I must say that I have never felt persecuted for the sake of Christ. It has always been because of my self will. Even when I'm doing something right, and things go bad, I just instinctively think it must be because my own self will got into the mix and messed it up. The thing about it is that when I do that, I take a hard look at myself, and usually I'm able to see where I went wrong.
The reason this is so beneficial is because I'm not as likely to make the same mistake again, and it becomes easier to avoid those mistakes in the future. Before I used to do that, I would keep making the same mistakes, and just blaming everyone around me instead. That never works.