The long game🎮

Odysseus left Troy after ten long years of war, destined for Ithaca, his home.

If only he knew the road ahead would have:

• Storms

• Temptation

• A Cyclops

• Deadly whirlpools

• A six-headed monster

• Being held captive for seven years

• Suffer the wrath of Poseidon

• And much more

So the quesiton remains:

How did he get through it all? How did he succeeded despite all odds being against him?

Well, definitely courage, leadership, craftiness, discipline and dedication did their part, but above all…

Perseverance

We often get confused between persistence and perseverance, even though both of them seem to talk about the same thing.

But the devil is in the details.

I’d like to use Ryan Holiday’s definition of both persistence and perseverance:

See, a lot of people are indeed persistent. In fact, persistence by itself can become damaging when held for too long.

Persistence is attempting to solve a difficult problem with dogged determination until you succeed.

But perseverance….it’s about something larger. It’s the long term game.

Perseverance is about the bigger picture instead of the short-sighted mission.

It’s about the game, not the goal.

It’s about having a purpose. 

And the good thing about perseverance?

It can’t be stopped by anything besides death.

So above all, we must seek to find our purpose.

Because without a purpose, then we’re mereley surviving, and there’s no purpose in that.

And the best way to find your purpose?

The Why Exercise:

As simple as it sounds, it holds true power.

Whenever you want to find the purpose of something, even your life, just ask why until you ran out of them.

You want that job?

Why?

You want that house?

Why?

You want that life?

Why?

It gets harder the more you ask, but true discovery it’s never easy, but necessary.