Life Success
For Students With Learning Disabilities:
A Teacher Guide

Perseverance

Many persons with learning disabilities show great perseverance and keep pursuing their chosen path despite difficulties.  They often describe themselves in such terms as “I am not a quitter” and “I never give up.”  However, successful individuals demonstrate an additional important ability -- knowing when to quit.  Although they rarely give up on a general goal, depending on the situation, they may change the way they go about achieving it, thereby improving their chances for success. In other words, after repeated failure, these individuals are able to see and pursue alternative strategies for reaching their goal, or know when the goal itself might have to be modified.  Often they try several strategies until they find one that works.  One successful adult stated, “Once I have a failure, I can’t just dwell on that failure and restrict myself for the rest of my life. I’ll do something else.”

Successful individuals with learning disabilities use a variety of strategies that allow them to persevere.  They often find a way around the obstacle to their progress.  Some employ a “spray” approach, in which they simultaneously try a number of strategies until one works.  This is particularly evident in the group’s approach to college.  Successful individuals often made several starts at college, change universities to find accommodating programs for their particular needs, change majors, and seek and accept help from others on campus.

In contrast, unsuccessful individuals are not so flexible and often appear to be “beating their heads against the wall,” perseverating rather than persevering.  One former student, for example, clung to one college setting for 11 years as a communications major, even though her coursework would never lead to a job in that field since she was a social isolate with highly restricted expressive language.

Beyond simply not giving up, successful individuals indicate that they learn from their hardships.

One participant noted:  “I have failed many times, but I am not a failure.  I have learned to succeed from my failures.”

Another individual stated:

“In school they don’t teach students that every successful person had a number of failures.  If you really think about it, every successful person has had failure.  What sets apart a successful person from a professional failure is that a professional failure allows himself to be defeated and becomes defeated and you see them out on the streets.  A successful person looks at failure as a means to an end.”

Furthermore, successful people agree that difficult situations are often necessary for learning to take place.

Many successful individuals internalize their ability to persevere as an important area of strength, some elevating it to the status of a “special talent” of which they are very proud.  Although successful individuals report a variety of factors that serve to motivate and maintain their perseverance, all stress its importance in their lives.  A successful person stated:  “I am most proud of my ability to keep going.  I have learned to keep going no matter what people said.  No matter if it was inspired by anger or revenge or whatever, still it’s the ability to keep plodding along.”

In comparison, unsuccessful individuals often quit in the face of adversity and back away from challenges.  Even though they described themselves as perseverant, their detailed descriptions of incidents reveal they give up much more easily and quickly than their successful peers.

Next: Goal-Setting