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McMahon -- “When One Must, One Can” 1

“When One Must, One Can”

“When on must, one can” is a saying that I live by.

This quote is on a fortune cookie I once received when I

was in junior high and hangs on my bulletin board in my

room to this day. Before taking the VIA survey, I had no

idea what I considered to be my “top strength”. When perseverance was one of my top five

strengths, I started to think and soon enough I came up with endless amounts of stories where I

exhibit perseverance/persistence. Back to my fortune cookie; I never thought much of this quote

I just liked it so I decided to keep it. When diving into my character strength of perseverance, I

realized that I live by this quote. I stay away from saying things like “I can’t”. I am a firm

believer in that you are never given a task that you are not capable of doing or completing.

When reading about the character strength of perseverance, or persistence as the VIA

manual calls it, the definition is “the voluntary continuation of a goal-directed action in spite of

obstacles, difficulties, or discouragement” (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). In my own words, this

definition is saying that if a person has the strength of perseverance, they will set a goal and do

anything within their power in order to achieve this goal. The persistence chapter discussed

perseverance in a theoretical tradition as a “prerequisite of civilization”. If there were no goals

set, then nothing in society would ever change. We could quite possibly still be living similar to

cave men, but there has been this constant push and goal in mind to better our lives. Persistence

is necessary for survival. Surviving is a goal for humans and in order to reach this goal we need

food and water. It is essential to not allow obstacles to stop us from farming and retrieving this

food. If we allowed obstacles such as rain or bad weather to prevent us from getting food, we

would not survive. Another theoretical tradition is that when a person believes that they have a


high level of persistence, they will continue to work longer at a task despite the level of intensity

(easy or hard). This can be tied in with self-efficacy, the belief of yourself to achieve. If you

believe that you are a persistent person than you will achieve what you are striving to achieve.

Another side of the will to persevere is that if a person is close to achieving their goal or winning

(such as in gambling), they will persist longer. I experienced this side of persistence when I went

to my first casino with my mom. We would leave a machine if we did not win anything on the

second or third pull, but we would stay if we won at least a little. Our persistence depended on

these external rewards we would receive. With perseverance, often times there is a reward

expected.

One theoretical tradition I feel that I connected with best was in regards to self-esteem.

The chapter discussed how people who have higher self-esteem will persist longer than those

who have low self-esteem when they are close to failure. I do have confidence in my

perseverance which I believe is part of the reason why I carry my persistence into everything I

do, if it is sports or academics or relationships. People will persist longer if they are aware of the

difficulty of the task. If the task is easy, there is some threat to self-esteem since it should be an

easily accomplishable task. But, if the task is harder, there is less threat to self-esteem which in

turn will cause a person to persist longer at this difficult task than an easy task (Peterson &

Seligman, 2004). I have experienced this, specifically, when I was in 8th grade. I was on the math

team my 8th grade year.

There are both positives and negatives to having this character strength; I have

experienced both which will be explained when talking about my personal experiences. The

positives are that when you have perseverance you are more likely to reach your goal; which is

probably why goal setting activities are helpful for people with this character strength. Also,


once reaching this goal there is a sense of accomplishment which can overall help in a person’s

attitude. Their attitude or emotions in general will be more positive and happy since they have

reached their goal. Goals are not always easily obtainable, there are obstacles preventing a

person from reaching their goal easily. When a person strives to achieve their goal and surpasses

these obstacles or previous failures on the way to their goal; they may figure out new methods or

ways to obtain their goal. Perseverance allows a person to learn because by not giving up when

they fail, they can learn from their mistakes. My example of this is by doing a difficult math

problem. You may fail at finding an answer the first few times but you continue to try different

methods then you finally find the perfect method when you succeed in solving the problem.

There are also some negatives that can come with persistence. Sometimes, you need to know

when enough is enough. In a military sense, you need to know when to accept defeat instead of

increasing total costs, effort, time, and resources. Also, it is important to learn from previous

mistakes made when achieving a goal, as mentioned earlier. To keep going along with my math

example, if you persist on using the same method to solve a math problem and you keep not

getting the right answer; this is when perseverance can turn negative. It is important to have

balance when using persistence (Peterson & Seligman, 2004).

With persistence, there can be factors that enable perseverance and other factors that

inhibit a person’s perseverance. Some factors that enable perseverance include social support and

positive feedback. Social support can range from significant others to just the people you

surround yourself with. Having a social support group helps with achieving goals since they will

push you to shoot for the stars. Also, if you give a person positive feedback they are more likely

to persist more. I agree with this and can relate it to basketball. If I miss a few shots, I usually get

a little down on myself. But if I have my teammates or coaches saying “good shot, it is okay that


it missed” I am more likely to keep shooting. The biggest inhibiting factor that I found when

reading my chapter was extrinsic rewards. If there is some sort of prize or award involved when

completing a task or accomplishing a goal; people are doing the task for the reward and not for

the sake of being persistent. People will lose interest in the task they are doing which in the long

run does not benefit when developing perseverance (Peterson & Seligman, 2004).

Perseverance is more than just a character trait to me, it is a daily part of my life. I was not

born with this character strength, although. It was something that needed to be developed over

time. When I was in middle school, I was persistent in terms of keeping my friendships and

doing all my homework no matter the difficulty; but in terms of sports I would quit fairly easily.

A way that I would do this is by allowing minor injuries get to me. I could jam my finger and it

would affect me more than a jammed finger should. That is an injury that should be played

through. I allowed small obstacles to affect me and make me unable to reach my goals; even if

this goal was as minuscule as winning a basketball game. Once I reached high school, my

perseverance shifted a little. I continued to thrive in my relationships with my friends, even small

fights would not allow me to end friendships because I was always willing to work through

issues. This is the point in my life where my academic persistence took a little dip. I was content

with not trying my best and getting Bs my freshman year; anyone who knows me now would

know that this is not the way I think whatsoever. Freshman year of high school seemed to be

easy where it was easy to slack off. I would not read the English books that were fairly boring

and long; this is not something a person with persistence does. As high school went on, though, I

turned my persistence on and overcame many obstacles to achieve my academic goals.


Initially when I thought about my perseverance development, I was stumped. Perseverance is

such a big part of me that I forget that it has not always been there. When reading the chapter

about persistence, it discussed how a big factor in the development of this strength is age and that

it increases with age (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). The reason for this is that often times infants

and toddlers do not find difficult

tasks fun so they will not persist

upon them. But if the task is easy,

such as a motor talks, they will find

it “fun” and more willing to persist

on. This made me think back to

when I was younger. In some ways and certain categories of my life I

feel that my persistence has always been there. For example, in this poster and short story I wrote

when I was younger, probably around 3rd or 4th grade I displayed perseverance. I talk about how

during my basketball game, I tried to score three separate times but I missed every time. A

possible result of this could be that a child would give up and say that they want to quit because

they did not score, I did not go this route though. I ended my story saying “I cannot wait until my

next game!” These small failures of not scoring did not discourage me away from achieving my

goal of scoring. This shows that my perseverance was still an influence when I was younger. In

terms of injury in sports, though, that took up until high school to develop. Academics have had

some highs and lows and did not start to become more consistent until college. Then, finally,

with my relationships I feel as if my perseverance is always being tested. This is the category of

my life where I am always learning about when my perseverance is very positive and helpful


towards my happiness and when it is very negative towards my happiness. I will go into detail

later about each of these categories.

Now during my college career, thus far, I have displayed persistence pretty consistently in

my friendships, in my school work, and in my athletics. There are three separate categories of

my life that I believe I show my perseverance. I exhibit perseverance in these three categories of

my life and perseverance is the top strength for each of these parts of my life which makes

perseverance an overarching trait that makes up my character as a whole.

Academically


School is a large part of my life right now since I am still

in school and still have some years to go with my schooling.

Academics have been of high importance to me ever since

I started school. My parents instilled good habits when I

was younger which has carried throughout my life. I went

to a private kindergarten through eighth school which was

academically challenging, but this school helped with

developing my perseverance. I would say academics

became one of the largest priorities to me when I reached sixth grade and encountered my first

very challenging teacher. Her name was Mrs. Gilmore. She was the sixth through eighth grade

science teacher and I was afraid of her and her class. Up until this point, I had never received a

bad grade in a class, school was fairly easy for me. The first two tests in Mrs. Gilmore’s class did

not go as I would have hoped, I did not do well on them. I was upset by this, but not discouraged.

After these tests, my next assignment in the class was a rock cycle booklet that we would create

during class and take notes in for a few weeks while we were learning about the rock cycle. She

said that she would pick someone’s rock cycle booklet to photocopy. I am not sure why, but once

she said that I was beyond determined to have my rock cycle booklet photocopied. I put my heart

and soul into this assignment. We would take notes in the booklet during class and draw pictures

of different kinds of rocks. The only problem that was stopping me from reaching my goal of

having my booklet photocopied was that my hand writing was chicken scratch. I knew that Mrs.

Gilmore would never pick my booklet with the kind of handwriting I had. So, after we would

take notes in class I would then go home that night and type all of my notes up then glue the

typed notes over the notes that I wrote during class. I spent many extra hours outside of school


working on this rock cycle booklet making sure it was my best possible work. Sure enough, Mrs.

Gilmore complimented me on how great my booklet looked and picked my booklet to be

photocopied. The rest of junior high I sort of carried this perseverance; that no matter what I

wanted to do my best work. Even if that meant putting forth a little extra time. Succeeding just

made me feel good about myself especially when I did overcome obstacles or difficulties.

I pride myself in the good grades I receive and my good grades do not

come easily to me. I am not “naturally smart” by any means and need

to study a decent amount before any test I take. I would say in high

school, my freshman year, I sort of got away from this persevering in

school and trying as hard as I could. For some reason, I had this

attitude that I was too cool for school. I did not receive bad grades by

any means but I was not putting forth as much effort as I had in

the past. Instead of getting As with a few Bs here and there; it

was flip flopped. My turning point was the beginning of

sophomore year when I wanted to get into National Honors

Society. My reasons for wanting to be in this elite club was

because my older brother was a part of this club and I wanted to

have the gold tassel for my graduation hat and the gold sash for

my gown. A more serious reason for wanting to be in this club was for resume and college

applications reasons, it would look good. In order to get into this prestigious club you need a

particular GPA and there is an application process with service hour requirements also. I went

through the application process and was rejected. I was upset by this, but not discouraged. I

talked to the people in charge of reviewing the applications and they said that I needed to have


more service hours. So that semester I spent doing service hours on the weekend in order to have

a better chance of getting into this club. I applied again the next semester and was accepted. My

failure did not cause me to give up on my goal, I persevered.

After being accepted into National Honors Society, my

perseverance continued to flourish. Junior and Senior year of high

school were filled with AP classes for me. These classes require

extra work outside of normal class homework. I have several AP

test prep books that I needed for all of my AP classes, here are just a

few pictured. My personal goal in terms of GPA was always to be in

the top ten percent of my class of about four hundred students. The

obstacles/difficulties that stood between me and this goal were these difficult AP classes and the

sports I was involved in. I played basketball, travel basketball, volleyball, and I did track. I had

to be very good with my time management skills. I am proud to say that I did not allow these

obstacles hinder my GPA and I was able to reach my goal of being in the top ten percent of my

class.

Going into college, I was unsure of what to expect in terms of difficulty of classes.

Freshman year of college was sort of just me figuring everything out and how the ropes worked,

but I was definitely working as hard as I thought I could at the time, which we all find out is

never hard enough. Sophomore year second sem ester was where I figured out what college

classes were all about. I had a hard semester with difficult classes; in particular Biology II. I

barely scraped away with a B-. After this

semester, my GPA dropped slightly. I was

still above a 3.0 but I knew this was not


good enough for the graduate schools that I would be applying to. This is the semester where I

switched my career decision from physical therapy to pediatric occupational therapy. Pediatric

occupational therapy is considered to be somewhat more competitive since there are less

graduate schools, the options are more limited. I knew that if I wanted to do that for the rest of

my life that I needed to raise my GPA.

Going into my junior year I had a tough schedule ahead of me that included Chemistry

and the Physiology of Exercise. I typically struggle in harder science classes, I am much better at

anatomy classes, and I knew these classes would be a challenge for me. But, I also knew that I

needed to raise my GPA in order to reach my goal of going to graduate school. Throughout the

semester I put all my efforts towards these two classes; without allowing my grades in other

classes to slip. The tests for both classes typically fell on the same day, but I was not going to let

that stop me from succeeding in both classes. Chemistry was especially challenging because the

professor in that class loads on the

homework. Some obstacles I faced

throughout this semester is that I had

several different court dates for a ticket I received where I would have to miss class. College

level courses are similar to a nonstop moving train; once you jump off its hard to catch back up

to it. Another challenge, pertaining to my physiology of exercise class, was that we had a

semester long research project and I was paired with a lazy group of students. I was forced to do

most of the work for this project. I was determined not to let this obstacle of having lazy

classmates affect my grade. I spent every Sunday all semester in the library. Other obstacles I

had to overcome throughout this semester was early morning workouts for preseason, fights

with my roommates, an almost breakup with my boyfriend, and just the pressures of going out


when I need to be doing my homework. At the end of the semester I ended up receiving an A-

and an A in Chemistry and the Physiology of Exercise. I felt as if I could conquer the world at

this point. Some may think that is very dramatic, but I had a tough semester that had several

bumps in the road. I plan on carrying this perseverance into the J-term class I am currently in and

for the rest of my college career. Overall in college thus far, I would say that I spend more time

studying and doing homework than any of my friends that I know.

Sports

Sports have been a large part of my life ever since I was little. As any athlete knows,

every game will not go as planned and you will not play at your best every single game.

Ultimately it is the goal that you make every shot you take or do not turn the ball over, but that is

not always the case. I feel as sports have helped in defining me as a person, which has an impact

on my character. When conducting my character strengths interviews for the strengths video,

four out of the five people I interviewed told a story about me persevering that was related to

basketball. I have had to persevere through injuries and not always playing as much as I want to

in a game.

My perseverance in sports did not start until my freshman year of high school. The

summer before my freshman year I was going up for a layup during a summer league basketball

game and landed on someone’s foot which caused my ankle to roll. My ankle swelled over my

shoe and I was rushed to the emergency room immediately because my coaches and parents

thought it could be broken. Luckily, or not so luckily, it was not broken. It was a high ankle

sprain which as times is known to be worse than a broken foot. I was put in a cast for a week

then into a boot for almost a month. It was difficult for me to see my teammates playing without

me. I was finally able to stop wearing the boot, but my ankle was still swollen. It was now the


school year and basketball season was approaching in a month. I had to get an MRI to see what

was wrong and it turned out that I had a bone bruise and I was placed back in the boot for

another month to allow this to heal. I missed part of my basketball season due to this injury. I

was able to play once it healed but my ankle never healed properly. All the ligaments supporting

my ankle are loose and the only way to fix this is surgery. This ankle gives me many problems

till this day and is a daily obstacle for me. But I enjoy basketball too much to give it up. It is not

life threatening, more of a nagging injury that can be played through but causes pain.

Another injury I sustained in high school was a concussion during my junior year. I was

holding the ball above my head after I had rebounded it a girl behind me tried to take it from me

and ended up pulling me backwards causing me to land on my head. I continued to play through

the game a little dazed and confused. The next day I was an unimaginable headache and was

unable to open my eyes. The high school trainer and my coach thought I was just sick and did

not believe the amount of pain I was in. My parents took me to the doctor where I was diagnosed

with a concussion and was excused from my finals since I was unable to read or concentrate at

the time. I was out of basketball for about a month and coming back was very difficult. I had to

earn back my starting spot and get back into basketball shape. The concussion was an obstacle

but so was the returning from the concussion. I could have easily given up on the year but I was

determined to make my comeback, and I did.

I also have a breathing issue. When I was younger, I was diagnosed with sports induced

asthma and was given an inhaler. This inhaler never seemed to help me and finally my parents

had had enough scares and took me to a breathing specialist my sophomore year of high school. I

was then diagnosed with Vocal Cord Dysfunction. This essentially is when your vocal cords

close up your airway during physical activity and will act up randomly at other times as well. In


order to cope with this problem, I had to go to breathing therapy. Here, my doctor taught me how

to breathe so that my vocal cords are not an issue. This new breathing technique took quite a bit

of practice and took me years on years to master. No one really understands what Vocal Cord

Dysfunction is which is why my coach in high school was not understanding about it and thought

I was being a baby. I had a hard time getting through basketball games in high school without

having a flair up. But I knew I was capable of controlling it, it was just going to take practice.

This was a very large obstacle for me all throughout high school and I still have problems with it

today. I will have random flair ups of my Vocal Cord Dysfunction when my adrenaline during a

game is high or during preseason when I have too much anxiety on conditioning days. I get this

anxiety because I am afraid I am not going to be able to breath, I become embarrassed whenever

I have issues with my Vocal Cord Dysfunction. I refuse to let this obstacle/difficulty hold me

back, though.

A big part of sports and earning your spot on the team. When I first came to Loras to play

basketball, it was a wakeup call. Everyone that came to play on the basketball team here was the

best on their basketball team in high school, including myself. Nothing was going to be handed

to us here and no one’s spot was set in stone. I went from playing every minute in my high

school basketball games to maybe getting 2 minutes a game. It was quite the transition and not

one I especially liked. I knew I had three options: quit, be content with how much I play, or work

my ass off to get better. I chose option three. The following summer, I worked extra hard to

improve my conditioning and my basketball skills. This paid off because I saw the floor more

during my sophomore year basketball season. I was actually the first one off of the bench. This

pattern continued; this past summer I worked even harder than the previous summer and I saw

results. This season I am starting most games and am leading scorer or second leading scorer on


the team. My class came in with 19 freshman on the basketball team, and now there are 4 of us

left playing. I knew I would never quit because I have a passion for basketball and I was not

going to let any obstacle stand in my way.

Relationships

I have always been the type of person who will not matter what, not give up on a

relationship. With my friends, I will never just drop a friend because of a fight we got in, I will

work through this fight and figure out how we can get back to where our friendship was before

the fight occurred. This stands true for relationships with significant others as well. This category

is the most defining part of my character strength of perseverance because of a toxic relationship

I had with my basketball coach. I was lucky enough after this toxic relationship to find a healthy

relationship with my college coaches.

During my sophomore year of high school, I was asked to be Trenton Jones’s girlfriend.

At the time, this seemed like the best day of my life because I liked him a lot at the time. We had

a good relationship at the beginning, we did not even fight. As time

went on I fell for him more and more and eventually I was to the

point where I was wrapped around his finger and he was somewhat

wrapped around mine. He started to accumulate quite a few girl

friends at school that he would talk to a lot and it made me a little

jealous. But I did not want this small obstacle affect my “perfect”

relationship. I was so determined to make this relationship work that when he broke up with me

once, and then came back to me a month later; I allowed him back into my life. I would still

consider this persistence in terms of holding onto a relationship. He was a year older than me and

when he graduated he went into the navy. Once again, I wanted this relationship to work so


badly that I did not allow this obstacle to end our relationship. We started to fight all the time

once I got into my freshman year of college, but I still was sure this relationship was right for

me. I ended up being miserable all the time and was unhappy. Finally one day, my perseverance

for the relationship wore off and I broke up with; to find out he had been cheating on me for

quite some time now. This is an example of how perseverance/persistence can be negative and

that I need to learn when to let go of a broken relationship. I was blinded by my perseverance

and it shielded me from seeing what an unhealthy relationship I was in.

I met my lifetime best friend, Mallory, in 3rd grade at a sleepover and she has not left my

side yet. Mallory and I’s relationship (friendship) is the one that everyone is jealous of at times

because we can be so inseparable. But, we have gone through some obstacles over the years. In

high school, we found our own friend groups because she was not involved in sports like I was.

She was friends with girls who were more into theater or track and

I was friends with girls who played basketball or volleyball. Even

with these different friends we were making, I did not allow my

best friendship with her to burn out. We went through a rough

patch when I was dating my boyfriend, Trent. She did not like him

because he was rude to her a few times when he was trying to

make a joke. Just because Mallory was not friends with my boyfriend did not make me want to

drop my friendship with her. I made sure to make time for Mallory so she knew she was

important to me, also. Once high school was over and we had picked our colleges, we realized

that we would be living 7 hours away from each other. This was hard at first because we have

grown up together and lived near each other our whole lives. This was merely a bump in the road

to me and I was not willing to give up my friendship with her due to distance. I make sure to


FaceTime her often or at least shoot her a text to keep our relationship. I am persistent with my

relationship with her. Her dad passed away about two years ago and this was a hard time for our

friendship. It was hard on her and she began to shut everyone out in her life and lose

relationships with people. She tried to shut me out for a while but I knew I was not going to let

this difficulty end our friendship and that she needed but did not know how to say it. I was

persistent in checking in on her and making sure she was feeling okay and that she was doing

well in school. She sometimes would think it was annoying how much I checked in on her, but

after a while she began to open up how she was feeling and what she was going through. It

would have been easy for me to leave and not annoyingly check in on her constantly.

As I mentioned before, sports are a large part of my life but there are several relationships

in a sport that can make a sport worth it or not. These relationships can be with my teammates,

coaches, or even referees. The relationship that I had with my basketball coach in high school

changed me forever. This coach’s name was Coach Schneider. He was the new varsity coach

when I came into my freshman year of high school and from the start there was something off

about him. He would not treat me the same way he treated other girls, he sort of pushed me to the

side in a sense. This is when my persistence was blossoming so I did all I could to simply get his

attention and notice my basketball skill. I was not going to let a coach stand in the way of

reaching my goal of playing college basketball. This ranged from shooting in the gym after

practice to trying to talk to him at other points in the day. I did not think much of it during my

freshman year because I did not think too much into it but looking back I notice how he treated

me more. I was moved up to the junior varsity team halfway through the year which was a big

feat for me. At the end of the year, we had an end of season banquet. The head coach talked


about every player at the banquet, except for me. He had forgotten about me. I was upset about

it, but did not think too much into it just that he had made a mistake.

My sophomore year, I made varsity. I was starting on the varsity team as a sophomore

and I was ecstatic. I would say that this year of basketball was the least stressful of all my years

of basketball. Since I was young, there was not too much pressure and I was just having fun. I

was a starter, which caused a lot of frustration during games to be directed to me at times, but

more towards upper classmen. We attended a Christmas tournament this year and during one of

the games my dad got ejected from a game for talking back to the referees and yelling at them.

My dad was sitting next to the man that was yelling at the referees but my dad was the one who

took the fall for it. We ended up losing this game and my coach was not happy with us. In the

locker, before our coach came in to talk to us, someone asked me if my dad had been ejected

from the game and we laughed about it for a minute. The next day, we had another game and I

was benched for the entirety of the game since my dad was ejected from the game and I laughed

about it. I did not understand what was wrong with this, but I took my punishment and moved on

from it. The other girl who laughed did not get punished, though. At this point, I knew that I was

not able to make mistakes without being apprehended for it.

During my junior year, my relationship with my coach took a turn for the worse. My

coach played a lot of mind games with the girls on my team. He would go through phases with

who was his favorite on the team and would make it very evident; and I was never one of the

favorites. Junior year is a huge year for recruiting for colleges, and a lot of colleges were asking

to set up a time to talk to him so they could ask questions about me. He was not willing to talk to

them or set up a time; he simply ignored all of these phone calls. He seemed to have no interest if

I were to play college basketball or not. But, he was making the phone calls for the other girls on


the team. Halfway through the season, I suffered from a concussion and he simply did not

believe that I had one even when I had a doctor diagnose me and was excused from my finals.

When it came to injuries, he was not willing to encourage you through recovery instead he would

push you to the side. One game, I had a flair up with my vocal cord dysfunction and sometimes I

need a teammate to help me calm down to get my breathing under control. He yelled at my

teammate for trying to help me. Then the next game, I was benched because he thought I was

week minded since I had a breathing problem. I came home crying from games and practices a

countless number of times telling my parents how much I wanted to quit. I even got to the point

where I piled all my basketball belongings and was ready to give them back to him. On days like

this, I was reminded what my goal was by my parents and that was to play college basketball.


Senior year, these similar patterns of treatment by him continued but I did not allow it to

affect me as much. It is hard to recall exactly what he said because I believe that my brain has

blocked it out for me. My mom called him the day after a game one time because he had talked

to me in a very disrespectful way. She attempted in explaining my rationale for whatever I had

done, she should not had called but felt as if it was the best for me mentally if she talked to him.

That day in practice, after she had called, he asked to talk to me. He started to yell at me and

walked closer and closer to me until I was backed into a corner. He told me I was immature since

I had to have “my mommy” call to talk for me and that if I had a problem I needed to talk to him.

I stood there without saying anything then when he

was finished, I walked away. I knew from this point on

that nothing would stop me this year, no obstacle, and

no rude comment made by him. I had an extremely

successful basketball season that year. I was the first

girl in school history to reach 1000 points and my coach did not acknowledge it once. For the

banquet my senior year, he usually asks all the seniors to give a speech. He asked all the seniors

except for me to give a speech. Two of my good friends who were giving speeches invited me up

to give a speech since he refused. I was respectful in my speech but definitely left some hidden

messages about how I persevered through the past four years of basketball. My coach did not

speak a single word to me at the banquet and when I got to my car after the banquet I bawled my

eyes out. I was so relieved that I no longer had to deal with this man. I tried so hard to make my

relationship with him a healthy and functioning one, but he refused. He refused to help me reach

my goal of playing college basketball, but I did not let this stand in my way of reaching my goal.

I did not allow his immaturity and disrespectfulness drive me to quit basketball, even though I


was close many times. I believe this is the epitome of my perseverance and drove me to be the

person I am today. This is once experience that has forever changed me.

I have had all these experiences where I have developed my perseverance, seen the

downsides of this strength, or used this strength to the best of my ability. But, how has any of

this assisted in helping others? My first example of how I have impacted the lives of others

involves Kane, my boyfriend. I asked him how I have impacted his life with my perseverance.

He gave me a few examples. Over the phone, we talked about how my personal perseverance in

school has helped him as well. He is not always the most motivated person when it comes to

academics which is why he was forced to live at home for a while to attend a community college

after receiving poor grades when he was away at school. Now, I am always on his ass about

applying to schools. I will even look up schools for him because my perseverance now involves

his goals too. His goals are essentially my goals. I also sent him this same question via email and

he talked about another way that my perseverance has impacted his life. The email is pictured

here, and he discusses how I put all my effort into our relationship no matter what. Long distance


is a difficult obstacle to overcome but he says that “she always manages to do her best to keep

our relationship running smoothly.” By me doing this, I make him a happier person (he makes

me happy too). My next ex ample of how I have impacted the life of others involves my best

friend Mallory. I talked about her a lot earlier and about our relationship over the years. When I

emailed her asking about how my perseverance has impacted her life she talked about how my

perseverance makes her want to succeed as well. Then, she discussed how I was there for her

when her dad passed away and I was persistent in keeping my relationship with her. My

perseverance assisted her when it came to coping with her loss and in the long term saved our

friendship.

Looking in the future, my perseverance that I have developed over the years will continue to

set me up for a bright future. When doing the career counseling, my results had a huge list of


jobs. Some of these jobs included sports medicine physician, physical therapist, occupational

therapist, special education teacher, and other health or teaching jobs. Career counseling was a

great activity for me because I felt that it was forcing me to set a goal for myself of what I want

to do with my life outside of college. I am already pretty certain of what I wish to do, I want to

be a pediatric occupational therapist. But when looking at the careers on my result lists, they all

have some things in common and my perseverance would be perfect for any of these careers. For

the special education career, that would require persistence on a daily basis. I would not be able

to stop trying to teach the children even if it takes them a while to

catch on to what I am attempting to teach. I would have to modify

the methods of my teaching until it got through to the children. For

the other health professions, I cannot say “I do not know what is

wrong with you” or “I do not know how to help you get

better/heal”; this would not be helpful to any patient and I am not

sure if I could even find a job if that was my attitude. My

perseverance would be helpful in just finding a job as well. At

times, you do not always get the first job you apply for. It takes persistence in finding a job and

not giving up when you have a few rejections. I show my perseverance towards my future today,

even. When it is time for me to apply for graduate school, I need a good amount of observation

hours in order to have a chance of being accepted. I have already started to do this, as shown by

the picture of one of my few observations logs that clinics I have shadowed at have filled out. I

am being proactive and making sure that not having enough observation hours will not be a

difficulty affecting my future plans. Also, I am setting myself up for my future goals by having


an internship this coming semester at an Occupational Therapy Clinic. I am using my

perseverance to sort of prevent obstacles that can differ me from my career dreams.

Through all the activities that we did in this class, there are a few that stand out to me the

most and that I feel spoke to my perseverance. The activities that worked well for me included

any kind of activity that included setting a goal for myself. We did a setting goal activity for one

of our positively happy activities, it was for week 5 page number 85. When reading the How of

Happiness book, I read about a goals and sub goals. This is another activity that would be

beneficial for me because I would be able to have in writing what I want to accomplish and hold

myself accountable for that. This section even says that “keeping a journal may even be a way of

cultivating patience and persistence” (Lyubomirsky, 108). This works well for my perseverance

since once I set a goal, I will do everything within my power in order to accomplish or reach this

goal of mine. I enjoy setting goals for myself, I feel that I do this often. For example, I set my

thousand point goal and playing college basketball. Another activity that I enjoyed was

describing our best possible self 10 years from now. This was also a positively happy activity on

page 41 of week 2. I enjoy to look into the future, which goes back to how I enjoy to set goals for

myself. The last activity that was beneficial to me was the career counseling. There is a common

theme for all the activities that I enjoyed and that is that the activities involved looking into the

future. Since my strength is perseverance, I believe that any of these happiness activities are

possible for me if I make them a goal for myself. Once I make a goal for myself, I will not allow

difficulties get in my way of achieving this goal. Living a happier life is within my grasp, I just

need to make it a goal for myself and let my perseverance lead me towards living this happier

life through all the inventions I have learned about throughout this class.


Works Cited

Lyubomirsky, Sonja. The How of Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want.

New York, NY: Penguin, 2008. Print.

Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and

classification. New York: Oxford University Press and Washington, DC: American

Psychological Association.

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