Our friends in the Navy SEALs have a saying: "The only easy day was yesterday." It sounds pessimistic, but there's a profound truth there. The path forward is rarely as smooth as we imagine when we first set out. Whether you're launching a business, building a community, or working to strengthen your marriage, the journey will almost certainly be longer, harder, and more complex than you anticipated.
This is stressful because we humans are hardwired for optimism when planning future endeavors. We envision the end-state but rarely account for the inevitable setbacks, delays, and complications. We greatly underestimate how long it takes for something great to develop and how many challenges we'll face along the way. This mismatch between expectation and reality is where many worthy pursuits die.
Commitment AND Experimentation
When faced with the gap between our optimistic projections and the messy reality, we have two powerful principles that work hand in hand: commitment and experimentation.
The foundation is straightforward but challenging: stay in the game.
Commitment drives consistency, and consistency, over time, drives results. The people and organizations that ultimately succeed aren't necessarily the most brilliant or innovative – they're often just the ones who refused to quit. They kept showing up, day after day, even when progress was slow or invisible.
Think about any successful long-term endeavor you've witnessed. For the first several years, progress often seems painfully slow. There are stretches where any reasonable person would consider walking away. But those who stay committed to their vision and keep serving with excellence gradually build momentum that allows their work to flourish. The turning point rarely comes as a single breakthrough moment – it's the compounding effect of showing up consistently over time.
Staying in the game isn't about blind stubbornness, though. It's about having clarity on what matters most. When your commitment is anchored to your deepest values and purpose, you find the strength to endure the difficult middle chapters of your story.
And here's where the second principle becomes vital: the willingness to experiment.
Commitment Provides Flexibility
Ironically, strong commitment is what gives us the security to experiment. When we're anchored to our purpose, we gain the freedom to be flexible in our methods.
Too often, we become rigid in our approaches. We identify so strongly with a particular operating model that we resist considering alternatives, even when evidence suggests we should. We become dogmatic about the "right way" to do things, even as that approach repeatedly fails to produce the results we want.
True perseverance isn't about doing the same thing over and over while hoping for different results. It's about maintaining an unwavering commitment to your purpose while being flexible and creative about how you pursue it.
In our book, Perseverance > Endurance, we make this distinction clear. Endurance is about gritting your teeth and hanging on. Perseverance is about transformation – about becoming what the moment requires.
In combat, we faced environments that constantly changed, where yesterday's tactics wouldn't necessarily work today. Our survival and success depended on our ability to adapt rapidly, to try new approaches, to learn from failure and adjust. The teams that thrived weren't just tough – they were agile.
The same principle applies in business, relationships, and community building. The leaders and organizations that succeed over the long term don't see commitment and experimentation as opposing forces – they recognize them as complementary strengths that reinforce each other.
Values as Your Guide
The key to harnessing both commitment and experimentation lies in clarity about your values and purpose.
“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better. ”
When you're crystal clear about what matters most to you, you can hold tightly to those core principles while loosening your grip on specific tactics. Your values become the North Star that guides your journey, even as you explore different routes toward that destination.
This clarity creates a powerful foundation. You can try new approaches without feeling that you're compromising who you are or what you stand for. You can pivot and adapt without losing your sense of purpose and direction.
I've seen this play out in my own life. When I transitioned from the military to the corporate world, then to the nonprofit world, and finally to founding Applied Leadership Partners, the external circumstances changed dramatically. But the core values that drove me – service, growth, and building strong teams – remained constant. Those values gave me the stability to remain committed and the confidence to experiment and adapt while staying true to who I am.
The Leadership Challenge
As leaders, we must cultivate both commitment and experimentation in ourselves and our teams – not as competing forces, but as complementary strengths.
We must model the persistence required to stay in the game when things get tough, while also demonstrating the humility and curiosity needed to try new approaches. We need to help our teams understand the difference between the non-negotiable values and principles that define us and the tactical methods that should always be open to revision.
This is much easier said than done. We all naturally tend to seek certainty and resist change. But the most effective leaders create cultures where both steadfastness and flexibility are valued – where people feel secure in their shared purpose, which gives them the freedom to take risks and challenge conventional wisdom.
The next time you find yourself frustrated by the gap between your expectations and your current reality, remember that you need both staying power and adaptability. Ask yourself: "Am I clear about my purpose here? And given that purpose, what new approaches might I try?"
The journey is almost always longer and harder than we expect. But with clarity of purpose, the commitment to stay in the game, and the courage to experiment, you can navigate the difficult middle chapters of your story and emerge stronger on the other side.
After all, perseverance isn't just about hanging on. It's about becoming.
