Endurance - Balance Health Clinic

What is endurance?

Endurance is the ability to withstand hardship, exertion, or adversity over an extended period of time without yielding. It involves having the determination, patience, and resilience to push through challenges without giving up.

Some key aspects of endurance include:

• Physical endurance: The capacity of muscles to continue contracting over a prolonged time while resisting fatigue. Athletes build endurance through training.
• Mental endurance: The ability to maintain mental stamina and focus despite discomfort, boredom, or other distractions trying to break your concentration.
• Emotional endurance: Coping with stress, anxiety, grief, or other emotional hardships without crumbling under the pressure or losing hope. It's continuing on with positivity and purpose even during life's darkest moments.

When we think of endurance, ultra-endurance athletes often come to mind - those who run 100 mile races, bike across continents, or swim massive distances. But endurance isn't just about extreme physical feats. We all demonstrate endurance in our daily lives when we:

• Stay focused while working long hours to meet a deadline
• Patiently deal with a fussy child without losing our cool
• Carry on through grief after losing a loved one

Having endurance empowers us to achieve goals, withstand adversities, support others through difficulties, and push beyond what we ever imagined possible. It enables us to show up day after day as our best selves despite what life throws our way.

You can build greater endurance through:

• Training - Gradually increase duration/intensity
• Positive self-talk - "I can do hard things"
• Support systems - Friends, family, communities
• Self-care - Rest, nutrition, stress relief
• Mindset shifts - Growth mindset, avoiding victim mentality

Ultimately, endurance gives us the fuel, faith in ourselves, and foundation of resiliency we need to survive and thrive through all of life's twists and turns. It allows us to say - challenge accepted! - when faced with the impossible. And there is no stronger position to be in than knowing, without a doubt, that you have the endurance to persevere and overcome.

So next time you think you can't keep going, think again. You absolutely have the endurance. Time and time again, you've made it through hardships before, and through all your training, self-care, and determination, you've built the exact endurance required to make it through whatever you currently face. Believe in your endurance, trust in the resiliency of your mind and body, and know that without a doubt, this too shall pass - so all that remains is to continue marching forward, one step at a time. You've got this!