The Art Of Knowing When To Give Up

People are taught to fight, backed up with the phrase “never give up”. I know you have been taught to be determined and never to give up on your dreams. However, they didn’t teach you when to give up, how to forget and start a new chapter in life.

Many people, inclusive of myself have been stuck in same old shit with the hope that one day I will wake up and things will be different. I don’t know why I’m certain in my mind as I am writing this article that the same thing happens to you. You can be a good singer, actor, poet etc… however, being good is not enough, so like others you wake up every Monday morning go for auditions but still your brand doesn’t grow, no one knows your name and as a result you get zero gigs.

Similar thing happens to job seekers, you can hunt for jobs for months or even years but every interview doesn’t result to employment. However, since we are told never to give up, you keep on pressing until it’s too late, midlife crisis kicks in and you are left depressed.

When is the right time to give up?

• When you are running out of time
• When pursuing your goal is making you really, really unhappy.
• When you are no longer interested
• When you don’t have the resources to succeed
• When you are worried of what others might think when you give up
• When your inability to accomplish your goal is making you hate yourself

Looking at popular names since time immemorial, their advice has always been, never give up.

Vince Lombardi once said,

“Winners never quit, and quitters never win.”

Is this really true. According to me, there are moments when loosing is winning and quitting can be the best thing to do.

Nelson Mandela also said that

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”

Have you ever taken time and just figured out that it can be just impossible and maybe it can never be done. Knowing when something is impossible doesn’t make you a quitter, loser or lazy, On the contrary, it makes you smart. You are smart enough to know that you are not in a position to go against the odds.

The phrase never give up has been fed to us since we were children thus making it hard for us to have a different view of pursuing our dreams.

I have read and observed the world keenly and I tell you my brother, I tell you my sister, there is a very important lesson we missed while growing up.

There are many strategies you can use in life to just make it and be like other rich people, other happy people or successful. I would like to insist that what I am writing about is largely about financial and career success but it can also be other forms of success like just being contented with what you have or where you are.

Back to the main question, when should someone give up. This subject is very challenging and I have to be honest, this is an open discussion on the comment section since I don’t have a perfect answer for it. However, the first step to know when to give up is coming up with timelines.

In whatever you plan, always ensure that you have a timeline. For instance, let’s say that you are looking for a job. If you graduated in the year 2021, create a timeline, for example, write it in your diary;

I’ll hunt for a job of my dream which is blab la bla… for seven years and in the case whereby by then I will not have that job I will resolve to alternative B, C or D.

Coming up with a timeline or rather deadlines is an answer to the question “When is the appropriate time to give up?” If I gave this article to Thomas Edison, he would have rejected and provided counter arguments such as:

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

On the contrary, I would have argued. Edison and his team tried thousands of different things prior to settling on tungsten filaments for the light bulbs which turned out into an industrial empire.

Therefore, if these great figures whose moral lessons is to never give up gave up on so many things before finding the right thing, who are you to keep doing just one thing and expecting better results each time.

Keep in mind, I am not telling you to give up easily on what you are doing. The decision to give up should not be an easy one. It has to be well thought and smartly decided.

Every time you are engaged in an activity that is part of your vision, bear in mind “what is the actual thing that you really want”. Do you want a successful business or what you want is to get rich. In many instances, the answer is getting rich because what a successful business brings is wealth. Therefore, there are many ways one can be wealthy and there are many businesses one can do and eventually become rich.

Therefore, it is good and smart to consider alternatives. If something is not working out, give it a deadline and when the deadline passes without success, you can opt to putting it aside and focusing on something else. When you become successful at one thing, believe me it will be easy to make other dreams that you had come true.

What do you think about this topic, feel free to pour your thoughts on the comments section. Thank you for reading. Check the disclaimer before leaving.

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