My Oxford Dictionary App defines Persistence as “the fact of continuing in an opinion or course of action in spite of difficulty or opposition.”

This definition may feel particularly pertinent at this precise moment in our collective chiropractic experience. From the conversations I’ve had with colleagues over the last few weeks, I am hearing an array of responses: some of us are energised and excited by the current state of play and can’t wait to step up to the plate, all the way through to those of us who are angry, scared, or even worse, just don’t want to play this game at all anymore.

What can we do to cultivate the inner strength, the grit, to achieve what we want for our lives, our profession, and those of whom we serve? Research tells us that grit is defined as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals” and that grit is the most reliable predictor of success, and is actually more important than intelligence.1. (Whew, saved by science.)

So to be successful, it turns out we don’t need to be smart, we just need to keep on going. I’m sure that sounds okay to all of you out there doing Tough Mudder and Cross Fit until you regurgitate your kale smoothies into the dirt, but how do the rest of us get gritty? It turns out Professor Andrea Duckworth has researched it (Very sciencey of me to find this.)2. and grit comes down to just five things:

1. Pursue what interests you. Let’s be honest, if you don’t really like it, you aren’t very likely to stick with it, are you? So I like it so far: do more of the things you like (See point 3, below).

2. Do deliberate practice. Which means working on weaknesses and making improvements, not shonky, “she’ll be right” and “I’ll look at Facebook whilst I do it” practice. As we used to say in softball, “Practice doesn’t make perfect, PERFECT practice makes perfect.” (Imagine eleven hormone-fuelled girls screaming that in your face every training session. If that doesn’t make you gritty, I don’t know what will.)

3. Find purpose. And this means having a greater sense and meaning to your work. It might even be what separates a job from a vocation. What does your work bring to the world? If the vision is big enough and exciting enough, it’s easier to stay until the final siren (Ohhh how this one warms my heart. Statement of Purpose review anyone?).

4. Have hope. This means not just sitting around hoping things will be better some day/ some how, due to factors outside our control, or because you adopted some slogan from Pinterest, but more of a gritty type of hope, that believes that our very own actions can improve the future. That tomorrow will be better because we will make it so.

5. Join a group of fellow grit-masters. Perhaps my Mum was right when she used to trot out all those old sayings like, “Birds of a feather, flock together.” In fact, Jim Rohn is often quoted as saying that we come to be the average of the five people we spend the most time with. So finding a team of people we would love to be like could be a resourceful strategy.

We can overlay Professor Duckworth’s work with what we know about The In8 Model 3. and the game of life.

Quadrant 1: Why? Having a meticulously refined and useful plan behind what we do. Which would hopefully, be a purpose we can’t wait to live.

Quadrant 2: What? Create blueprint, and then practice it, making corrections as  you go. In the words of our Quest Marketing Guru, Paula, “Just wing it. Something is better then nothing… and then make appropriate corrections as you go.” With appropriate checking an efficient strategy will result.

Quadrant 3: How, and who with? A great team of like-minded people can often do so much more than an individual, when they are on purpose and have well defined ethics that serve the world.

Quadrant 4: What else, and when? This echoes the desire to get things done, and the knowledge that we can do it. In the words of William H. Johnsen, “If it is to be, it is up to me.”

So how are you going on the persistence project? Are you ready to get down and gritty and get the job done?

After all, they do say it takes a bit of grit to make a pearl.

Let’s make a whole treasure chest.

-Alison Asher

1. Pink, Daniel. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. 2011, Riverhead Books.

2. Duckworth, Anglea. Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. 2016, Scribner.

3. Postles, Mark. The In8 Model. 2011. Self Published.

You know what is interesting to me? I’ve found that writing a blog every day is kind of easy. Sure it takes time and effort and thought, but among that, it somehow becomes a habit. Something that gets done daily, regardless of whatever else is going on, and the writing space becomes a sanctuary all of its very own. Fingers click away on the black keys, and somehow wisps of ideas and words dance and weave together and organise themselves into something coherent. Sometimes they even become something half beautiful.

You know what is even more interesting to me? Writing a blog sporadically is extremely difficult. It becomes a task that should get done, might get done, will get done later. And later might be in the next hour or the next year. Until ideas become paralysed by insecurity (will it be good enough?) and indecision (should I even post that?). So it seems that Blanche d’Alpuget was onto something when she said, “Your muse shows up when you show up.”

So I’m wondering, what else in life is like that? Some things, most things, all things? What would happen if we didn’t have any structure or demands on our time and our minds? Would we get anything done at all if we had to make a decision about each and every thing in our day? Would we get decision fatigue and have to have a good lie down to the rest of our lives? Where would our muses go?

Today I’m looking at my habits. The good, the bad and the ugly resourceful, the less useful and those who can beat it, and wondering if I actually make any choices at all in my day, or if i just zoom along, habit to habit until I close my eyes for the night.

Perhaps the blog needs a resurrection.

***Erases the Facebook App from phone, for the fifth time today***

How about you? Are you habit powered, or do you mindfully choose your life?

…From The Ashers

Always with us

When we first met you you were sprightly and jumpy and full of a cheeky, playful energy, that just couldn’t be stilled. We descended on your home like a noisy, chittering storm of crickets, and you just smiled and smiled. You took it in your stride as we took over your couch and your floor with our bums and our beds, and still you just grinned and wagged your strange little curled tail.

Stanley ruling The Pit

You were named after The Stanley Cup, a trophy based on a gentleman’s agreement between the two professional ice hockey organisations, and you personified that spirit: a regal gent, a pug among pugs.

Remember your Henry the VIII costume, with the turkey leg? We do.

We would stumble home after an evening of refreshments, and you’d be up waiting for us, twerking that tail for all you were worth. You’d sit with us as we sang and laughed into the small hours, making fun of your grin and your snuffling snores.

Twins

Eventually giggles would make way to groans, and we would fall into slumber, and that’s when you would come alive, taking every.single.toy out of your basket, placing them carefully in piles, and then back to the basket again, and then again, your clickety-clack toenails marking out the placement pattern for hours on end. We wanted to be cross with you, and make a fuss over our lost sleep, but you were too funny to grump at.

You had a way of bringing out a sweeter side in people, Stanley.

When we next met you, your muzzle had gone grey and some of your fur had been loved off, but you captured Liam and Coco’s hearts in a beat. With your tongue hanging out and your failing eyesight, they wanted to cuddle and love you to bits. They wiped your nose and scratched your belly, and you taught them what it is like to love a pet.

When we left, they waved to you as we reversed down the drive, and they said they’d be back in the summer to see you do a “Stanley Float” in the pool.

They won’t get to do that now.

Today when I told them about the peaceful end of your days, they stared at me with big eyes, two brown, two blue, but both with the same shocked pupils, not wanting to believe me, waiting for the punchline.

Unfortunately there was only a punch in the belly.

I saw Liam swallow and then swallow again, then he popped on his helmet and scootered up and down the path for a while, preferring to be in his own thoughts.

Coco’s eyes grew as wide as finger-bowls, then the tears started dripping and dripping as she let her emotions fall onto the pavers at her feet, forming a tiny rivulet between the weeds.

I was surprised at the emotion, but not of the depth.

You had a way with people Stanley. You opened them up and made careful etches on their hearts, Lord Stanley III.

Thanks for all the laughs, and for the joy and softening you brought to people I love.

You’ll be missed S.Gup.

Vale Stanley

…From The Ashers

A brave kid in her Brave shirt

Some people measure time by the seasons, others by the phases of the moon. Some tick off numbered squares on a glossy calendar from The Courier Mail, or on the flick of an iPhone screen. I measure it by the cycle of the anaemic vampire child.

The new blood brings a thrilling energy of high-pitched hysterical laughter and cartwheels into somersaults into squealing Whip Nae Nae dance-offs. Those fresh red cells stretch the length of our days, where I can ignore the trauma of the tick tick tick, and we can listen to the rhythm of our bodies of when we wish to eat, sleep or sing, rather than clock watching to avoid fun stepping off its narrow tightrope into the abyss of hyper-fatigue.

The middle blood is just that. It’s the average that most people take for granted and that I sometimes crave like chocolate. It’s the time when the kid is like all the other kids, in the ups and downs of life and living. It’s made up of moments that are mundane and magical, boring and beautiful, and nothing means any more or any less than what it is in the moment. If she scrapes her knee skateboarding, I don’t rush to stop the bleeding like a loon, imagining that each lost drop is dragging us, minute by minute, closer to a transfusion. If she cries over an overcooked egg that just isn’t dippy enough, I know it’s because she is being bratty, not that she just can’t cope with one.more.thing.

Then the middle makes way for the end, and the weights start to settle on my shoulders. I study changes in the cadence of her breath like a crow at the beach-bins waiting for a stray prawn shell. I stare at the whites of her eyes being stained yellow with the bilirubin, drop by drop. I look for the underlying pallor in her cheeks, as gold replaces pink. I pull down her eyelids and watch, as the red fades like Nan’s curtains, whilst the oxygen skitters away to more important parts of her body.

The end part knows his stay is brief but impactful, so he makes his mark on the furrow of my brow, the skin of my face, the shadows in my collarbones and the pigment of my hair. He sucks away my vivacity as I try to wrest it back, night by night by night. He tries to leave as big an imprint as he can, perhaps to provide balance or understanding or compassion or expansion (which is what I say on my lighter days), or perhaps he’s just a prick.

Eventually the eventual happens and we start the process of transfusing. I make calls and wait for replies. We get blood taken to be tested and matched and mixed for her veins. We wait for a bed and then we wait for a successful puncture and we wait for the delivery of the donated ruby red cells. Then we watch and watch and watch like the 2am bourbon-fuelled blokes at the Rolling Rock, looking for any perceptible signs of things awry, ready and waiting to pounce.

After a time there is no need for pouncing. No more checking. No more waiting.

The blood flows and flows until the bags are deflated and her body is plump with the excess fluid, and the pressing on my shoulders and my mind grows wings or dissolves or something, and I won’t give Pyruvate Kinase Deficiency another thought for at least a month.

As the doors of the hospital puff shut behind us, we step into the fecund, humid air of freedom and Sunshine Coast sugarcane, leaving our baggage behind.

And we start our whirling dance of life. Like dervishes.

With abandonment. And redemption.

DONE

…From The Ashers

If you would like to help a kid like Coco, and a Mum like me, please consider giving the gift of blood.

Call http://www.donateblood.com.au on 131495 to book an appointment.

Thanks!

I started going to the chiro when I was about 19 years of age, following a year or so of complete bollocks, which consisted of scrappy diagnosis, pain medication and unnecessary interventions, and eventually lead to a stomach ulcer, worsening back pain and muscle weakness, and plans for some fun times ahead in the orthopaedic surgery ward.

So when the specialist said, “Whatever you do, don’t ever go to a chiropractor,” I immediately went to google and typed in: What is a chiropractor went to the Med Library at Melbourne Uni and flicked through the cards in the A-K section looking for “chiropractic” then searched the shelves for the one and only book: The Case Against Chiropractic. It was pure, hideous vitriol, and I loved every word. I’d never seen one profession unleash on another profession like that, and I was intrigued. My interest piqued to peaking point. Imagine asking a carpenter what they think of plumbers, and having the chippy then froth and spit and come over all rabid, as they extoll the evils of plumbing? It was like that car crash that you know you shouldn’t-mustn’t-won’t look at, and then do, first with a shifty side-eye, and then once you’ve looked, you really look, staring in horror, almost crashing into the car in front.

So it was with a mix of nervous excitement (what the evil geniuses around here call nervicitement) that I flicked through the Yellow Pages to find Dr. Gerard Christian, Chiropractor. I would like to say that I had a flash of prescience in choosing his name from the list, but to be honest, I chose the man who would change the path of my life forever because I liked the sound of his name.

The next few days are marked indelibly in my mind, perhaps because something wonderful was unfolding: not only healing of the body, but a salve to the mind, where I realised, possibly for the first time in my life, I was in the right place. Mostly though, it was because that slick, fast talking, energetic young fella challenged me in a way that I didn’t anticipate.

I went to him because I had intractable lower back pain that was slightly modulated by the wonder of the new drugs on the block: the non steroidal anti-inflammatories, but never fully went away. I went to him with hope of some short-term relief, to stave of the inevitable operation, and to find out why some GP in the 1970s hated chiropractors so much he’d penned and published an entire diatribe on someone else’s job.

When I asked Gerard about it, he exclaimed, “Philosophy,” as he ran out the door to his next person. (The dude was always running.)

I kind of knew what philosophy was, I was at uni after all: philosophy was something the stoner art students talked about at Naughton’s Hotel as they sipped Sherry, or whatever posturing, pretentious thing they were drinking, whilst getting in the way of my excellent dance moves (Who doesn’t love a half-cut 19 year old dancing in high waisted jeans, a bodysuit and with a spiral perm flicking and fluffing to Betty Boo just chewin’ the goo*?).

Philosophy. I asked around. Some of the Arts students were studying it, but they didn’t really know why. The Law students pretended they knew all about it, and proceeded to tell me why it wasn’t as important as Torts (Tauts? I still don’t know). The Engineering fellas (of whom I received the most animated attention when I sidled up next to them at the bar) had no idea. They said it sounded like a waste of time, and would I like a pot of Guiness, as philosophy might well be found buried in the creamy froth.

The next time Gerard burst into the room to check my spine, between the breathe in-breathe out- adjust- roll onto your left- roll onto your right, I asked him what he meant when he said the difference was about philosophy. He said something that sounded like the race-caller at Flemington over the final strait. I didn’t catch it all, but I heard: Ayn Rand, slogans, grab-bag of notions snatched at random, well-reasoned, well-thought out philosophy.

It was fast, but it was enough.

The hook.

And I was caught.

I found Ayn Rand. And then Leonard Peikoff. They were hard work those two, but worth it in the end. And then came all of the others: BJ Palmer, Stevenson, Joe Strauss, Reggie Gold (bless), Sigafoose and on and on and on. A lifetime of reasoning and thought, there alone. Those fellas led me to others: Dawkins, Descartes, Hume, Plato, Wertheim, Damasio, Einstein. Each one tramping a little of the underbrush, to help me open up a new path. A different way forward.

And now, as we step forward into 2016, the year that people of astrological persuasion say is a year of endings, I look forward to the new beginnings that will follow straight after. I imagine cycles being completed and new ideas frothing forward, as the philosophy that Gerard spoke of becomes part of our vernacular. I get all nervicited as I imagine the reverberations throughout the world, as what is now my profession steps forward, pisiforms blazing, creating optimum function for anyone who wants it.

Just imagine what will happen.

Imagine the glow, as every child in our world shines with the bright light that is their birthright.

Imagine the potential. Imagine what they will do.

It’s Crazy.

Crazy in a good way.

Philosophy? Yes please.

*If those are not the correct lyrics, then don’t.even.tell.me, I don’t want to know. My dancing matches those words, and those alone.

…From The Ashers