I’m a big advocate of goals. I use them, I teach them, and I encourage others to incorporate them. But as of recently, I’ve had some feedback from readers about giving up on your goals. Many of us will start on a journey towards a goal, and for some reason or another we have this urge to quit. At what point can we give ourselves permission to quit?
Many of you know me outside of the blog, you know I’m not a quitter. I’m not someone that just rolls over and gives up on anything I do. So I initially avoided this topic for a bit, until I realized I had a perfect story to help illustrate my point. There are times we need to quit and move on to bigger and better things.
The End of an Era
At the end of 2012 I was having some reservations about my work at the furniture company. Decisions were being made that I didn’t agree with and there seemed to be some sort of power struggle, though I couldn’t put my finger on it. I am an easy going person and I had been the bridge to mending a lot of communication issues in the past within the company. But something just didn’t seem right for a while.
Then there came the fateful night that I cracked. It was an argument over something on which I normally had a wealth of input. My opinion was silenced and I was told my point of view was not worth anything, so save my breath. I’d never had such a professional smack in the face. It was on that night late in January of 2013 that the first thought of quitting Atlantic Bedding and Furniture crossed my mind.
But how could I quit? I helped build this thing from the ground up? I poured my heart and soul into the company for over 6 years and helped recruit or hire over a 1/3 of the people that worked there. This was my company! I always treated it that way at least…
From that night (I slept about 3 hours over the next 36) until the day I received an email prompting my responsive resignation, I couldn’t ever shake that thought of quitting. I’d never given up, I’d never quit on something. I wrestled with that choice for many months, even after I sent in the resignation.
Hindsight is always 20/20, and from this view I can clearly see that I made the right choice by quitting.
Real Reasons
We all have different reasons for quitting something. Mine was because I didn’t want to be in that environment, I knew it was toxic to me and I shouldn’t stay there. I didn’t know what was next, but I knew I had lots of opportunity. I had lots of connections and a great level of education mixed with experience, so the upside was there. I had to walk away from many goals that my life revolved around for years.
Sometimes if a goal consumes your life you need to reevaluate whether or not it’s worth the sacrifice. I determined that all I was sacrificing was not worth it.
At other points I thought it was, and I don’t regret those, but I wouldn’t make the same choices today. I missed out on a lot of family time, friend time, and personal time while I worked towards my dreams, but I was ready and willing to make those sacrifices back then.
But not everyone can make a leap like that on their own, many times we have to be pushed. Some people believe that as one door opens, another one opens. Some people see the next door open even before the first door is finished closing.
Some people look to their spiritual side for direction in times like this. Prayer has always helped me through trying times like these. For others it may be meditation or talking with mentors.
Whatever your decision is, make sure to take your time before dropping a goal. Be sure to take your time and ask yourself if you can live without this thing or this accomplishment before you completely make the break.
Quitting Early & Quitting Often
Tim Ferriss and other entrepreneurs talk about quitting all the time. They say it’s a good thing.
I mostly agree with what they’re talking about. If you aren’t having fun or whatever you’re doing is not working, just quit it and move on. But where I’m fundamentally different than these people is the start of the process.
I talked at length about goal setting and how we should reflect on our past before making goals for the future. If we take the time to really think about what we want to do and set forth a plan for that next goal, there is a much smaller chance we’ll want to quit it. But if we haphazardly jump from goal to goal without really planning things out, we’ll definitely quit a lot of stuff before we are able to see it through.
Made-Up Reasons
Many of us start off towards our goals strong. We are enthusiastic, we are motivated, and we are focused. Then The Resistance sets in. The Resistance, as outlined by Steven Pressfield in The War of Art, is that voice in your head that says, “You’re not good enough! Who are you to accomplish that?” and if you aren’t motivated by your goals and the people around you, you’ll begin to believe it.
Some of us may not get that sort of voice talking to us, but maybe they get are overthrown by their Lizard Brain. Seth Godin describes the Lizard Brain as that urge inside of us to avoid the most important work. We’ll settle on cleaning the house instead of writing our novel (guess who does that one), we settle on answering emails instead of mentoring our new employee, or we’ll even convince ourselves that it’s too cold outside to train for that upcoming race.
If either of these pops up, we must shut them down. The Resistance and The Lizard Brain have stopped people in their tracks while well on their way to accomplishing some of their greatest works. When you recognize them creeping up, find that accountability partner I talked about and ask them to help you stay focused. Remind yourself of why you started, don’t give in! When you recognize it and acknowledge it, you are half-way to overcoming it.
Push Pause
Sometimes we are able to give up on our goals momentarily. Think about the college athletes that have gone back after years in the pros to finish their college degree. They just put their dream on pause and came back to it when they were ready.
I talked about pausing on projects a while back to clear your mind. Sometimes those pauses may take years or decades to sort themselves out. Sometimes we may come up on something that we’re truly unprepared for. Being unprepared and being fidgety a la The Resistance, is totally different. It is OK put that goal off to the side until you are more prepared to attack it.
Don’t be afraid to fail
I’ll wrap with this: Don’t be afraid to fail. Trav and I were talking about how proud we are of Epic Day even though we technically failed at making money. We put ourselves out there and we jumped at that goal of starting a company. No, we didn’t make it, but we sure learned a lot in the process.
You know what that means? I’ll be much more prepared the next time I’m ready to make that leap. I can’t tell you exactly when you should walk away from your goals, but I hope this has provided some good thinking points and an outsiders perspective for you.
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Have you ever given up on a goal? Were you filled with relief or regret? Leave me a comment below or chat with me on Twitter.
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Thanks for reading, have a great day!
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