9. Persevering in the Face of Adversity

to turn next. In this episode of positivity on fire, we'll jump into what it means to persevere. I'll share the story of my mother's battle with cancer and our family's tragic house fire and steps on how you can persevere in tough times. Ready? Let's go. So today we're talking perseverance. And there are two quotes that I have that I love about perseverance. And the first is by Nelson Mandela. It always seems impossible. until it's done, don't love. Everything seems impossible

until it's actually done. And there's plenty of things in this world that that has happened with irons, plenty things probably in your own life that that's happened with. And the other quote is one from Josh Shipp. You may know Josh Shipp, as the gentleman who did a TEDx talk called every kid is one caring adult away from being a success story. And his quote is, perseverance is stubbornness with a purpose. And I love that as well. It's like that stick to

itiveness. It's that it's that grit, it's that God has that grind through that we're not just being stubborn about something and not doing it. We're persevering through a particular topic, a particular time in our life, a particular episode, or issue that we're faced with, but we have goals

and a purpose around it. and perseverance is one of those things that when you are faced with challenges and difficulties in your life, and discouragement, perseverance is kind of a voluntary continuation of an action, like moving forward with overcoming that obstacle. And I think what I like most about perseverance, is that it it's a it's a strength that it really lives with inside the courageous part of our

lives. And I know what you may be thinking, and you know, lots of people say, Well, you know, perseverance isn't all that it's cracked up to be, you're either strong or you're not strong. And that defines whether or not you can move forward in your life. But I see that a little bit

differently. To me, strength is something that is a smaller amount of time, like you can be strong for a short period of time and be strong for somebody, you can be somebody that allows people to cry on your shoulder, but it's temporary, it's like a short amount of time that you have to deal with whatever adversity is, perseverance is getting knocked down over and over and over and over again. And if you get knocked down 10

times, you get up 11. Now, when I think about my own life, there were a couple of times in my own life that I've had to persevere. But when I look at those times, plenty of times where I've kind of did like a short term, kind of get over the hump sort of thing. But the two times that really stand out in my mind in terms of really having something in your life that's just crushing going on, that I had to persevere through and come out

the other side. The first was when I was a senior in high school, I was getting ready to go into my senior year of high school. And my father was in the military, he was in the Coast Guard. And he was he was out on the ship, and my mom was diagnosed with cancer. And you know, for those of you who have gone through that you know exactly what I'm talking about kind of it's a it's a fist to the gut that kind of just takes

the wind out of you. It was compounded because my father was out to see a couple of times during my mom's illness, and I can remember, you know, stepping up and having to be as an as an 18 year old 1718 year old man in the house, really making sure taking care of my brother, my grandparents had come to visit. They were there when my dad was out of town. But trying to figure out like how do you

juggle all of that? How do you juggle going to school, working an after school job working in the summertime and looking after your little brother and also you know worrying about your mom? Is she going to be in your life for very much longer. And fortunately, she you know, she has been she's, you know, 81 years old and still going

strong. And but when I look back at that time in life is like God, I really had to dig deep every single day, especially during the summertime when I was working I I got up in the morning and taught swim lessons.

I lifeguarded throughout the day and then in the evenings helped teach life, lifeguarding skills to the next class of people coming through and so I was worried Gain basically from eight o'clock in the morning until nine o'clock or 10 o'clock at night straight through, and then trying to manage helping my grandparents at home helping

them understand. And I think about that time, like, that's literally is as old as I am now my grandparents were basically probably in their late 60s, early 70s when this was happening, and so I'm not too far away from, like, 1015 years away from being in my 60s. So trying to focus on like, helping them even though they're not that old, helping my brother helping him study making sure

he's taken care of as well. And, and then you just kind of you overcome these challenges and obstacles and kind of persevere to the side. And I can remember going to bed many times at night and just praying, hey, listen, I, you know, God, let me let me make sure that my mom gets to see me graduated from high school. And then it was let me make sure she sees me graduated

from college. And I kind of went through this process of like digging deep down to figure out, you know, how am I going to make things work in my life if she wasn't around, but also right here in a minute, how am I going to take care of things right now. And the other time in my life, where I felt kind of just an earth shattering change. And I've mentioned it here before that we had a house fire 14 years ago. And during that house fire, now we basically lost

almost everything. And I can remember, being in our rental house, a couple months later, we're going through the insurance process. And I'm just at one point, just absolutely positively paralyzed, basically downstairs on a couch, curled up in a ball, because I don't know what to do next. Literally, I don't know, I can't find the strength to figure out how we're going to get out of this hole. Even though we had a great community around us and people taking care of us and looking

out for us. You still when something like that happens to you, you still have this kind of gut feeling like I can't get off the couch. I was literally paralyzed for one evening with the fear of I don't know how to move on from this. And there was lots of different factors that kind of played into that. And I'm thankful that no, my my wife was there to kind of buoy me, and let me know we're gonna get through this. But somehow we

persevered. We obviously have continued our lives, things have gotten better the kids have grown up, you kind of push through, but to find that deep down grit and determination to say, you know what, I'm not gonna get stuck in this hole of despair. I'm gonna move myself

forward. And when you when you start to get into those moments in your life, where you feel like, you know what, I can't move forward, I can't put one foot in front of the other, I have no baby steps to take, I don't even know which direction I'm going in. You can do it. There's a couple of things that you can work on to kind of help you move through what might be impeding you from getting over the hump. and perseverance is

kind of a tricky thing. You know, going back to the quotes that I mentioned before, you know, perseverance is stubbornness with a purpose. I had to become stubborn in how I managed my day to day. But it was with a purpose. It was a it was with a purpose to put our lives back together. And so what are some things that I think back on now, when I was trying to research this this particular episode? I found a great article in ink.com that talks just about the 10 things that the most

persevering people do. And I was as I was reading it, it really resonated with me. I'm going to share those with you here in a second. We're gonna take a quick break, and we'll be right back. All right, welcome back. So our focus here is perseverance. And when I'm when I'm looking at the story, particularly over the fire, and trying to tie it to the article I mentioned right before the break, was that, you know, the very first thing they talked about, in terms of perseverance is you have to

sharpen your focus. And what do I mean by that? Well, when you need to sharpen your focus, the very first thing is you have to keep your goals visible at all

times. And some people say actually put it on the refrigerator for me, in the case of the fire was pretty simple, was like put my family back together, put our lives back together as like we needed to buy clothing we needed to start buying furniture in our rental, we had no beds, we had no clothes, it just became this series of trying to put our

lives back together. You know, I give my wife a lot of credit, she did a lot of that work, mine was more focused on the insurance company and trying to make sure that, you know, we were taken care of there. But our goal was put our lives back together, literally. Second thing that you have to think about when you're when you're trying to persevere through something, is you have to let worry go. And I know that that sounds like a big

challenging task. And in my case, or my family's case, when we were talking about the fire, shoot, what didn't we worry about? What I think works well, and this article talks about it is that you have to try and minimize the time between that very first worried thought and your minds desire a want to go ahead and attack it. I think there's a great quote from Mark Twain, you know, he once said, I've suffered a great many catastrophes in my life, most of

them never happened. And I think that's important to keep in mind, too, is that we worry a lot about things that are out of our control. If we and I've said this before, if we can fix it, then there's no need to worry about it. Make sure as you're as you're kind of trying to push through things is, is pushed that worry to the side, there's no need for it, you need to get back and focus on your goals.

The other thing you can look to do, too, is also create boundaries in your life, as you're trying to persevere through something, create some boundaries in your life, where you maybe your inner circle shrinks, when you're going through a tough time, if you have a community around you, they're gonna want to help. But oftentimes, that help comes up in different ways that maybe is

not always helpful to you. So circle the wagons and kind of have a smaller group in order to define the boundaries of your life at that moment in time. So that you can hyper focus on how you're going to get over the hurdle of the issue that you're facing. And as well as your as you're kind of sharpening your focus, looking at your goals, and trying to figure out how you're going to go over this hurdle. You also have to bring a

positive mindset into it. And even though you may be going through a tough time, you have to figure out a way to laugh to write. So laughter is a wonderful way to kind of boo your spirit. And I truly believe that a regardless of what you're going through, that spinning up a positive mindset is critical to being able to get over the hump, it really helps with your determination, it helps with

your grit. And when you have a pessimistic viewpoint on any particular topic, especially when it comes to adversity, it's going to take you longer to get out of that hole than you would if you could flip the script and kind of see what the positives of what's happening in your life could be in terms of growth for you as a person. Now I get it, you're probably saying to yourself, yep, Jake, you know what, I hear what you're saying.

But whenever I'm faced with huge obstacles in my life, I get super overwhelmed, and at times, I get lost. And I understand that. That's how I was when we had the house fire is that everything is overwhelming when you have to put your entire life back together. And you have to fight for insurance dollars, and figure out how you're going to make sure that your kids are taken care of and that they don't worry that something like

this could happen again. And I get it, it's hard to be hopeful, it's hard to be optimistic, when you are totally consumed, or your present is totally consumed by pain and frustration and unknowing about what the future will bring for you. I guarantee you as well as if you if you start to allow positivity to come into your life, if you start to use positive self talk, you sit in front of the mirror and and chat yourself up. Get yourself focused on Yes, I can do this, tell yourself that you

can get through it. Tell yourself that you can accomplish anything if you put your mind to it. When you have that type of positive words, to start your day, your positive affirmations to get things started. You can persevere through it. And I would say as well. I got it. It takes time. Whenever you have something going on in your life that is bringing you down or is a real struggle for you. You have to have patience, like perseverance and patience, go

hand in hand. Sometimes it takes a long time to get over the hump. And I know you may not see the light at the end of the tunnel. I guarantee you it's there. It's there. You just have to be patient for it. And I know that you'll get frustrated. You know, there were many times that I got frustrated in the process of putting our lives back

together. But I can tell you it does get better if you keep that focus if you keep your goals in mind towards what you want the outcome to be from that particular issue in your life or whatever has happened to you at that moment in time. So what are the benefits of persevering? Right? Some people say, Well, I can't do it, I just I don't know how to get myself out of the

hole that I'm in. Some of the benefits of persevering is that challenges and obstacles that come into your life when you overcome them, they make you stronger. And the other part of that is that they then give you the confidence when other obstacles present themselves in the future, so that when other difficulties arise in your life, you can say, Okay, I know I have

this skill set. I think the other component here is that when you do persevere and you have adversity in your life, it makes you really appreciate, especially as you get over the hurdle, and you start to move on with your life, it makes you appreciate the good in your life, like what's happening in your life right here and right now. And I fully believe that you have to love and appreciate the good times, because we never know when that's going to

change. Like we have no idea when life is going to pivot and give us a pop quiz. And the next thing we know, we're back in bad times again, or something is not going well on our lives, or we're faced with another misfortune, or another obstacle to overcome. So I truly believe that facing adversity, and using perseverance really makes you appreciate the good times you have in your life right now. I also see perseverance as a way of gaining new skills and experiences as you start to go

through your life. And as you start to see different things coming your way. Experience is huge experience really helps guide you through perhaps that next obstacle that comes up in your life. And I'll close with this one last thought is that as we have challenges in our lives as we go and have changes in our lives, as we're faced with obstacles, and adversity, and we really push through, to persevere. I mean, there's nothing better than coming over the top of a challenge and

putting it behind us. And really sitting down in a moment and saying to ourselves, you know what, I've grown, I've grown as a person. So if I look back at the time, when my mom was sick when I was in high school, what I learned from that, and also with the house fire my family experienced when the kids were younger, yes, I would rather have never have had those things

happen in my life. But the things that I learned from those challenging times, how to be forward focused, how to look at the future, how to chunk things into small goals, how to take baby steps, how to get over tiny hurdles, and be able to push through until I did see the light at the tunnel has been huge in my life. And I think the same is probably true for you. If you're going through an incredibly tough time right now,

you're in my thoughts. If you have gone through tough times recently, and you're and you're working through it, please share, come find me. You can go to direct.me slash Jason Ramsden. And you can connect with me there all my links to all my social accounts are there, come find me, let's have a conversation. Let's chat about the challenges that you face and how you're working through them. I really believe that we are stronger together than we are apart. And that's a belief for

me. And I also believe, you know, through this podcast and my social media and some of the other places in my life where I try and impart and impact positivity in people's lives is that truly like one person, like impacting one person or impacting 1 million people, there is no difference. So I, I really don't take for granted this opportunity that I have sitting here behind the mic, sharing my stories, sharing my thoughts, and my learnings with

you. If it helps just one person then I have achieved all that I've needed to achieve in my life. And I'll close today's show like I always do with just a huge thank you for being here today. Wherever you are, wherever you're listening from wherever you're tuning in to this show. I do I appreciate your gift of time, it's the most meaningful thing that you can give back to me in this entire world is spending some time with me. Whether you listen to 10 minutes of the show, or 20

minutes of the show. I really appreciate your support and just always remember, be well be happy, be you and until next time, may your quest for positivity begin today. If you like today's episode, please go to pod chaser.com search for positivity on fire and leave a five star rating and review. For more on my positivity quest. Follow me at positively underscore Jay on Instagram for today. Talk or engage with the show by visiting direct.me slash Jason Ramsden. Have an amazing day.