Perseverance stories always sound so clean and inspirational when other people tell them, right? Like some Hallmark movie montage. Meanwhile my version usually involves a lot more swearing, spilled coffee, and wondering if I’m actually just too stubborn to know when I’m beaten.
Right now I’m sitting in my tiny apartment somewhere in the American Midwest, January 2026, heat blasting because it’s stupid cold outside, laptop balanced on my knees, and I’m thinking about the last five years and how many times I almost—seriously almost—threw in the towel.
When Perseverance Stories Were Just Survival Porn to Me
I used to roll my eyes at motivational quotes. Like, cool Brenda, you climbed Everest with one leg and a dream… I’m over here trying to not cry in the Taco Bell drive-thru because my freelance check bounced again.
Then 2020 happened. Then 2021 decided to be 2020’s evil twin. Then my dad got sick. Really sick. And the medical bills started arriving like junk mail you can’t unsubscribe from.
Coffeehouse: beating limerence when no contact is impossible …
(That exhausted, overwhelmed expression says a lot about those “why is everything falling apart” moments.)
Then the part where the bills just keep coming, like they have your address on speed dial:
248+ Thousand Bill Holding Royalty-Free Images, Stock Photos …
I was working three gigs at once:
- Remote customer support (soul-crushing)
- Freelance copywriting (inconsistent)
- Night deliveries for a grocery app (exhausting + frostbite vibes)
I gained 28 pounds, lost most of my friends because I was “always busy,” and developed this weird twitch in my left eye whenever someone said “self-care.”
But here’s the ugly part of perseverance stories nobody puts on Instagram: sometimes you keep going mostly because you literally have no other place to go.
The Night I Almost Quit Everything
February 2023. I remember it because the wind chill was -19°F and my car wouldn’t start after a delivery shift. I sat in the frozen parking lot, heat off, battery dead, ugly-crying so hard my glasses fogged up.
I called my best friend at like 1:40 a.m. and just sobbed: “I’m done. I’m actually done this time.”
She didn’t give me some TED Talk. She just said, “Yeah… it’s allowed to suck this bad. But you’ve sucked at life before and you’re still here. So maybe just… don’t decide anything permanent tonight while you’re crying in a dead Kia.”
2+ Thousand Bad Mood Car Royalty-Free Images, Stock Photos …
I didn’t quit.
Not because I had some magical burst of inner strength. I just didn’t have the energy to plan an exit strategy.
And somehow that counted as perseverance.
(If you want a more polished version of this kind of moment, read Jocko Willink’s take on discipline → https://jockopodcast.com/ — he makes it sound way cooler than my version.)
Little Wins That Felt Bigger Than They Should Have
Fast-forward. By late 2024 I had:
- Paid off $14k in medical debt (took forever)
- Landed one steady client who actually pays on time (miracle)
- Started running again (slowly, embarrassingly slowly)
- And—most shocking—started laughing at the chaos instead of just crying at it
None of it was glamorous. None of it went viral. But it happened.
And looking back, those tiny, stupid, unglamorous steps were the real perseverance stories.
What I Wish Someone Told Me Sooner About Triumph Against All Odds
Here’s my extremely flawed, very human list:
- Momentum is more important than motivation (you can hate every second and still move forward)
- Most breakthroughs feel like breakdowns first
- Asking for help isn’t weakness; pretending you don’t need it is
- Your comeback doesn’t have to be pretty
- Sometimes “winning” just means waking up and trying again
If you want to hear someone way smarter talk about resilience, check out Dr. Lucy Hone’s TED Talk about resilience after unbearable loss → https://www.ted.com/talks/lucy_hone_3_secrets_of_resilient_people
Wrapping This Rambling Mess Up
I’m not “there” yet. I don’t think there’s a finish line. But I’m still here. Still writing. Still paying bills (mostly) on time. Still running (still slow). Still believing—barely, grumpily, sarcastically sometimes—that the next day might be a little less brutal.
