Giving Up Too Soon

So you feel beaten up and bruised and you're ready to quit. You have no support system or the one you have is pathetically inadequate for the goals you've set. You're so tired that the couch is looking more and more inviting everyday. You have bills piling up and you probably ought to get a real job anyway. The failure rate is statistically high and nobody is going to fault you if you quit. Who really cares if you give up and quit now? You do.

Let's look at each piece one at a time. You're beaten up and exhausted. Congratulations! That means you've been working harder then you've probably ever worked in your life. You wouldn't be able to accomplish anything of real importance if you weren't willing to bust your rump plowing through everything on your to-do list. You may need some lessons in balance and patience, but not in how to apply good old fashioned elbow grease. If you can schedule a short break to replenish your strength, then do so, but don't give up and quit all together. If there's no way you can stop now because you have too many important deadlines then bust through the deadlines. Can you speed it up and finish things early so that you could squeeze in a break? After a full night sleep, do you think that you'd still want to quit or would you be ready to dive back in? The fact that you're working so hard isn't the problem, it's that you aren't getting adequate rest and relaxation. Find a way to create balance.

You have nobody that will pitch in to help you or else the help you have isn't all that helpful. Kind of reminds me of when my two year old tries to help with the laundry. He picks the dirty laundry up off of the floor and stuffs it into the dryer along with the stuff that just finished drying. Well meaning, but not as helpful as he thinks he is. I wish I could give you magic solutions as to how to find helpful people when you're working on your goals and dreams but the truth is, most people are too busy with their own lives to be able to offer much assistance anyway. Unless you can afford to hire people to help you or you promise to help them on something they're needing help with, you probably aren't going to find a whole lot of help. Also there's the learning curve and how much time it takes to teach someone how to do what it is you need help with. It's a rare and beautiful thing when the perfect person comes along with nothing better to do then to roll up their sleeves and help. It's a tough reality, but basically, it's your goal, your dream, and your job to make it happen.

If the project you are working on means anything to you, then you won't really enjoy the couch potato solution as much as you might think. Funny thing about the really big powerful dreams, they haunt us. Every time you turn around there it is following you around reminding you that you haven't finished it yet. It will keep showing up in everything you do and especially in the things that you don't do. If it really matters, if it's your calling, if it's your life's work, then it isn't going to let you become a couch potato. Laying around not doing your dream will be more exhausting and depressing then when you were working your buns off trying to make it come true. Take a quick break if you need to, but don't get too comfy sitting there and don't even think that you aren't going to get back up again. The longer you sit there, the further behind schedule you'll be and the more you'll have to do to catch up with where you were when you quit. You know how it is when you take a week off for vacation. You have to work two or three weeks to catch up with everything that fell behind. You have got to take your mental health breaks, but don't make it a permanent vacation.

What if you have financial problems or family obligations that are seriously nagging at you? That's such a difficult position to be in. Only you can determine what's in your long term best interest. Again, a support system would be nice, but if they aren't there to help, then you have to create balance. If you give up on your dreams to take care of and support everyone else, you may feel like you're doing the right thing in the moment, but was your life better off for it? If you disregard everything in order to stay focused on your dream, will it cost you the companionship of your loved ones down the road? Who will be there to celebrate with you when you finally do succeed? Not too easy to find a wealthy philanthropist to support your efforts to live out your dreams without earning a living. You have to make those really tough choices. Somehow you have to create balance between your dreams, your ability to keep a roof over your head, and your ability to keep loved ones near and dear.

It's easy to quit where so many others have already gone and failed before you. Survival of the fittest dictates that not everyone is ideally designed to accomplish all goals. Not everyone is supposed to be an entrepreneur. Not everyone is meant to be a musician. Not everyone is meant to be president. The truth is, if you've picked a goal that is suited to your own natural talents and gifts and if it's infused with your own passion and fire, then chances are that you are one of the lucky few who is meant to live that dream. Just because everyone else failed doesn't mean that you are meant to fail too. Statistics don't mean anything unless you decide to become one.

You are either going to quit or you're going to find inspiration and keep going. You can quit if you want, but you already know if quitting will feel worse then trudging through a little while longer. Somewhere you know deep down if you're meant to succeed or not. What if you were meant to succeed and role model tenacity to those around you? What if that's somehow the divine cosmic plan all along? God loves an underdog! Don't quit just yet.

Copyright 2004, Skye Thomas, Tomorrow's Edge

About The Author

Skye Thomas is the CEO of Tomorrow's Edge, an Internet leader in inspiring leaps of faith. She became a writer in 1999 after twenty years of studying spirituality, metaphysics, astrology, personal growth, motivation, soulmates, and parenting. Her books, articles, and astrological forecasts have inspired people of all ages and faiths to recommit themselves to the pursuit of happiness. To read more of her articles and to sign up to receive her free weekly newsletter, go to www.TomorrowsEdge.net. To download free previews of her books, go to www.SkyeThomas.com.

Skye@TomorrowsEdge.net

---

The Process of Developing Meaningful Goals

DEVELOPING A GOAL-SETTING CHECKPOINT: The process of developing meaningful goals and objectives can be a challenging task for any manager. There is a method to make this... Read More

Everyone Needs a BAG (Big Audacious Goal)

A Big Audacious Goal (BAG) is a clear and compelling catalyst that serves as a focal point for effort. Unlike smaller goals, the BAG is something that... Read More

A New Conversation About Dreams - Integrity: The Key to Getting What You Want

The most critical attribute for realizing our dreams is integrity. In a conversation about dreams, integrity is essential and can be summarized this way: Say what you... Read More

Motivation and Goal Settings ?The to Do List

What is it that you need to do in order to be successful in your endeavor? One way to find out is to write a daily "To... Read More

The Power of the Negative

The vast majority of us learn very early on that we are expected to deal with facts. In and of itself this might not be such a... Read More

Achieve Your Goals: Embodying Your Intentions to Inspire Manifestation

Bringing life to your ideas is what helps them to manifest in the material world. Embodying your intentions, feeling it all the way through your physical body,... Read More

Create Your Path to Success - Achieve Key Goals

Creating your path to success depends on walking on a firm foundation. Knowing WHAT you want is only the beginning. Visualizing what you want and repeating affirmations... Read More

The Parable of the Jackrabbit: The Missing Key to Effective Goal Setting

So you've got a goal, and you know someone who has already reached it? Maybe it is earning a certain degree, or opening a business and making... Read More

Achieve Anything, One Step At A Time

No matter how ambitious your goal, you CAN achieve it. You do it by taking one little step at a time. Here are a few tips to... Read More

Goal Setting Skills Ensure Success

SO WHAT DOES GOAL SETTING OFFER? It closes the manager-employee gap. Often there are misunderstandings, miscommunication, or even no communication at all between upper management and lower... Read More

Lifes Values

Over time I have come to realize that the three most important subjects in the world to man are sex, property and religion. By the first we... Read More

Writing a Mission and Vision Statement

Last year, I attended a seminar where the attendees were asked to define their personal mission or purpose in one sentence. Out of about a group of... Read More

Climb and Summit Mt. Goals

Are you trying to reach a goal that feels like a large mountain to climb?Climbing a mountain is much easier than one would think. You start at... Read More

Your Goals Are Unique

We have just begun another new year in our lives. It is time to regroup and rethink our goals and desires. Our goals may be partially dictated... Read More

The Top 10 Secrets to Achieving Any Goal

We all have goals that are important to us. They range from quitting smoking, to creating our own businesses, to raising great kids. Unfortunately, most of us... Read More

Goal Setting: Stop Failing and Start Finishing

While the idea of goal setting is not a new concept, we do see an ever-increasing number of people becoming more and more frustrated with setting a... Read More

Get It Done-Or 3 Ways to Advance Your Goals

1. WORK WITH THE END IN MIND- OR FOCUS ON SUCCESS"Beginning with the end in mind is the endowment of imagination . If you are the programmer,... Read More

Its Your Dream - Are You Using The One-Two Punch?

Have you ever noticed? There are some people who seem to know exactly what they want and how to get it. They move toward their targets with... Read More

The Best Way to Quit Smoking: Fasting to Quit

Most quit smoking books, maybe all of them won't tell you what I'm about to tell you next. Fasting is one of the best methods to quit... Read More

Setting Financial Goals - Part 2

In my earlier article "Setting Financial Goals ? Part 1" I identified the 4 simple steps to setting up achievable financial goals. I mentioned that your financial... Read More

Actual Achievement Part 2

In Part 1 I started the discussion on what to focus on in pursuit of a 'time sensitive' goal, a goal you want to achieve right NOW,... Read More

The Importance Of Having A Goal In Life

At the age of twenty two, I read a book that described the importance of having a goal in life. In the books example, a survey had... Read More

7 Ways To Ignite Your Vision

Probably the hardest skill to teach, and the one of the most vital to posess, is vision. Vision requires discipline in order to generate images of what... Read More

Commit It To Paper

Commit it to paper - You have the idea so therefore you have within you the ability to make it a reality. Admittedly it may not always... Read More

Whats the Next Action Step?

Nothing gets done unless an action is completed. Everything we do is an action step. Of course some are so routine they don't really need to be... Read More

The Most Powerful Knowledge Available To Man

In this article you will learn the most powerful knowledge available to man.It is with this knowledge that Andrew Carnagie, a laborer from Scotland, became one of... Read More