When I was a freshman in high school I decided to join the water polo team. Mind you, I had never played water polo, and I was never on a swim team or anything, but it looked like fun and I figured I’d get in pretty good shape doing it.
The first night was absolutely brutal. Ten minutes into practice I already had cramps in both my legs. I was slow, had no idea what was going on, and much smaller than most of the other kids. By the time it was over, after 10pm on a schoolnight, it was freezing outside (for a southern California kid, anyway) and I was exhausted. My parents, who picked me up, saw me and asked “So, uh, you sure you want to do this again tomorrow?”
Honestly, I was miserable. My calves cramped so long and so hard that they were essentially rocks by the time I stumbled into the car. I was starving, reeked of chlorine, my skin was dry and my eyes were burning after three plus hours in the water. Any sane person would have said “Hell no.” I really wanted to say “Hell no,” but for some reason I said, “I should probably give this another shot.” Even as I said it, I was surprised. I had never done anything so difficult before, the whole time I was doing it I wanted it to stop, and when it was over I never wanted to do it again. But for some reason I went back.
Maybe something in me knew that everything is hard at first. Anytime you try something new, you’re likely to be terrible at it. That’s the nature of any endeavor that requires skill. But if you can push through that initial shock of total incompetence, you’re almost always better off for it. I ended up being pretty damn good at water polo. I was in phenomenal shape. I made great friends. Everything about it was a fantastic experience. And I never would have had any of that had I quit when it would have been easiest.
People admire perseverance because they can’t imagine themselves putting up with something so difficult/boring/strenuous/whatever for such a length of time. But the trick to perseverance is just slowing adding on time, stacking on days, then months, then years. After that initial “suck period” it’s not so easy to quit anymore. Much sooner than you’d think, it becomes easier to keep up the momentum, to keep stacking on days, than it is to quit.
.