From childhood, we have been taught by almost everyone around us the unanimous formula for success – “Never Ever Ever Ever Give Up in any condition and you will succeed”. According to our culture, quitters can never be winners and thus the ones who quit become losers with their only fault being not finishing what they had once liked and started but did not like anymore. So going by these norms and notions, I am a loser for I did quit a while ago. So congratulations, the blog you are reading is written by a loser!
Had I not given up my last partnership to start my own company, I would be bankrupt. Had Bill Gates or Steve Job not given up their college degrees, we would remain deprived of the giants they were able to create by quitting! If I were to define a success formula, it would sound somewhat like this- “quit the wrong thing at the right time”. You want examples- Apple, Coca-Cola, GE so on and so forth, many big companies withdrew lots of their erroneous or inadequate products on right time. Guess what was a common reason behind so many people “quitting”? Really, their reason was quite simple- they knew that the products will not make a big dent in the market and more importantly, they will not become leaders in the market. So instead of giving up a lot of energy which would eventually yield nothing, they decided to invest that energy to fabricate something better and worthwhile.
I can actually give you examples where people decided to stay and not quit, only to end up in disasters! Kodak was once the king of photographic industry. They created the first megapixel digital camera in as early as1986 however, sadly they were not ready to quit their existing photo film technology to shift to digital photography. We all know what happened to them.
I am not saying that quitting is good but my point is many times not quitting is the worst thing that you can do to yourself. Taking a job that pays you well and creates zero interest or desire in you would make you but a mediocre and remember that a quitter is not as big a failure as a mediocre!
Ok, another example! You created a product and with the changing scenario shows that there is no or very little need for this product but you are not ready to give up on this product. Guess how big an impact would it have on your pocket. Instead of trying again and again to work on a product of no value, it is better to sit, think and redesign your strategies to be able to kill it in the market.
Humans are selective listeners. Aren’t we? So when I say that you should quit, I am not asking you to form a habit of quitting everything you started. A quick example! Say you dig one foot in hundred different patches of land anticipating water from all of them. How sane is that? To be able to fetch water, you will have to dig a hundred feet deep at a single place. In a nutshell, quitting because of the fear of facing temporary discomfort does make you a loser.
If I were to conclude this blog, I would tell you that to become a winner you need to know when to quit and when to go on despite the hurdles. Although it might be associated with a bit of short-lived discomfort, quitting can often be the best option in the long run.
The next time you catch yourself being average when you feel like quitting, know that you have only two good choices: Quit or be exceptional.
The average is for losers!