Persistence Isn't What You Think It Is
Teachers are told to push through everything. But persistence and endurance aren't the same — and confusing them is what's burning you out. Here's the Stoic take.
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Persistence Isn't What You Think It Is
Why Edify Podcast
There's a Walter Elliott quote I keep coming back to.
"Perseverance is not a long race. It is many short races, one after the other."
Most of us were taught the opposite — that persistence is about duration. How long you can hold on. How much you can absorb before you crack. The image is always someone white-knuckling through something terrible, jaw clenched, refusing to quit.
But that's not persistence. Most of the time, that's just suffering with better PR.
But that's not persistence. Most of the time, that's just suffering with better PR.
Watch or Listen
Start here — watch the full episode on YouTube:
What does "real" persistence look like in your teaching practice?
Prefer audio? Catch the podcast version below.
Why This Distinction Matters
Persistence and pushing through sound interchangeable. They show up in the same staff meetings, on the same motivational posters slowly peeling off the front office wall.
They are not the same thing.
Pushing through is endurance with duration. You're absorbing everything — every bad policy, every impossible deadline, every initiative that makes the job harder — and just continuing. Taking the hit. Moving forward. I used to think that's what good teachers did. Now I think that's just getting beaten up slowly.
Real persistence — the kind that keeps you in the classroom for 20 or 30 years without hollowing you out — looks completely different. It's quieter. Less dramatic. Entirely un-Instagram-worthy. It's showing up on a Tuesday when nobody's watching and you don't feel like it. Coming back after a terrible lesson and trying again. Not because you're tough — because you chose this, and the choice still means something today.
What the Stoics Actually Said
Marcus Aurelius didn't mean endure everything. He meant endure what matters. There's a distinction there that changes everything.
There's a Stoic concept that doesn't get much airtime: amor fati — love of fate. Not just accepting what happens, but embracing it. Finding the usefulness in what you've been given. The part most people skip, though, is that amor fati doesn't mean love of everything equally. It means love of your actual path — the specific, real, messy one you're on. Which means you have to know what that path is.
Most teachers are persisting without ever naming what they're persisting toward. We're just continuing. Absorbing. Enduring. Calling it persistence because it sounds better than "I don't know what else to do."
I've been there. Around year 15 or 16, I couldn't have told you what I was persisting toward. I just knew I was still showing up. I'd confused showing up with having direction for so long I didn't realize they were two separate things.
The Stoics would say persistence without purpose is just stubbornness. And stubbornness will keep you in a job — but it won't keep you alive in that job.
Three Questions Worth Asking
You don't have time for a philosophical retreat. You're a teacher in the middle of a school year. So here's a quick filter — three questions to separate what's actually worth persisting toward from what you're just enduring out of habit, obligation, or guilt.
1. Is this connected to something I actually care about?
Not something you're supposed to care about. Not something that sounds good in an evaluation. Something you — the actual human — genuinely care about. If yes, you're in persistence territory. Keep going, especially when it's hard. If no, that's endurance. And you need to ask whether it's worth what it's costing you.
2. Am I moving toward something, or just not quitting?
Persistence has direction — even when the steps are tiny, even on your worst days, something is pulling you forward. Pushing through has no direction. Just duration. Still here counts for something. But you can't build a sustainable career on it.
3. If I stopped doing this specific thing, would my teaching actually get worse?
A lot of what we persist through — the extra committees, the Sunday grading sessions — isn't making us better teachers. It's serving a narrative about what a dedicated teacher looks like. Living inside that narrative is too expensive.
What Real Persistence Actually Looks Like
It's not the teacher who stays until 6 pm every night. It might be the teacher who leaves at 3:30 — because she knows protecting her evening is what lets her show up fully tomorrow.
It's not the teacher who says yes to everything. It might be the teacher who says no to the committee because he's persisting toward becoming a better father after work — and right now, that matters more.
Real persistence is boring. Repetitive. Unheroic. It's showing up to the same classroom with the same kids and finding something worth caring about. Again. Even when you're on empty and nobody is going to notice or thank you for it.
Walter Elliott was right. It's not a long race. It's many short races, one after the other. The key is knowing which races are yours.
The Question That Actually Matters
You already know how to push through. You've been doing it your whole career. That's not the skill you need to develop.
The question is: what are you persisting toward?
Not enduring. Not surviving. What is the actual, specific, nameable thing that makes showing up worth it — not in a hallmark card way, but in a this is why I'm still in the classroom way?
If you don't have an answer right now, that's not a failure. It's a starting point. And it's the honest place where real persistence begins.
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