Feel Like Quitting?

Posted On: 2011-03-17

Feel Like Quitting? If you feel like quitting then you're not Robinson Crusoe ... when things get tough we all tend to look to the easy option but you don't have to take it.

These days you see lots great motivational phrases about never quitting ... never giving up ... winners don't quite and quitters don't win ... they're everywhere and frankly they make me sick.

Sure there's a lot of truth in what they're trying to tell you ... but they imply that you're a total loser if you quit. They want you to believe that if you give up then you're a failure ... a deadbeat ... a total wanker who just can't stand the heat when things get tough.

And when they do that do they really encourage you or anyone else to get back up and try again? Do they encourage you to make another attempt ... to hang in there and ride out the tough times?

Or do they just add even more pressure to what is probably one of the darkest times of your life and make you believe that, because you're so far down a black hole, you just haven't got what it takes to get out of it?

Everyone has down times ... everyone at some point in their personal and business lives reaches a stage where giving up seems like the best option. Ok ... let's be entirely truthful here ... it's rare that you only ever face those times once in your life ... most of us are going to face those dark times on a number of occasions.

And at those times you just don't need all those wonderfully motivational pieces of bullshit that really only make you feel worse.

So what do you need when things are going from bad to worse and you feel like quitting and going back to working for someone else?

The very first thing you need to do is to take a step back from your business ... just for a few hours. Get away from the office ... leave your cell phone behind ... and just go somewhere quite where you can think without interruption. Sometimes that place needs to be somewhere that can help you put things in perspective.

My partner and I head down to the beach ... they're all very quiet around this part of the world so we don't see many people and we can walk along the shore and just be quiet. There's something about the beach or the mountains or a lake that can really help you put things in perspective.

Those beautiful and natural surroundings have been there for thousands of years and they'll be there for many more and when you measure your dark times against that sort of time frame it becomes insignificant. Instead of being something huge that's going to destroy you suddenly it becomes much smaller and manageable.

When you see whatever it is that's making you think about quitting compared to the beauty of nature it becomes something that you might be able to deal with ... something that you might be able to overcome ... maybe even something that you can use as a springboard for growth. You can see beyond the problem and it's not as dark as you first thought.

So once you've got your issues in perspective you can start to look at ways of moving forward. One of the military units that my partner was in years ago had the motto of 'improvise, adapt and overcome' and for a small group they sure achieved a lot.

You can too if you take the time to look beyond the issues that are dragging you down and start thinking of ways of working your way through them to the positive result that you can see on the other side.

Make a plan to help you move through the mess that's in front of you ... identify and write down the steps that you have to take to get through those issues. Sometimes ... even when you put your problems in perspective they still appear to be insurmountable but they're not.

Quite often when you make that plan and write down the steps that you have to take to achieve positive outcome you suddenly realize just how few things there are that you have to do to overcome and achieve your goal.

Right now my partner and I are looking at a major project ... for us it's huge and it was quite daunting. Even we wondered whether or not we would ever be able to achieve what we wanted to do and it's been easy for us to think that it was just too big for us and not worth even starting. But over the last few days we've been breaking it down into small pieces and suddenly it's very achievable.

Even when you're facing tough times break the challenges down into small pieces and work your way through them once piece at a time and you'll stand a much better chance of succeeding than you would if you keep thinking of the problem as one huge lump that you have to overcome.

And there's the other thing that you need to do if things are looking bleak and you feel like quitting. Get your head down and work at overcoming whatever it is that's put you in the mood to quite. Don't run away from it and don't give into it ... just get a grip on yourself and work your way through it.

Forget all that inspirational bullshit ... just look inside yourself because that's where you'll find the strength to go on and win!