"Write site title here…"

When you have a clear understanding of your objective, know how to achieve it, and possess a genuine desire to accomplish it, persistence should follow naturally. Persistence becomes futile when the mind is unclear about the end goal or the path to achieving it. So, is the real issue not a lack of persistence, but rather a lack of clarity—confusion—regarding direction, what we might also call a goal or purpose?

Without direction, there is no clarity and no meaningful aim in life. Without it, you drift through life, confused and rather unconcerned about where you are headed or why, focused only on immediate pleasures and problems, with little regard for where you might ultimately end up. But once you set a goal—a direction—your actions gain meaning, as they are classified according to whether they align with your chosen purpose.

But is that enough to dispel confusion and bring clarity?

Let’s say you have a clear goal and a clear way of achieving it. Does that solve the issue and make you persistent? Or does clarity falter when you face two opposing, yet clearly defined, directions?

Consider the goal of being healthy as an example. You might be clear about what the goal is and how to achieve it. However, you may also have a well-established lifestyle of eating unhealthily and avoiding exercise—behaviors that are comforting, require less energy, and are reinforced by the brain’s reward system. In this scenario, persistence toward being healthy wanes despite clarity about the goal and the path to achieving it. So, what could be the issue here?

Your mind holds two conflicting identities: the unhealthy “me” and the “me” striving to be healthy, with the latter being a reaction to the former. The desire to be healthy arises as a reaction to being unhealthy, rather than from a genuine, independent identity rooted in being healthy. When your brain identifies more strongly with the established unhealthy identity, it tends to resist change and protect the status quo. As long as this conflict persists, persistence toward your goal of being healthy is hindered, as your brain will likely choose the more convenient, familiar path with which it identifies.

In this scenario, the desire to be healthy becomes your secondary identity, subjugated and born out of the problems associated with being unhealthy. As a result, the focus is more on problems, on avoiding or getting rid of them, rather than on fully embracing and establishing an independent healthy identity.

Would solving this issue require genuinely reexamining and redefining your identity so that it fully aligns with your most desired and reasonable direction? Would that resolve the conflict, bring clarity to your actions, and make persistence natural, rather than something you must force?

And when you find yourself concerned in daily life about what you do or don’t do, would you consider whether the real issue is about who you are—what you deeply identify as?