You may have experienced instances in your life when you weren’t sure you could go on. When things are difficult, the path is hard and long, and you are simply worn out. Finding the resolve to keep going can be difficult at times. This can entail rising early to work a job where you’re treated poorly since your family depends on you for the money. Earning a college degree might take many hours of preparing for finals and putting in all the necessary work. It can feel like struggling and hitting the wall a mile before the finish line of a marathon. These and countless such instances show how challenging it may be to maintain motivation. Ask yourself if your are in a marathon or sprint in self-improvement.

The ancient Stoics understood exactly how to handle a loss of motivation and the willpower to carry on. The Stoics held that we should face life head-on and act justly. Making good on our promise to live morally is one approach to do it. The Stoics believed that leading a virtuous life is a life-long endeavor, thus we must devise strategies to maintain it.

To emphasize the value of perseverance, remind yourself that others rely on you to uphold the moral principle of doing what is right. This isn’t because of your position or title, but rather because it’s important to you as a person and to our society. We all rely on other people to act in the best interests of the group. Risking causing harm to others if we don’t do our share. We are relying on others, and that’s that. You cannot disappoint them.

From the micro level of your family to the macro level of the entire community, this is true at all scales. It should be simple to determine that one of your driving forces is not to let others down. As a team, we are only as strong as our weakest link. For the benefit of everyone who relies on us, it is solely our responsibility to see that we fulfill our obligations.

Marcus Aurelius used his sense of belonging as a source of motivation. He had a sense of belonging to something greater than himself. In his case, his firmly held philosophical ideas were the source of this sense of belonging. Others might derive meaning from their religious convictions. In either scenario, psychologists concur that adhering to universal ideals, as opposed to commitments to only oneself, one’s family, or one’s society, strengthens one’s resistance to stress and adversity.

The ancient sages advised us to be patient and go slowly as another approach to improve our follow-through. We face the risk of burning out if we jump into something too fast, like taking on responsibility. Maintaining a modest, steady speed that you can sustain is far preferable. Focus on if it is a marathon or sprint. Do you need to pace yourself to continue or hit it full speed.

This is true of our practical commitments, such as our work or our position as citizens or partners, as well as the abstract idea of pursuing goodness. Our daily routines eventually become the norm for how we conduct our entire lives. Therefore, it’s crucial that we all work as hard as we can over the long term at a pace that we can maintain. Remember that life, with all its demands, is a marathon and not a sprint. We have to continue to trust in putting one foot in front of the other… and never stopping.