Anyone who decides to follow her heart’s desires needs to be persistent. In short, she must have a hard ass to land on. Pursuing one’s dreams is a long-term commitment, often without shortcuts or easy to follow guidelines.

Some people are natural warriors and can easily resist the desire to quit. Some people need to learn slowly how it works and how to find strength in oneself.

My persistence is partially (I guess) connected to my dyslexia. According to the research, dyslexic learners are more resilient than non-dyslexic learners. I’m only learning all of this now while educating myself about the subject because of my son’s profound dyslexia. In reality, dyslexic learners (I’m one) have to work so much harder than others on everything they do, beginning with the early school years.

So now just imagine women, who in general need to work harder than blokes to get anywhere and on top of it add dyslexia. Of course, everything is possible and doable for dyslexic learners, but with a lot of personal sacrifice and inner battles.

All my life I wondered why I didn’t give up on my writing or filmmaking. What was this nudge continually pushing me onwards even though the tunnel in front of me was pitch black? Apparently, my dyslexia helps me stick with things, but at the same time, it (everyone is different and experiences dyslexia differently) often makes me confused and unfocused, so it’s not all roses.

This powerful and unexpected discovery made me wonder what makes some people, who don’t have dyslexia, persistent in the face of adversity (persistence can go both ways: the negative and the positive).

What makes people persistent? Is it the historical association with the country they were born in? Is it the way their brain functions (like in my case)? Is it the personality traits, the belief system or merely a moment of clarity that deserts a person as soon as their mind is made up to go on.

We are all different; the way we look, the way we think or the way we learn, even our persistence has a different background. So let’s treasure our uniqueness with no judgment or prejudice.