Amazing Things Will Happen: A Real-World Guide on Achieving Success and Happiness

Chapter 14

Quitting Is Always an Option

I can’t sit here and tell you that quitting is something that you should never do.

I know every coach I’ve ever had would cringe if they read that, but I’m a realist and I know the difference between a game and life. They are not always one and the same, and no matter how hard we fight, each of us will quit more than once in our lives.

Seth Godin talks at length about this in his classic book The Dip. He shares numerous stories and bits of advice on why you need to realize that, if you are stuck in the dip and may never get out, you should quit. I list it as one of my “dangerous” books in the Appendix because it could open your eyes to the fact that you might be in a dip in your current situation.

This may seem to contradict my advice to never say, “I can’t,” but in fact these are at the opposite ends of the decision cycle. If you never start something, you can never quit. Once you’ve moved past telling yourself you couldn’t do something, you’ll begin doing it. But what if you realize you can never finish it?

The hardest part about quitting anything is that you’ll never know what the outcome would have been. The questions and regrets can eat at you for the rest of your life. What if you had stuck it out a few months longer or put in an extra hour a day of harder work to try and make it a success? These are not questions you should focus on.

Instead, if you are in the middle of something and your heart is no longer in it, then you have grounds ...