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When to Quit | Scott H Young
Reality Check
All efforts towards correctly pursuing your own personal development must take into account reality, not how you think the world should work. The truth is reality isn’t fair and just trying your best towards your dream doesn’t always cut it.
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Success Bias
Almost no popular self-help authors are going to have had the experience of pursuing a dream (like becoming an author) and not having it eventually work out.
Understanding reality means that you have to accept that some of your dreams won’t come true just because you work hard enough, be creative enough or go to enough seminars. Don’t base your decisions on a false model of reality.
Outcome Based Thinking
When pursuing a dream you have the underlying assumption that when you reach it you will be happy. That is false.
Achieving goals doesn’t make you happy because achievements on their own hold no lasting emotional value. Only growth, fulfilment and passion has value.
Experiential Based Thinking
Instead of judging whether or not you should quit pursuing your dream based on your chances of success you ask a different question. Would I like to experience building a business from the ground up?
In this perspective goals merely guide your travels through interesting waters. By taking up this mindset the question of whether you will fulfill your dream becomes irrelevant.
When to Quit
Quit when you have an alternative path that will give you more growth, passion and fulfillment.
If a new experience will be better, then switch to that. There is no shame in leaving a path that has become barren.
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The Commitment Muscle
Sticking through things longer builds resilience. But sticking through on a bad idea, project or effort can lose you years of your life.
The goal is to increase your ability to susta...
Quitting Points
They are pre-specified periods of time, effort or stress that you decide you’re willing to endure before you step back and re-evaluate.
Pick Your Quitting Point
- Set shorter lengths of projects: set projects that are short enough that committing to them all the way is easy enough to do or break into chunks th bigger ones.
- Set re-evaluation points for ongoing habits and goals.
- Based on impact to other areas of your life. You can choose metrics like: time and how those things impact your life.
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Why you are afraid of quitting
The sunk cost fallacy is one of the primary reasons you are so afraid to quit anything. It occurs when you tell yourself that you can’t quit because of all the time or money you have ...
Overcome the fear of quitting
Sunk cost is about the past. Opportunity cost is about the future.
If you are scared to quit (which is absolutely natural), always think of the opportunity cost. Think of the brighter future, not the scary past, and often times that is enough to give you that extra push to make the right decision.
Long-term cost outweighs short-term benefits
When you finally succeed, but you don’t have the health or someone to share the success with, the project might prove not be be worth it.
Take 5 minutes at the end of the week and reflect on what you have achieved versus what you had to give up to achieve it so you don’t end up giving up too much without even realizing it. Make this a habit.
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Why Set Personal Goals
- You are in charge. Personal goals force you to take responsibility for the actual efforts and progress.
- You see the small steps leading to a big picture: big goals c...
“Which? Why? What? How?” Technique
... for choosing personal goals. Ask yourself these questions:
- Ask yourself which aspect of your life you would like to change most.
- Think about why you want to change this.
- How will that change make you feel? Determine what exactly will make you feel this way.
- Ask yourself how you can make this happen and then make it your personal goal.
The Life Balance Chart Technique
- Draw a chart. Write down each of the various areas of your life (family, health, self-development, career, relationships) in a new column or line.
- Assess your current happiness level in each of these categories by giving it a score from 1 to 10.
- Think what will make you be fully satisfied with these areas. Write down your ideas – you will be able to transform them into personal plans.
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