Quitting Points

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.

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. 

• Make sure you've identified the real causes of your unhappiness. Keep a diary of events and problems.
• Give it a chance. Many things, like diets, require time to work out.
• Try many other solutions.
• Have a backup plan. Know what you're going to do if you quit and what you need to do to prepare for that.

It has the same root cause as all forms of procrastination. It is caused by the desire to avoid something unpleasant: you don’t want to get started, so you start searching for excuses to justify avoiding the unpleasantness.

And there really are fears, uncertainties or doubts, which make doing more research an attractive excuse.

You have to manage 2 realities: 

• Rationalization: Deal with your rationalization that you need more time to think, plan and research by preventing this excuse from working.
• Underlying fear: Even if you convince yourself that you are engaging in procrastination and your paralysis is unhelpful, that may not stop you from doing it. Now you need to figure out how to get past it.

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.

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.

• Classical conditioning: a paired association with a trigger and a behavior. Going to the gym after you wake up each morning is this kind of habit.
• Operant conditioning: you not only associate a trigger with a behavior, but you reward that pairing, to accelerate the habit-forming process.

You commit to some change for 30 days, then tou can go back to your old ways. But having spent thirty days applying a new behavior is often enough to convince you to stick with it.

Pros:

• Can handle more significant/difficult behavior changes you might be unlikely to start with a perpetual commitment.
• Fosters an experimental mindset, rather than assuming you already know what’s best.

Cons:

• 30 days probably isn’t enough to actually make something a habit.
• Without a long-term plan, many 30-day trials will revert back to the original behavior.

1. Stick to short commitments. Get good at this skill before going further.
2. Understand your goal at different levels. The highest goal should be fairly abstract.
3. Set a much more specific agenda of how I could fulfill this.
4. Have periodic reviews where you can change your direction and incorporate new ideas. 
5. Don't let your reviews interfere with the short-term process of committing.

1. A goal level, which is big-picture and abstract. It has just enough detail to inspire, but not so much that you're stuck pursuing things that don’t matter when conditions change. 
2. Underneath that, have projects: these tend to be short-to-medium term efforts you think will help realize the larger goal.

The flexibility of the system comes once one leg of a short-term commitment has ended. This provides an opportunity for pivoting and redirecting.

This process has 3 main parts: 

• Define the habit you want to form clearly and consistently;
• Condition it until it is relatively easy to maintain. 
• Maintain the habit by monitoring it. If you slip, push to reassert the habit quickly.

The best strategy for getting better at skills is deliberate practice. A good way to work on this is to divide it into 3: 

• Practice the skill. 
• Get timely feedback on how well you’re performing.
• Focus on your weak points with selective drills and constrained practice.

Consider these questions:

• Do you have an obviously better opportunity?
• What did you commit to? Predefine your commitment before starting, to not depend on momentary frustrations to make big decisions to quit or continue.
• Would your future self feel regret or relief?
• Do you need to give up? Or just take a break?

• Having a core values list helps you make better decisions. The decisions you make come more quickly and efficiently than they would without it.
• Being unconscious of your core values makes you likely to keep repeating the same mistakes.

The core values that are most valuable to each of us come from our own personal experience, not from being taught.

As you put them into practice you’ll get better at internalizing these values and they’ll express themselves subconsciously with smaller decisions, as well.

Without a drive to learn, it's hard to get going. Weak drives include expectations from family, teachers, or employers. It's the things you have to do, but don't want to do.

You can change this, but you need an inspiring goal to get you started. If your project doesn't excite you, no advice will help.

Sometimes you are excited to learn, but you still avoid getting started. You may worry about the fear of failure, feedback, or performing. If you expose yourself to the thing you find unpleasant and nothing bad happens, your fear will lessen.

Reframing is often helpful in overcoming this problem. Begin each studying session with the idea that you will find it hard.