Every Saturday, the courts at the Reed-Sweatt Family Tennis Center in Minneapolis are filled with hundreds of children, including my daughter, BaoBao, practicing tennis drills as part of the Inner City Tennis Program (ICT).

Along with tennis drills, the children are taught seven character values throughout the program. Sometimes the value taught is Perseverance, which ICT defines as “I will try one more time. Forever.”

This is a great lesson for kids, and I hope that BaoBao takes it to heart, but in reality, I find myself needing that lesson more and more.

My life contains more failures than I care to recount.

Fear and self-doubt are constant companions.

Whenever I think about giving up, I now tell myself, “Try one more time. Forever.”

How do you define perseverance?

When have you persevered?

[This post first appeared on The Socratic Project.]