13 ms·

Don’t Quit When It Gets Hard

230 points by plurby 9y ago

rogerb 9y ago
I agree when the challenge is getting to the goal, but people often quit when they don't believe in the goal anymore.
mathgeek 9y ago
> No matter what you do, it’s time to stop watching Netflix every night and browsing webshops for the newest clothes. This is a very narrow view of the world. Success is not explicitly defined as spending every waking hour working. A person who is content with their lot in life, at any level, is already successful.
- syntaxing 9y ago
  So true. I find it crazy how a good amount of people in my generation(I'm in the US and an young engineer so my statistic is probably skewed) find that if you're not spending your time doing then you're wasting your life. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with someone making an honest working a 9-5 job and going home to do whatever they want. Regardless if its watching sports or TV all night. Also, the end of the blogpost is kind of disingenuous. Knowing when to quit is as important as knowing when not to quit. Hard work does not always pay off.
  - maccard 9y ago
    > and going home to do whatever they want. Regardless if its watching sports or TV all night. There's a difference between wanting to do that, and feeling unable to do anything else. If you _want_ to go home and veg for an evening that's OK, but if you can't do anything else, that's probably not OK.
    - JohnKacz 9y ago
      I would say that for an individual it might be hard to honestly determine between those two states. I'd say for myself there have certainly been times where I _thought_ I wanted to play a video game for several hours but ultimately I understood, based on how I felt afterwards, that is not really what I wanted.
      - maccard 9y ago
        It can be on a day to day basis, but if it’s a chronic thing, it’s usually (in retrospect, of course) easy to differentiate. Person 1 goes home every night after work and feels like they want o watch TV, so they do, every day for a year. Person 2 goes home every night and feels the same, however they meet friends/go to the gym/read a book/_something_ different once or twice a week. There’s a world of difference in retrospect.
      - npsimons 9y ago
        > I _thought_ I wanted to play a video game for several hours but ultimately I understood, based on how I felt afterwards, that is not really what I wanted. This is what I'm talking about. I can spend all day watching Netflix, but in the end I will be much happier if I go climbing, write some code, practice for my next musical performance, or read a book that will help me think better (some good fiction can fit into this category). Some games fit into this category, but not many.
  - carvalho 9y ago
    There is nothing wrong with that, but it is good advice if your goal is to become exceptional. The only way to equal or beat someone naturally talented is to put in many hours. Relaxation is good (but try to combine it with activities that are good for you, like jogging, meditation, or taking a shower/doing a house chore.) While you go out to have drinks with your friends, some stay home and work on research and side projects. One makes you happy, the other makes you more skillfull. It is a lever. I do agree that sometimes it can be better to give up. I spend close to a decade of my life trying to understand the subtleties of a single paper. Now I see the broader picture this was definately a Pyrrhic victory.
    - syntaxing 9y ago
      "The only way to equal or beat someone naturally talented is to put in many hours." I totally agree with the sentiment. I work an extra 1-2 hours every day which gives me an additional 260-520 extra hours per year to outperform my peers. However, the older I get, the more I'm starting to think that being exceptional is overrated. Time is arguably the most valuable resource I have. Every extra hour you spend trying to become more skillful is one less hour to "live". The hardest part for me after college was to find this work life balance.
      - SaltyBackendGuy 9y ago
        So much this. I've tried to 'out work' everyone my whole career/life. All that has change recently when I had a baby girl. All we really have is time, so spending it with my daughter has become more of a priority. Instead of grinding tickets on the weekend (obviously if there's a hard deadline then..), my time is spent with my baby. It's so much more rewarding and I am far less stressed all the time. But balance it truly the key.
      - saiya-jin 9y ago
        Outperform for what? Just the feeling of accomplishment? OK I guess, if you require it. For money? Very, very bad strategy (much easier is to simply switch jobs). It is overrated if you work in big corporations, it can be invaluable if you work for yourself/small team, depends. Time and HEALTH are the most invaluable things we have, both are shrinking till we hit 0. Personally, I stopped pursuing latest gimmicks in tech after work, latest frameworks (which would be probably obsolete in couple of years) and one of reasons I don't jump into javascript bandwagon yet. it just feels wrong and like it will pass, hopefully before I need it. If I can learn it during work, cool, otherwise socializing, climbing, adventuring, whatever has always priority. People and experiences. Imagine what amazing experiences and new friends you could have from those 250-500 hours yearly. Logic is simple - right now is the best time of my life, my health won't get magically better, and life will probably bring more problems rather than solve them. I would feel guilty wasting that little time I have by putting in extra hours. So I don't unless its critical.
  - roughfalls 9y ago
    "Knowing when to quit is as important as knowing when not to quit. Hard work does not always pay off." This is the entire subject of Seth Godin's _The Dip_. I'm not a huge fan of this breed of books, but if someone is looking for a lesson on this topic, I would having a look at that book. It's very short -- you can read it in under an hour. It provides a decent mental framework for thinking through the question of whether you should continue on your current path, or quit and switch gears.
    - syntaxing 9y ago
      Interesting, I'm going have to look into this book. I think the hardest part for me personally when I'm making my "quitting" decision is that my emotional attachment tends to supersede my logical thinking.
    - davehtaylor 9y ago
      Reminds me of a quote I heard a while back, not sure the source, went something to the effect of: "Winners never quit, and quitters never win. But a person who never wins and never quits is a fool."
      - dyarosla 9y ago
        Is that the correct phrasing? It would imply that a fool that never wins and never quits should quit... but if quitters never win this fool would be sure to not win once they've quit.
        valesco 9y ago
        Sometimes you don't win.
        s73ver_ 9y ago
        The point is they're not going to win anyway.
        blensor 9y ago
        Can't resist: "The only winning move is not to play" :) But I guess it means that a winner knows when there is no path to a win and retreats to do something where it is actually possible to win.
  - cortesoft 9y ago
    I tend to think of life balance as finding the right ratio of ‘productive’ hours versus ‘consumptive’ hours. I go to work, clean the house, take care of the kid, and work on side projects during my productive hours, and then relax, watch tv, read books, and play video games during my consumptive hours. All of one or the other is not sustainable. Sometimes I feel like I am doing too much of one or the other, and I try to rebalance.
  - madengr 9y ago
    As an engineer, you are supposed to be a slave to your company. Look up the term Karoshi. Anyway, as a middle aged engineer, my advice is to work your ass off when you are young and save a ton of money. Then you won’t be beholden to your employer.
- smhost 9y ago
  In theory, yes. But who among us is truly satisfied? I think not the kind of people who would be reading a self-help blog.
- romanovcode 9y ago
  Reminds me of the fishermen story, actually. - http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2015/09/04/the-fisherman-and-the-businessman/ http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2015/09/04/the-fisherman-and-the-...
  - wastedhours 9y ago
    I love that tale, and try and bring it up when people talk about success and happiness. I also question this as well "We believe there’s a straight line from where you are to where you want to be." - ultimately most of the reasons I've quit something is because of not thinking like this. Usually I'm an optimist around most endeavours in life, but giving up on something is usually because I perceive the path to be even more winding and hard than it could actually be, not because I thought it was easy and was surprised. Quitting, in a number of instances, is the logical choice.
  - inanutshellus 9y ago
    I struggle with "carpe diem" ... (as I suppose we all must) I want the simple life with the friends and the guitar around the fire ... but in this individualistic society I need to be able to feed, clothe, and house myself and those in my care until I fall over dead. Which is, incidentally, long after I'm capable of doing those things aaaaaand raise my kids to give them the best chance of doing the same. Carpe diem alternately seems like a beautiful dream or offensively irresponsible foolishness. I must be the ant... so that those in my care may be the grasshopper.
    - ashark 9y ago
      > aaaaaand raise my kids to give them the best chance of doing the same. There's the tough part. Money buys houses in good school districts (or a spot in a private school) which buys fewer highly-disruptive peers, a much better worst-probable-outcome for available peer groups, and a safer (=less stressful) environment. It's hard to live on the cheap housing-wise with kids, since housing costs are a proxy for school/peer quality, and housing's a big percentage of one's spending. Plus it's harder to find housing in good school districts with enough space for more than ~1 kid in car-free commuting range of business districts in most cities, et c., et c. Harder to achieve that paid-off house which is so very important to early retirement. Plus, you've really got to maintain decent health insurance, which in the US means steady employment with a somewhat stable company. Then you're both working because you need that money to cover the higher priced housing without risking rapid homelessness in the case of a layoff, but now whichever of you's lower-paid and might otherwise stay home is probably working around or below minimum wage, effectively, because child care is so damn expensive. Whole thing seems like a trap designed to eat all your money. Having three kids took us from "will probably retire very comfortably by age 50, without even having to try that hard" to "will very likely never retire".
- yesimahuman 9y ago
  I was with him until this point. Part of “not quitting” for me is having balance. Sometimes quitting is just wanting change because I can’t get out of my head because I’m working nonstop. If I didn’t allow myself to watch some Netflix or play video games I’d never detach enough to be patient and keep at it.
- shubhamjain 9y ago
  Try this experiment. Don't Netflix for a month. Instead, write something, everyday. Post it on your blog if your like but more importantly, try to see, at the end of the month, if your writing has meaningfully improved; if it has, has it made you happy about your progress? There is obviously nothing wrong in leisure after work but the alternative can often be better. It can make you more skilled and more successful. It's an investment that reaps awesome benefits in the longer run.
  - pps43 9y ago
    The problem with this approach is that it's hard to measure progress. I can't objectively tell if my writing has improved (if I knew I was making mistakes, I wouldn't be making them). Popularity of a blog is also not a good metric because it depends a lot on how effectively you promote it.
  - sotojuan 9y ago
    Your writing is not going to improve this way. You need at least one competent person editing and reviewing your writing. However, the idea/experiment is interesting and I may try it one day!
    - jogjayr 9y ago
      I disagree slightly. That's like saying you can't become a better cook without someone else eating and judging your cooking. If you read a lot you have developed "taste" for good writing. When you're starting out, just writing something you yourself don't hate can be challenging (if you're honest with yourself). Heck, I re-wrote this comment 3 times before I didn't hate it :-) I agree that eventually, once you're at a certain level, you need someone reviewing your writing.
      - superb_herb 9y ago
        I suspect more than a few people with writing ambitions don't actually read all that much.
- falcolas 9y ago
  There’s a quote which pops up in my wallpaper rotation about this: Time you enjoyed wasting is not wasted time. Having a stable home life, emotional health, and a variety of hobbies will stand you in good stead as a programmer in he long run; the end goal of our code is rarely the code itself, and being even partially familiar with the domain (via hobbies) will help improve the output of your coding.
  - EADGBE 9y ago
    Agreed, I've met too many younger people who confuse success with passion and are (surely) on their way to being burned out by it all.
  - npsimons 9y ago
    > Time you enjoyed wasting is not wasted time. > variety of hobbies That's the thing though: do people really enjoy passively consuming entertainment? I can't speak for others, but it makes a world of difference when I spend my free time doing things rather than vegging out. Maybe it's just a successful coping strategy I've developed to forget about being depressed. I also can't help but feel that becoming more passive, and getting wearied by the onslaught of information has not done us any favors as a country. It's hard to articulate, and I'm sure there are other factors, but when people can't be bothered, or are too tired, to take an interest in their civic duties, we end up with dysfunctional government.
    - datawarrior 9y ago
      > Maybe it's just a successful coping strategy I've developed to forget about being depressed I wouldn't dare diagnose anyone but I can tell you from experience this is often what it is. My father for example is a highly depressed person, if he stops for any length of time to dwell on things he falls deeply into a deep depression. As a result he's learned how to add additions to the house, do his own roofing, build decks, fix his own vehicles. He has a 1500 sq ft barn filled to the brim with tools and tractors that he uses regularly. He was a software engineer before retirement and taught himself how to use all this stuff. He jokes about all the money he's saved doing these things for himself but I helped him inventory all his things and he's roughly spent 2x as much on tools and toys than he would have had he just hired a contractor. That depressed him until I explained that the gain he got from doing it himself off set that. Honestly, the man isn't happy unless his hands are cut up and dirty.
- dpeck 9y ago
  That’s fine, but generally one isn’t going to be monetarily successful doing that. Which is cool, honestly we are collectively way too driven by that for it to be healthy for most of the population. There are however way too many people who do this and wonder why they don’t get ahead. With few exceptions successful people spent their 20s hustling and their 30s polishing. Whether that’s lots of hours outside of the office coding, or sharpening social skills/building their network, and learning new skills of some sort. If someone has relatively the same skillset at 32 that they had at 22, they’re going to have a rough time of it when they start building a life with a partner and have kids/parents to take care of.
  - mathgeek 9y ago
    My point remains that evolving your skillset and being successful is not exclusive from spending your evenings at leisure.
- demonshalo 9y ago
  > A person who is content with their lot in life, at any level, is already successful. I personally think that's a load of hippie crap. If that was truly the case then there are already far more successful people than not. Success has an element of perseverance attached to it. If success was easy to attain it wouldn't be so sought out. Content with life is the exact opposite of that, it is accepting whatever you have been given rather than pushing through in reach for a better life for yourself and society as a whole. In addition, I think that equating content with success is _extremely_ dangerous. As a Swede, I can't stress that enough. Society cannot progress if its individuals are not reaching for the betterment of themselves. This idea is captured best by the Scandinavia's Jante Law[1] and its effects are very well studied and known to be negative to the improvement of society as a whole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
- xhrpost 9y ago
  There's a market for performance shame in the blogosphere. We love to read about why we're not accomplishing enough and if we just neglected our need for rest (outside of sleep) we could achieve so much more than the person next to us. We often don't actually do it, but we somehow like being told how bad we are for not doing so.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- overcast 9y ago
  Someone from our office just died over the weekend, we all found out about an hour ago. They were the type of person that essentially spent their waking hours working for this company. Crack of dawn up, and last to leave, working after hours, and on weekends. I'm betting in their final hour they didn't wish they were still at work, or got more hours in. Busting your ass working IS a waste of life. You can be passionate about your work, but don't be ridiculous. You're only here once.
  - heyyou123 9y ago
    I get what you're saying, but in the article the guy is working towards a life goal - to work for himself, not for someone else.
    - overcast 9y ago
      Sure, but my statement stands. Life is about balance.
      - logical42 9y ago
        For you maybe. Probably not for Elon Musk.
        overcast 9y ago
        There are only a few people per century at the level of Elon Musk. This isn't the same discussion.
        kwoff 9y ago
        [citation needed] There are, of course, many people "at the level" of Elon Musk. (I don't mean that flippantly, either.)
        overcast 9y ago
        Sounds like you have that citation already on hand. Give me that list of many people doing the equivalent of sending people to Mars, changing the auto industry, and building an alternative energy empire.
- csomar 9y ago
  I'd agree but only if you are doing your working hours (ie: you are doing 6-7 hours of productive work everyday). Otherwise, you might be just looking for any distractions to avoid work.
dogruck 9y ago
If only it were so simple. It is that simple when you are, say, running an endurance race. Abide "don't quit" and you will finish. But in real life, you're presented with a continual stream of alternative opportunities. And these days "I quit" has subtly morphed into "I pivot."
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  > It is that simple when you are, say, running an endurance race. It isn't. If things are starting to cause pain, or bleed, or you're vomiting, or ... there are many sensible reasons to cut short or abandon an endurance race. > Abide "don't quit" and you will finish. Or do yourself damage that will take months to recover from.
  - zimpenfish 9y ago
    As a personal anecdote, I cut short a 24h race this summer at 17h because, even though it was ~20degC, I spent an entire lap shivering even though I had t-shirt + thick hoody + hat. That was a pretty big warning that I'd pushed too far and further would have laid me out.
    - dogruck 9y ago
      There's no shame in stopping. Sounds like you were hypothermic, which is a common reason for DNFs. From my experience, I would say that you wouldn't have been able to continue even if you needed to. Also, always beware of the spectrum. Some people would say running for 17 hours is impossible. Others would say they shivered uncontrollably at 17 hours and roughed out 3 more hours before dropping. Others still would hit 24 hours and wish they could keep going.
      - zimpenfish 9y ago
        > There's no shame in stopping. Oh, I know. I was there primarily to support a 100-miler anyway which made the decision a lot easier. > I would say that you wouldn't have been able to continue even if you needed to. Yeah, I spent the next couple of hours just slumped under a table trying to get warm and eat food.
helmyarman 9y ago
If you quit, you must know you have given another human a chance to do better than you did.
- EADGBE 9y ago
  Make sure during your Race of Life you stop and enjoy it.
TheReveller 9y ago
If you don't quit, maybe you'll never start the next thing that will succeed. A blind 'just work harder' ethic doesn't necessarily mean success. It's such crap to say that everyone who never quits succeeds. Not only that, but it means that if you decide to do something else, you'll feel like it was a moral failure to stop doing what you were doing. So you'll blame yourself, and you won't examine honestly why didn't it work, what was things were out of my control. Learning from the experience is the most valuable part. I spent close to 10 years on something that didn't succeed. The problem was it didn't fail either, so you just keep telling yourself that it's going to happen one day. Looking back on it objectively it was never going to work. Take an honest view, don't just sing in the choir of the church of you.
- TheReveller 9y ago
  On reflection - what you shouldn't quit at is having a growth mindset and always improving. Definitely do that.
- datawarrior 9y ago
  > If you don't quit, maybe you'll never start the next thing that will succeed In Agile this would be "fail fast". One of the few things I like about Agile personally.
dannyw 9y ago
I wonder if Darius has heard of Borderline Personality Disorder. I immediately thought of it reading this post. I suffer from BPD myself, and I've noticed far greater symptoms of wanting to quit compared to people around me - the grass is always greener, and I want something until I have it. That has resulted in very unstable jobs, careers, and relationships. Just like Darius's post, actually following up and quitting didn't make me happier. Rather, worse. There's a honeymoon period, but soon I disliked the new thing, and wanted to go back to the old thing. Deep down, it turns out this is a symptom of not loving myself and being happy with who I am - and feelings of neglect, shame, and guilt from childhood. I seek new jobs, experiences, friends, and relationships because I think that will make me content - but that's flawed as you will never love anything until you love yourself; and surprisingly my empty self identity is the cause of hating programming, or hating product management, or hating my work. Other symptoms of BPD are seeing things in black and white ('splitting'), wide emotional swings, intense fears of detachment, chronic feelings of emptiness, and more. Those are usually traced to childhood abandonment; whether it's losing parents, moving countries, or a troublesome upbringing. If any of this sounds like you, I'd suggest looking more into BPD. There's a book called "I hate you, don't leave me"; that while not perfect and critiqued in some areas, is a great explanation of BPD. But also, don't self-diagnose; don't think you have BPD just because you want to quit.
- graphitezepp 9y ago
  Not being able to love yourself sucks. You can't find happiness when you don't want it, don't feel like you deserve it.
- someonewhocar3s 9y ago
  Love is as undefined as Respect, so "not loving one's self" is actually undefined as well. I suppose it relates to being at peace with your place in the world, which is actually Confucian philosophy in a weird jacket. What you're describing is a garbled bunch of "I don't understand how to evaluate my life, how I spend my time and who I am. I just know I'm not content about it." - which is really not a disorder. You just suck at critical reflection, and something is probably actually wrong with your life according to your nature (our environment is unnatural, so this might not be significant). You might go "OMG ARMCHAIR PSYCHOLOGIST" but the truth is, psychology is not a science. They have no scientific process. If you think they do, check yourself b4 you wreck yourself. Psychology is making up stories that fit, and trying to test if they don't. Since the brain is a mystery, there's really no reliable way to do it. Not science. End of story. It can be useful, because, well, these stories are not disproven so they're pretty robust. Except psychology doesn't really help people, statistically speaking. So I go with occahms razor: the simplest story that fits is the real one. BPD? Not a very simple story.
mack1001 9y ago
I doubt it's that simple. There are things you should just quit - things that mess with your mental stability. Then there are things that exercise the right muscles but is downright hard, the ones you should persist for the value you gain at the end of it. Being patient is a great virtue till it isn't. Edit: typo
GeorgeSarkis 9y ago
>> Darius Foroux: "I’m an entrepreneur, author, and podcaster. I also research tools to build a better life, career, and business. Join my free newsletter if you want to get my latest articles delivered to your inbox." Another collection of pseudointellectual predigested positive platitudes.
- stefanwlb 9y ago
  These type of blogs are popping up like flies, just rehashing what others have said without any added substance or power.
- whipoodle 9y ago
  Gotta build that brand, baby!
agumonkey 9y ago
I like that drawing. In music I represent learning as a black map, with gray areas around tiny white spots, which are valid intuitions/concepts. Learning something really knew, means whole black map, blindness, you can only walk randomly and think you hit a white spot but it's only a gray area. Then you have more gray areas but they don't work right yet. After a while you can finely tune the walk and locate the white spots. When you have lots of white spots, you know. And if you're fast, it's just because you don't have to walk anymore, you can jumpskip right to the appropriate white spot to evaluate a situation or phenomenon.
shubhamjain 9y ago
An important lesson I have learned recently is that doing hard things never pays dividends in the shorter run; in fact, it make you miserable in that period. The benefits are only realised in the longer run. What if you commit yourself to send one newspaper pitch every week? Quite likely, you will face rejections and it will make feel dejected. However, gradually, your pitches will start improving, you'll get better at writing them, and eventually, one of yours will get accepted. Then, probably another. Hurray! you have broken into publishing industry as a freelance writer. From all the things related to writing I have read, this advice is present in almost every one of them. The recipe sounds simple but it's easy enough to quit with just one rejections. In writing, business, dating or anything that requires effort. If you persist, however, don't take failure personally, it doesn't take long to get better at that.
- baby 9y ago
  Stephen King tells a similar story in his book On Writing :)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
baby 9y ago
In the Coursera course about learning, one thing one of the professor say is that every successful people have this in common: persistence. Nothing can be achieved without persistence.
codingdave 9y ago
On the flip side of that, don't stick with a failing endeavor just because it is hard and you have put a lot of energy into it. Make an intelligent analysis of your current position and trajectory in life, and decide whether or not to change your direction based on your long-term goals. Sometimes sticking with it is the right answer... sometimes it isn't.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
twelfthnight 9y ago
"Know when to quit and when not to quit" is better advice then just "don't quit". However, I think this article is aimed at the situation where you know you shouldn't quit, but you do because it's hard. For example, regular exercise. Something that has worked for me is committing myself to a short amount time doing the thing I don't want to do. I'll tell myself "after 5 minutes, if I still don't want to do this then I'll stop". Nearly always once I start washing the dishes or start a run, I'm happy to finish.
- Retra 9y ago
  That kind of stuff doesn't work for me; I can't "outsmart" myself by trying to take ad-hoc self-delivered advice. If I said something like that to myself, my brain would respond "nice try, I'm not that gullible. If quitting after five minutes were a reasonable outcome, then never starting is a reasonable outcome. Why don't I just wait until later?" If I know it's a trick enough to try it, then I know it's a trick enough to see through it.
  - pegasus 9y ago
    Doesn't have to be a trick though. As long as some measurable dent in the pile of work is made, that's infinitely more than none at all, right? One way to make this real is for the first few times, to commit to definitely stop after the short interval decided for. So work out for those five minutes and then stop even when feeling like going longer. This way there's no trick involved. It's about removing the pressure to accomplish a significant dent and allow yourself to feel some satisfaction still, as long as there is a positive contribution. Small steps and all that...
  - loco5niner 9y ago
    > I can't "outsmart" myself This isn't "outsmarting" yourself, its simply getting past the hardest part. It's difficult to "get off the couch" if I think I'm committing myself to running 10 miles. But I can easily get off the couch to run for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, I can quit, or keep going. Sometimes I quit, sometimes I keep going.
nsomaru 9y ago
'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds' — Emerson
mythrwy 9y ago
Don't quit just because it gets hard. But don't persist if it isn't worth it. Which decision should be made independently of personal discomfort. (Also, in general don't take life advice from 20 something Internet marketers. Why do you clog up the interwebs people? Please quit! Not because it's hard but because volume of SEO junk to sell some coaching books is simply not needed by humanity. Lets improve the quality of the net with original ideas rather than rehashing again and again. Do something worth doing or do not do at all.)
jrs235 9y ago
Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward by Henry Cloud.[1] "Endings:The Good Cannot Begin Until the Bad Ends" Sometimes you have to quit the bad or good so that you can start the good or better. [1] http://amzn.to/2yJiImE http://amzn.to/2yJiImE
- npsimons 9y ago
  > “There’s a trick to the 'graceful exit.' It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, or a relationship is over — and let it go. It means leaving what’s over without denying its validity or its past importance to our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving up, rather than out.” ― Ellen Goodman
whipoodle 9y ago
I just want to make enough to where I don’t have to work in this industry, at least for a little while. It’s fucking awful.
wruza 9y ago
Idk much about other things in this essay, but his goal is always on imagination line, while in reality it is, well, constrained somewhere on reality curve (at most). Given that imagined goal = real, it is pretty easy to not quit. Hard part is, complex goals are often just a mirage.
ManlyBread 9y ago
I like to face difficult problems, but I do expect to gain something in return. I also expect actual challenges and not just a pile of annoyances. Unfortunately, most of the time the reward is that you just get to work on even more annoying problems.
- s73ver_ 9y ago
  Far too many mistake annoyances for challenge.
mirrormind 9y ago
He is speaking in the context of once you set a goal then don't quit. Eg: I have to get a job in one month. Now, once you define a goal that is measurable and is important to you. Will you be able to watch netflix if you are consumed by your goal day and night? If your thoughts are fooling you,then you will get discouraged by every small failure. I think it helps to be less emotional and mechanical in the pursuit of a goal.
RockinRobinCo 9y ago
Good read
module0000 9y ago
To look at this article from my own viewpoint(who else's?), this is about "do I stop out now, wait, or move my stop loss and hope it turns around(hah!)". Know when to keep going, but more importantly, know when to quit. Not knowing when to quit is how you go bankrupt, die, and/or cause other people to do either.
eroccatlun 9y ago
Never quit on your own goals. Its fine to quit when other peoples goals involve using your man-power for their own gain and you see less and less reason to continue being a part of it.

230 points by plurby 9y ago

I agree when the challenge is getting to the goal, but people often quit when they don't believe in the goal anymore.

> No matter what you do, it’s time to stop watching Netflix every night and browsing webshops for the newest clothes. This is a very narrow view of the world. Success is not explicitly defined as spending every waking hour working. A person who is content with their lot in life, at any level, is already successful.

syntaxing 9y ago
So true. I find it crazy how a good amount of people in my generation(I'm in the US and an young engineer so my statistic is probably skewed) find that if you're not spending your time doing then you're wasting your life. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with someone making an honest working a 9-5 job and going home to do whatever they want. Regardless if its watching sports or TV all night. Also, the end of the blogpost is kind of disingenuous. Knowing when to quit is as important as knowing when not to quit. Hard work does not always pay off.
- maccard 9y ago
  > and going home to do whatever they want. Regardless if its watching sports or TV all night. There's a difference between wanting to do that, and feeling unable to do anything else. If you _want_ to go home and veg for an evening that's OK, but if you can't do anything else, that's probably not OK.
  - JohnKacz 9y ago
    I would say that for an individual it might be hard to honestly determine between those two states. I'd say for myself there have certainly been times where I _thought_ I wanted to play a video game for several hours but ultimately I understood, based on how I felt afterwards, that is not really what I wanted.
    - maccard 9y ago
      It can be on a day to day basis, but if it’s a chronic thing, it’s usually (in retrospect, of course) easy to differentiate. Person 1 goes home every night after work and feels like they want o watch TV, so they do, every day for a year. Person 2 goes home every night and feels the same, however they meet friends/go to the gym/read a book/_something_ different once or twice a week. There’s a world of difference in retrospect.
    - npsimons 9y ago
      > I _thought_ I wanted to play a video game for several hours but ultimately I understood, based on how I felt afterwards, that is not really what I wanted. This is what I'm talking about. I can spend all day watching Netflix, but in the end I will be much happier if I go climbing, write some code, practice for my next musical performance, or read a book that will help me think better (some good fiction can fit into this category). Some games fit into this category, but not many.
- carvalho 9y ago
  There is nothing wrong with that, but it is good advice if your goal is to become exceptional. The only way to equal or beat someone naturally talented is to put in many hours. Relaxation is good (but try to combine it with activities that are good for you, like jogging, meditation, or taking a shower/doing a house chore.) While you go out to have drinks with your friends, some stay home and work on research and side projects. One makes you happy, the other makes you more skillfull. It is a lever. I do agree that sometimes it can be better to give up. I spend close to a decade of my life trying to understand the subtleties of a single paper. Now I see the broader picture this was definately a Pyrrhic victory.
  - syntaxing 9y ago
    "The only way to equal or beat someone naturally talented is to put in many hours." I totally agree with the sentiment. I work an extra 1-2 hours every day which gives me an additional 260-520 extra hours per year to outperform my peers. However, the older I get, the more I'm starting to think that being exceptional is overrated. Time is arguably the most valuable resource I have. Every extra hour you spend trying to become more skillful is one less hour to "live". The hardest part for me after college was to find this work life balance.
    - SaltyBackendGuy 9y ago
      So much this. I've tried to 'out work' everyone my whole career/life. All that has change recently when I had a baby girl. All we really have is time, so spending it with my daughter has become more of a priority. Instead of grinding tickets on the weekend (obviously if there's a hard deadline then..), my time is spent with my baby. It's so much more rewarding and I am far less stressed all the time. But balance it truly the key.
    - saiya-jin 9y ago
      Outperform for what? Just the feeling of accomplishment? OK I guess, if you require it. For money? Very, very bad strategy (much easier is to simply switch jobs). It is overrated if you work in big corporations, it can be invaluable if you work for yourself/small team, depends. Time and HEALTH are the most invaluable things we have, both are shrinking till we hit 0. Personally, I stopped pursuing latest gimmicks in tech after work, latest frameworks (which would be probably obsolete in couple of years) and one of reasons I don't jump into javascript bandwagon yet. it just feels wrong and like it will pass, hopefully before I need it. If I can learn it during work, cool, otherwise socializing, climbing, adventuring, whatever has always priority. People and experiences. Imagine what amazing experiences and new friends you could have from those 250-500 hours yearly. Logic is simple - right now is the best time of my life, my health won't get magically better, and life will probably bring more problems rather than solve them. I would feel guilty wasting that little time I have by putting in extra hours. So I don't unless its critical.
- roughfalls 9y ago
  "Knowing when to quit is as important as knowing when not to quit. Hard work does not always pay off." This is the entire subject of Seth Godin's _The Dip_. I'm not a huge fan of this breed of books, but if someone is looking for a lesson on this topic, I would having a look at that book. It's very short -- you can read it in under an hour. It provides a decent mental framework for thinking through the question of whether you should continue on your current path, or quit and switch gears.
  - syntaxing 9y ago
    Interesting, I'm going have to look into this book. I think the hardest part for me personally when I'm making my "quitting" decision is that my emotional attachment tends to supersede my logical thinking.
  - davehtaylor 9y ago
    Reminds me of a quote I heard a while back, not sure the source, went something to the effect of: "Winners never quit, and quitters never win. But a person who never wins and never quits is a fool."
    - dyarosla 9y ago
      Is that the correct phrasing? It would imply that a fool that never wins and never quits should quit... but if quitters never win this fool would be sure to not win once they've quit.
      - valesco 9y ago
        Sometimes you don't win.
      - s73ver_ 9y ago
        The point is they're not going to win anyway.
      - blensor 9y ago
        Can't resist: "The only winning move is not to play" :) But I guess it means that a winner knows when there is no path to a win and retreats to do something where it is actually possible to win.
- cortesoft 9y ago
  I tend to think of life balance as finding the right ratio of ‘productive’ hours versus ‘consumptive’ hours. I go to work, clean the house, take care of the kid, and work on side projects during my productive hours, and then relax, watch tv, read books, and play video games during my consumptive hours. All of one or the other is not sustainable. Sometimes I feel like I am doing too much of one or the other, and I try to rebalance.
- madengr 9y ago
  As an engineer, you are supposed to be a slave to your company. Look up the term Karoshi. Anyway, as a middle aged engineer, my advice is to work your ass off when you are young and save a ton of money. Then you won’t be beholden to your employer.
smhost 9y ago
In theory, yes. But who among us is truly satisfied? I think not the kind of people who would be reading a self-help blog.
romanovcode 9y ago
Reminds me of the fishermen story, actually. - http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2015/09/04/the-fisherman-and-the-businessman/ http://paulocoelhoblog.com/2015/09/04/the-fisherman-and-the-...
- wastedhours 9y ago
  I love that tale, and try and bring it up when people talk about success and happiness. I also question this as well "We believe there’s a straight line from where you are to where you want to be." - ultimately most of the reasons I've quit something is because of not thinking like this. Usually I'm an optimist around most endeavours in life, but giving up on something is usually because I perceive the path to be even more winding and hard than it could actually be, not because I thought it was easy and was surprised. Quitting, in a number of instances, is the logical choice.
- inanutshellus 9y ago
  I struggle with "carpe diem" ... (as I suppose we all must) I want the simple life with the friends and the guitar around the fire ... but in this individualistic society I need to be able to feed, clothe, and house myself and those in my care until I fall over dead. Which is, incidentally, long after I'm capable of doing those things aaaaaand raise my kids to give them the best chance of doing the same. Carpe diem alternately seems like a beautiful dream or offensively irresponsible foolishness. I must be the ant... so that those in my care may be the grasshopper.
  - ashark 9y ago
    > aaaaaand raise my kids to give them the best chance of doing the same. There's the tough part. Money buys houses in good school districts (or a spot in a private school) which buys fewer highly-disruptive peers, a much better worst-probable-outcome for available peer groups, and a safer (=less stressful) environment. It's hard to live on the cheap housing-wise with kids, since housing costs are a proxy for school/peer quality, and housing's a big percentage of one's spending. Plus it's harder to find housing in good school districts with enough space for more than ~1 kid in car-free commuting range of business districts in most cities, et c., et c. Harder to achieve that paid-off house which is so very important to early retirement. Plus, you've really got to maintain decent health insurance, which in the US means steady employment with a somewhat stable company. Then you're both working because you need that money to cover the higher priced housing without risking rapid homelessness in the case of a layoff, but now whichever of you's lower-paid and might otherwise stay home is probably working around or below minimum wage, effectively, because child care is so damn expensive. Whole thing seems like a trap designed to eat all your money. Having three kids took us from "will probably retire very comfortably by age 50, without even having to try that hard" to "will very likely never retire".
yesimahuman 9y ago
I was with him until this point. Part of “not quitting” for me is having balance. Sometimes quitting is just wanting change because I can’t get out of my head because I’m working nonstop. If I didn’t allow myself to watch some Netflix or play video games I’d never detach enough to be patient and keep at it.
shubhamjain 9y ago
Try this experiment. Don't Netflix for a month. Instead, write something, everyday. Post it on your blog if your like but more importantly, try to see, at the end of the month, if your writing has meaningfully improved; if it has, has it made you happy about your progress? There is obviously nothing wrong in leisure after work but the alternative can often be better. It can make you more skilled and more successful. It's an investment that reaps awesome benefits in the longer run.
- pps43 9y ago
  The problem with this approach is that it's hard to measure progress. I can't objectively tell if my writing has improved (if I knew I was making mistakes, I wouldn't be making them). Popularity of a blog is also not a good metric because it depends a lot on how effectively you promote it.
- sotojuan 9y ago
  Your writing is not going to improve this way. You need at least one competent person editing and reviewing your writing. However, the idea/experiment is interesting and I may try it one day!
  - jogjayr 9y ago
    I disagree slightly. That's like saying you can't become a better cook without someone else eating and judging your cooking. If you read a lot you have developed "taste" for good writing. When you're starting out, just writing something you yourself don't hate can be challenging (if you're honest with yourself). Heck, I re-wrote this comment 3 times before I didn't hate it :-) I agree that eventually, once you're at a certain level, you need someone reviewing your writing.
    - superb_herb 9y ago
      I suspect more than a few people with writing ambitions don't actually read all that much.
falcolas 9y ago
There’s a quote which pops up in my wallpaper rotation about this: Time you enjoyed wasting is not wasted time. Having a stable home life, emotional health, and a variety of hobbies will stand you in good stead as a programmer in he long run; the end goal of our code is rarely the code itself, and being even partially familiar with the domain (via hobbies) will help improve the output of your coding.
- EADGBE 9y ago
  Agreed, I've met too many younger people who confuse success with passion and are (surely) on their way to being burned out by it all.
- npsimons 9y ago
  > Time you enjoyed wasting is not wasted time. > variety of hobbies That's the thing though: do people really enjoy passively consuming entertainment? I can't speak for others, but it makes a world of difference when I spend my free time doing things rather than vegging out. Maybe it's just a successful coping strategy I've developed to forget about being depressed. I also can't help but feel that becoming more passive, and getting wearied by the onslaught of information has not done us any favors as a country. It's hard to articulate, and I'm sure there are other factors, but when people can't be bothered, or are too tired, to take an interest in their civic duties, we end up with dysfunctional government.
  - datawarrior 9y ago
    > Maybe it's just a successful coping strategy I've developed to forget about being depressed I wouldn't dare diagnose anyone but I can tell you from experience this is often what it is. My father for example is a highly depressed person, if he stops for any length of time to dwell on things he falls deeply into a deep depression. As a result he's learned how to add additions to the house, do his own roofing, build decks, fix his own vehicles. He has a 1500 sq ft barn filled to the brim with tools and tractors that he uses regularly. He was a software engineer before retirement and taught himself how to use all this stuff. He jokes about all the money he's saved doing these things for himself but I helped him inventory all his things and he's roughly spent 2x as much on tools and toys than he would have had he just hired a contractor. That depressed him until I explained that the gain he got from doing it himself off set that. Honestly, the man isn't happy unless his hands are cut up and dirty.
dpeck 9y ago
That’s fine, but generally one isn’t going to be monetarily successful doing that. Which is cool, honestly we are collectively way too driven by that for it to be healthy for most of the population. There are however way too many people who do this and wonder why they don’t get ahead. With few exceptions successful people spent their 20s hustling and their 30s polishing. Whether that’s lots of hours outside of the office coding, or sharpening social skills/building their network, and learning new skills of some sort. If someone has relatively the same skillset at 32 that they had at 22, they’re going to have a rough time of it when they start building a life with a partner and have kids/parents to take care of.
- mathgeek 9y ago
  My point remains that evolving your skillset and being successful is not exclusive from spending your evenings at leisure.
demonshalo 9y ago
> A person who is content with their lot in life, at any level, is already successful. I personally think that's a load of hippie crap. If that was truly the case then there are already far more successful people than not. Success has an element of perseverance attached to it. If success was easy to attain it wouldn't be so sought out. Content with life is the exact opposite of that, it is accepting whatever you have been given rather than pushing through in reach for a better life for yourself and society as a whole. In addition, I think that equating content with success is _extremely_ dangerous. As a Swede, I can't stress that enough. Society cannot progress if its individuals are not reaching for the betterment of themselves. This idea is captured best by the Scandinavia's Jante Law[1] and its effects are very well studied and known to be negative to the improvement of society as a whole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
xhrpost 9y ago
There's a market for performance shame in the blogosphere. We love to read about why we're not accomplishing enough and if we just neglected our need for rest (outside of sleep) we could achieve so much more than the person next to us. We often don't actually do it, but we somehow like being told how bad we are for not doing so.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
overcast 9y ago
Someone from our office just died over the weekend, we all found out about an hour ago. They were the type of person that essentially spent their waking hours working for this company. Crack of dawn up, and last to leave, working after hours, and on weekends. I'm betting in their final hour they didn't wish they were still at work, or got more hours in. Busting your ass working IS a waste of life. You can be passionate about your work, but don't be ridiculous. You're only here once.
- heyyou123 9y ago
  I get what you're saying, but in the article the guy is working towards a life goal - to work for himself, not for someone else.
  - overcast 9y ago
    Sure, but my statement stands. Life is about balance.
    - logical42 9y ago
      For you maybe. Probably not for Elon Musk.
      - overcast 9y ago
        There are only a few people per century at the level of Elon Musk. This isn't the same discussion.
        kwoff 9y ago
        [citation needed] There are, of course, many people "at the level" of Elon Musk. (I don't mean that flippantly, either.)
        overcast 9y ago
        Sounds like you have that citation already on hand. Give me that list of many people doing the equivalent of sending people to Mars, changing the auto industry, and building an alternative energy empire.
csomar 9y ago
I'd agree but only if you are doing your working hours (ie: you are doing 6-7 hours of productive work everyday). Otherwise, you might be just looking for any distractions to avoid work.

dogruck 9y ago

If only it were so simple. It is that simple when you are, say, running an endurance race. Abide "don't quit" and you will finish. But in real life, you're presented with a continual stream of alternative opportunities. And these days "I quit" has subtly morphed into "I pivot."

zimpenfish 9y ago
> It is that simple when you are, say, running an endurance race. It isn't. If things are starting to cause pain, or bleed, or you're vomiting, or ... there are many sensible reasons to cut short or abandon an endurance race. > Abide "don't quit" and you will finish. Or do yourself damage that will take months to recover from.
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  As a personal anecdote, I cut short a 24h race this summer at 17h because, even though it was ~20degC, I spent an entire lap shivering even though I had t-shirt + thick hoody + hat. That was a pretty big warning that I'd pushed too far and further would have laid me out.
  - dogruck 9y ago
    There's no shame in stopping. Sounds like you were hypothermic, which is a common reason for DNFs. From my experience, I would say that you wouldn't have been able to continue even if you needed to. Also, always beware of the spectrum. Some people would say running for 17 hours is impossible. Others would say they shivered uncontrollably at 17 hours and roughed out 3 more hours before dropping. Others still would hit 24 hours and wish they could keep going.
    - zimpenfish 9y ago
      > There's no shame in stopping. Oh, I know. I was there primarily to support a 100-miler anyway which made the decision a lot easier. > I would say that you wouldn't have been able to continue even if you needed to. Yeah, I spent the next couple of hours just slumped under a table trying to get warm and eat food.

helmyarman 9y ago

If you quit, you must know you have given another human a chance to do better than you did.

EADGBE 9y ago
Make sure during your Race of Life you stop and enjoy it.

TheReveller 9y ago

If you don't quit, maybe you'll never start the next thing that will succeed. A blind 'just work harder' ethic doesn't necessarily mean success. It's such crap to say that everyone who never quits succeeds. Not only that, but it means that if you decide to do something else, you'll feel like it was a moral failure to stop doing what you were doing. So you'll blame yourself, and you won't examine honestly why didn't it work, what was things were out of my control. Learning from the experience is the most valuable part. I spent close to 10 years on something that didn't succeed. The problem was it didn't fail either, so you just keep telling yourself that it's going to happen one day. Looking back on it objectively it was never going to work. Take an honest view, don't just sing in the choir of the church of you.

TheReveller 9y ago
On reflection - what you shouldn't quit at is having a growth mindset and always improving. Definitely do that.
datawarrior 9y ago
> If you don't quit, maybe you'll never start the next thing that will succeed In Agile this would be "fail fast". One of the few things I like about Agile personally.

dannyw 9y ago

I wonder if Darius has heard of Borderline Personality Disorder. I immediately thought of it reading this post. I suffer from BPD myself, and I've noticed far greater symptoms of wanting to quit compared to people around me - the grass is always greener, and I want something until I have it. That has resulted in very unstable jobs, careers, and relationships. Just like Darius's post, actually following up and quitting didn't make me happier. Rather, worse. There's a honeymoon period, but soon I disliked the new thing, and wanted to go back to the old thing. Deep down, it turns out this is a symptom of not loving myself and being happy with who I am - and feelings of neglect, shame, and guilt from childhood. I seek new jobs, experiences, friends, and relationships because I think that will make me content - but that's flawed as you will never love anything until you love yourself; and surprisingly my empty self identity is the cause of hating programming, or hating product management, or hating my work. Other symptoms of BPD are seeing things in black and white ('splitting'), wide emotional swings, intense fears of detachment, chronic feelings of emptiness, and more. Those are usually traced to childhood abandonment; whether it's losing parents, moving countries, or a troublesome upbringing. If any of this sounds like you, I'd suggest looking more into BPD. There's a book called "I hate you, don't leave me"; that while not perfect and critiqued in some areas, is a great explanation of BPD. But also, don't self-diagnose; don't think you have BPD just because you want to quit.

graphitezepp 9y ago
Not being able to love yourself sucks. You can't find happiness when you don't want it, don't feel like you deserve it.
someonewhocar3s 9y ago
Love is as undefined as Respect, so "not loving one's self" is actually undefined as well. I suppose it relates to being at peace with your place in the world, which is actually Confucian philosophy in a weird jacket. What you're describing is a garbled bunch of "I don't understand how to evaluate my life, how I spend my time and who I am. I just know I'm not content about it." - which is really not a disorder. You just suck at critical reflection, and something is probably actually wrong with your life according to your nature (our environment is unnatural, so this might not be significant). You might go "OMG ARMCHAIR PSYCHOLOGIST" but the truth is, psychology is not a science. They have no scientific process. If you think they do, check yourself b4 you wreck yourself. Psychology is making up stories that fit, and trying to test if they don't. Since the brain is a mystery, there's really no reliable way to do it. Not science. End of story. It can be useful, because, well, these stories are not disproven so they're pretty robust. Except psychology doesn't really help people, statistically speaking. So I go with occahms razor: the simplest story that fits is the real one. BPD? Not a very simple story.

mack1001 9y ago

I doubt it's that simple. There are things you should just quit - things that mess with your mental stability. Then there are things that exercise the right muscles but is downright hard, the ones you should persist for the value you gain at the end of it. Being patient is a great virtue till it isn't. Edit: typo

GeorgeSarkis 9y ago

>> Darius Foroux: "I’m an entrepreneur, author, and podcaster. I also research tools to build a better life, career, and business. Join my free newsletter if you want to get my latest articles delivered to your inbox." Another collection of pseudointellectual predigested positive platitudes.

stefanwlb 9y ago
These type of blogs are popping up like flies, just rehashing what others have said without any added substance or power.
whipoodle 9y ago
Gotta build that brand, baby!

agumonkey 9y ago

I like that drawing. In music I represent learning as a black map, with gray areas around tiny white spots, which are valid intuitions/concepts. Learning something really knew, means whole black map, blindness, you can only walk randomly and think you hit a white spot but it's only a gray area. Then you have more gray areas but they don't work right yet. After a while you can finely tune the walk and locate the white spots. When you have lots of white spots, you know. And if you're fast, it's just because you don't have to walk anymore, you can jumpskip right to the appropriate white spot to evaluate a situation or phenomenon.

shubhamjain 9y ago

An important lesson I have learned recently is that doing hard things never pays dividends in the shorter run; in fact, it make you miserable in that period. The benefits are only realised in the longer run. What if you commit yourself to send one newspaper pitch every week? Quite likely, you will face rejections and it will make feel dejected. However, gradually, your pitches will start improving, you'll get better at writing them, and eventually, one of yours will get accepted. Then, probably another. Hurray! you have broken into publishing industry as a freelance writer. From all the things related to writing I have read, this advice is present in almost every one of them. The recipe sounds simple but it's easy enough to quit with just one rejections. In writing, business, dating or anything that requires effort. If you persist, however, don't take failure personally, it doesn't take long to get better at that.

baby 9y ago
Stephen King tells a similar story in his book On Writing :)
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

baby 9y ago

In the Coursera course about learning, one thing one of the professor say is that every successful people have this in common: persistence. Nothing can be achieved without persistence.

codingdave 9y ago

On the flip side of that, don't stick with a failing endeavor just because it is hard and you have put a lot of energy into it. Make an intelligent analysis of your current position and trajectory in life, and decide whether or not to change your direction based on your long-term goals. Sometimes sticking with it is the right answer... sometimes it isn't.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

twelfthnight 9y ago

"Know when to quit and when not to quit" is better advice then just "don't quit". However, I think this article is aimed at the situation where you know you shouldn't quit, but you do because it's hard. For example, regular exercise. Something that has worked for me is committing myself to a short amount time doing the thing I don't want to do. I'll tell myself "after 5 minutes, if I still don't want to do this then I'll stop". Nearly always once I start washing the dishes or start a run, I'm happy to finish.

Retra 9y ago
That kind of stuff doesn't work for me; I can't "outsmart" myself by trying to take ad-hoc self-delivered advice. If I said something like that to myself, my brain would respond "nice try, I'm not that gullible. If quitting after five minutes were a reasonable outcome, then never starting is a reasonable outcome. Why don't I just wait until later?" If I know it's a trick enough to try it, then I know it's a trick enough to see through it.
- pegasus 9y ago
  Doesn't have to be a trick though. As long as some measurable dent in the pile of work is made, that's infinitely more than none at all, right? One way to make this real is for the first few times, to commit to definitely stop after the short interval decided for. So work out for those five minutes and then stop even when feeling like going longer. This way there's no trick involved. It's about removing the pressure to accomplish a significant dent and allow yourself to feel some satisfaction still, as long as there is a positive contribution. Small steps and all that...
- loco5niner 9y ago
  > I can't "outsmart" myself This isn't "outsmarting" yourself, its simply getting past the hardest part. It's difficult to "get off the couch" if I think I'm committing myself to running 10 miles. But I can easily get off the couch to run for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, I can quit, or keep going. Sometimes I quit, sometimes I keep going.

nsomaru 9y ago

'A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds' — Emerson

mythrwy 9y ago

Don't quit just because it gets hard. But don't persist if it isn't worth it. Which decision should be made independently of personal discomfort. (Also, in general don't take life advice from 20 something Internet marketers. Why do you clog up the interwebs people? Please quit! Not because it's hard but because volume of SEO junk to sell some coaching books is simply not needed by humanity. Lets improve the quality of the net with original ideas rather than rehashing again and again. Do something worth doing or do not do at all.)

jrs235 9y ago

Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward by Henry Cloud.[1] "Endings:The Good Cannot Begin Until the Bad Ends" Sometimes you have to quit the bad or good so that you can start the good or better. [1] http://amzn.to/2yJiImE http://amzn.to/2yJiImE

npsimons 9y ago
> “There’s a trick to the 'graceful exit.' It begins with the vision to recognize when a job, a life stage, or a relationship is over — and let it go. It means leaving what’s over without denying its validity or its past importance to our lives. It involves a sense of future, a belief that every exit line is an entry, that we are moving up, rather than out.” ― Ellen Goodman

whipoodle 9y ago

I just want to make enough to where I don’t have to work in this industry, at least for a little while. It’s fucking awful.

wruza 9y ago

Idk much about other things in this essay, but his goal is always on imagination line, while in reality it is, well, constrained somewhere on reality curve (at most). Given that imagined goal = real, it is pretty easy to not quit. Hard part is, complex goals are often just a mirage.

ManlyBread 9y ago

I like to face difficult problems, but I do expect to gain something in return. I also expect actual challenges and not just a pile of annoyances. Unfortunately, most of the time the reward is that you just get to work on even more annoying problems.

s73ver_ 9y ago
Far too many mistake annoyances for challenge.

mirrormind 9y ago

He is speaking in the context of once you set a goal then don't quit. Eg: I have to get a job in one month. Now, once you define a goal that is measurable and is important to you. Will you be able to watch netflix if you are consumed by your goal day and night? If your thoughts are fooling you,then you will get discouraged by every small failure. I think it helps to be less emotional and mechanical in the pursuit of a goal.

RockinRobinCo 9y ago

Good read

module0000 9y ago

To look at this article from my own viewpoint(who else's?), this is about "do I stop out now, wait, or move my stop loss and hope it turns around(hah!)". Know when to keep going, but more importantly, know when to quit. Not knowing when to quit is how you go bankrupt, die, and/or cause other people to do either.

eroccatlun 9y ago

Never quit on your own goals. Its fine to quit when other peoples goals involve using your man-power for their own gain and you see less and less reason to continue being a part of it.