If you follow me on social media, you will know that I took a spill last Thursday while out for a run. Inattention is definitely something that gets me into trouble sometimes, and I’m sure many of you can relate. Thankfully, it’s not a big deal – I didn’t break anything. I scraped up my hands and knees, and I’m sporting an impressive-looking bruise on my chin. Otherwise I’m fine. Given that I’ll be turning 60 in February, G-d willing, that’s not something I take for granted. I walked home, cleaned myself up, and that was that.

So that was Thursday, and on Friday and Saturday I took gentle walks and generally babied myself physically. Then on Sunday, I took a deep breath, set up my running app to the same workout that got so rudely interrupted, and went out the door.

I will admit to a little tinge of nervousness. I did change my route slightly, and didn’t go through the back alley where I had neglected to notice a big clump of grass growing through the cracked surface. I completed my run without incident, and I’m ready to close the door on that chapter (except that I may have to be careful with lifting until my right hand is completely healed).

Why am I telling you this? Because it gives me a great opportunity to talk about persistence. When toddlers are learning to walk, they fall all the time – it’s part of the process. They are built for it – chubby, not far off the ground, and with hard heads! They cry, pull themselves up, and keep going. A baby learning to walk is the epitome of persistence. Unless there is something physically out of the ordinary, giving up on learning to walk is not an option. Every able-bodied human walks.

When we get older, other factors start coming into play, including some really deep-seated beliefs that we develop about ourselves. If we have internalised the idea that we are small, helpless or unworthy, that may seriously affect our ability to be persistent in things that we say we want. Excuses are not hard to find, after all.

How do we recover that toddler-like determination? Where did it go, and why is it so easy to let ourselves off the hook when we are adults? It doesn’t matter what it is we are trying to do – whether we want to stay fit into our sixties, lose some weight, build a business, or quit a pernicious habit like smoking or staying up too late. Or maybe, like me, you want to do ALL of those things (well, I haven’t smoked since 1991, but I do have trouble putting myself to bed).

It is my firm belief that the way back to that simplicity of purpose goes through our subconscious beliefs about ourselves. They are not very easy to access, but it is by no means impossible. There are excellent teachers out there to help us work on these things.

I’d love to hear what you are doing to improve your persistence in going after what you say you want. How is your inner toddler doing?