Feel Like Quitting?
Quitting, in our culture, doesn’t always have a positive reputation. I was always told that “quitters never win, and winners never quit”. Like a lot of other sayings, this one might need a little evaluation. Should we continue every project, every direction, every goal indefinitely? If not, how do we know when to quit – an idea that has probably crossed all our minds many times. Quitting sounds so attractive during moments of high stress!
I first learned a term, “the dip”, during my enrollment in the altMBA . It’s a term coined by Seth Godin, the creator of this course. The term may be new but the concept has been around forever and is definitely something that all of us (depending on age) have faced literally hundreds of times in our life. The dip is that moment when something gets so hard that you feel like quitting.
Good News
Seth wrote a book called “the dip” (yes, all lower case). Under the book title on the cover reads the words A LITTLE BOOK THAT TEACHES YOU WHEN TO QUIT (AND WHEN TO STICK). Wait a minute, is he implying that there are times when it is actually okay to quit when it gets hard? Could it be that at times the best strategy for winning is actually quitting?
Here is the gist of this little book, and you don’t even have to pay me for the two hours it took me to read it. This is free, late Christmas gift from Seth and I. Use it wisely and by all means share it. Quitting, as a short term strategy, just because you’re in a dip, is a bad idea. Quitting as a long term strategy, for good reasons, can be an excellent idea.
“Never quit something with great long term potential just because you can’t deal with the stress of the moment” Seth Godin
