some of these principles, and a month ago, I believe that I've successfully altered my goal system to something that better fits the way my brain works, and also minimizes time I spend administering the system. This also borrows from principles learned from 7 Habits.

Weekly Planning Session

Every week, I have a planning session -- no more than an hour. I consider my yearly/monthly goals and determine what I want to concentrate on. I make a list, using the todoist.com system. It's free and flexible. It works on desktops, phones, iPads, etc. (you have to download the free app). So, I can open it and use it practically anywhere.

During the weekly session, I go ahead and split the tasks among the following seven days and assign priorities, of which there are four different levels. The default is Priority 4 (white color), and the highest is Priority 1 (dark red color). Tasks left done from prior weeks stay on the list and have their priorities escalated. For example, I added "Blog -- Principle #5" on my list a month ago, which I left undone until this past week when it obtained Priority 1. Thus I remembered today and finally got around to it.

Daily Routine

The weekly sessions not only help me reach my long-term goals, but it also helps me to save time during the week. Every day, I only need to look at the list I had already put together for that day. Thus Step #1 above is already done. Step #3 is also already done.

I then prayerfully and thoughtfully move the list around. With Todoist, you can click and drag to rearrange the order of the tasks (within each priority level). Thus I can set the order of events for the day. This usually takes only a couple of minutes. Sometimes I'll move something from the "Overdue" list to today.

At the end of the day, I consider what I accomplished. The unfinished tasks will move into the "Overdue" status at midnight, but that's okay. I've learned that worrying about what you didn't get done is not productive. Rather, it's better to celebrate what you did get done. If you can say at the end of the day, "I worked hard," then it was a good day. You can attack the undone tasks at some later time.

With this setup, I'm able to spend more than 95% of my time actually accomplishing the tasks rather than having extensive daily planning sessions wondering what to do. When I accomplish a task, I just check off the circle, and the task is removed from my list. It also never gets old -- the joy I get from being able to click a circle.

Hopefully you can find or refine your own goal system so that you can move closer toward strengthening your own self reliance, and closer to achieving your dreams. Go and do it -- test it out, and see if it works.