At Warrington Primary school I learned that perseverance is typically considered as the continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition.

I think it is one of the most important skills a person can develop, and trust me, it takes a whole lotta development.

There is several key aspects to it beyond the ability to grind tasks out like some mindless automaton. You've got to also be able to set goals, seek help, bounce back and be better. All of which when fused together will allow you to rise to the occasion.

Setting a goal should always be your first step. Because, surprisingly, it's incredibly difficult to hit a target you can't even see. Getting what you need done would likely go as successfully as spinning for a minute before attempting to play and win darts blindfolded. Luckily, setting goals is generally easy. Look at what you want, decide if it's realistic and if so, send it. Go full speed ahead in planning to take what you want and then enact it. Planning is, of course, crucial. Because a failure to plan is a plan to fail.

Now even with the best plan nobody can do everything by themselves. Everyone needs help sometimes and having the insight to know when you need it and the maturity to seek it out when you do is difficult. It’s just another part of perseverance to progress. Because it’s better to sound dumb asking questions rather than looking dumb when you mess up.

Yet at the end of the day, we’ll all mess up eventually. In fact, we will mess up many, many times. More times than we can count. But that’s okay, it’s actually great, especially when you get the timing right. Failure is a wonderful teacher and while it’s preferable to miss a tackle during practice instead of gameday both will make you better if you heed it. Bouncing back from the knocks, recovering from the mistakes and moving on is probably the most important thing you can do in regards to leading a better life.

Being better comes naturally from the ability to bounce back. However, I see it as more of a maintenance kinda deal. It’s easy to let things slide. To let your skills rust and habits waver. To ignore assessments, to go easy on the practice, to take one too many cheat days. Bouncing back, setting goals and seeking help gets you where you need to be but being better keeps you there.

Even knowing all this; it’s still easy for things to get concerning, like writing this last word for example. While I knew I needed to get this done weeks ago I shoved it to the back burner and let ideas slowly ferment. See I didn't actually know what to speak about until yesterday morning when Mr King emailed me asking to see my last word. Considering it was only eight words long then, I realized that it was about damn time that I got crackin'.

Now here we are, it’s complete. Finished because I ignored the panic, asked my friends and family for advice, put my head down and busted it out. It’s done and I can relax, my reward for getting it done beyond the privilege of speaking to you all.

Just remember this lads. Persevere. Surpass your limits. Do the Mahi. Get the Treats.