This is not your average pep talk.
Einstein worked ten years developing his general theory of relativity. Stephen King was rejected 30 times before publishing Carrie. Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay climbed for seven weeks to become the first people to summit Mt. Everest. How many times did they hit roadblocks or have bad days in which they were convinced they couldn’t keep going? Probably too many to count.
We like train wrecks and success stories. They scare us straight, give us hope, and inspire us to contemplate what is possible. They also do a handy job of sweeping the mid-point failures under the rug.
Quitting a project can be seen as cowardly, heroic, or crazy depending on when you jump ship. If you quit while you’re ahead, you can save heartache. If you fight to the end, you earn a victory no one can take away. But if you give up in the middle? You may be setting yourself up to relive the failure over and over. There’s something magical about the middle; maybe because it’s where doubt and fear are the strongest—AND where the majority of the work happens.
Giving Up in the Beginning
There’s a lot of validity to starting before you’re ready or taking a leap of faith, but let’s not forget the wisdom of knowing when not to do something. Maybe it’s not trying heroin. Euphoria sounds like a blast, but is it worth choking on your own vomit? Nothing wrong with giving up that dream.
Maybe you’re a multi-project people pleaser who is skating on the edge of burnout, and yes, you’d love to help plan your friend’s wedding, but if you add one more thing to the plate, it will topple. The bride will get over it, and you can still get her a nice wedding present. FOMO is a better party favor than a wilting flower centerpiece.
Maybe you’re a student. The majority of your life, you’ve declared to all and sundry you shall be a lawyer, but after the first year, everything in your being says “NO, this is not for me.” You’ll never know how much time, money, or sleepless nights you’re saving by quitting early, but it’s a sign of maturity to trust your gut, resist what others want from you, and refrain from scrambling after every sparkly dream of achievement popping its head out of the ground.
Maybe you need to be a lot pickier about what you do and for whom you do it.
— Seth Godin
Giving Up in the End
You’ve crossed the finish line last. You’re throwing in the towel on a twenty-year relationship. Despite your best efforts, it’s time to say “I’ve had enough. I can’t do this anymore.” For some reason, this always makes me think of Rocky Balboa. It took Sylvester Stallone years to sell Rocky. When a studio bought the rights, they didn’t want him to play the lead. Can you imagine Rocky without Sly Stallone? No way. The studio gave up at the end, and they were right to do so.
Some forces are too great to ignore. They sweep us up and carry us along whether we want to go or not. Then there’s the dreams we really want to happen, but for some reason, they won’t. Call it bad luck, bad timing, or bad choices. Technically, you haven’t given up, but the dream you set out to attain is not going to happen. It’s crushing, demoralizing, and probably humiliating. Why did you start? Is there really honor going down with the ship?
These are natural questions to ask when surveying the wreckage of a dream. It’s not until later we become aware of the hidden benefits of seeing it through to the bitter end:
- I gave it my all.
- I have closure.
- The relief is profound.
You never know who may be watching. Your suffering could be the linchpin of a younger Einstein, an untested King, or a roadblock in a vainglorious ego. If you stopped in the middle, you’d never know how resilient you are, how strong, how gutsy, and neither would those who need to learn from your pain.
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Sold my soul and yeah, the truth hurts.
— Marina and the Diamonds
What’s so bad about the middle?
When you have a dream, your mind, body, and spirit get to work trying to make it real. Pulling resources, gathering grit, it’s a full-time effort. Eventually, the thrill of a “new” thing wears off. The project becomes tedious. The real work is in showing up and getting after it day-after-day with no guarantee your efforts will bear fruit.
Not many people can hang through the rough bits. Insecurity and depression loom. The fear of what others think erodes the fabric of creativity. If you have given up in the middle, it’s usually because:
- You cared more about having the END result than becoming the person who could attain the dream.
- You depend on others to keep you motivated and affirmed. (You can do this! Yooooou’re GREAT.)
- You haven’t stuck with something long enough to know failing is a temporary condition, not the end of the world.
- No one taught you pain is okay, it’s human, and it’s necessary for growth.
- How you do one thing is how you do everything.
What happens when we give up in the middle?
The mind doesn’t like being cut off from the source of its problem-solving impetus. It has a job to do, it wants to complete that job. If it can’t, the “what if” will persist. The imagination continues to create solutions where you didn’t give up, where you reach the goal or some version of it. Just like any tearful drama or love story, we want closure.
Not that it will do you any good when you’ve abandoned the ship for what you think is stable land. Sure, you can charter a boat to take you back. Heck, you can even swim as a meditative penance, but that ship? It won’t be where you left it. With no one at the helm, it probably sunk.
What does this look like in real life? Cluttered amid the half-finished novels, abandoned diets, and failed relationships, there is a solitary heart floating in a sea of apathy. Drowning, it’s almost given up hope it will be rescued. Exhausted, it can barely tread water. Depressed, it’s starting to question why it exists in the first place.
But it’s not personal. It’s the Law of Attrition. The Law of Attrition says at some point, every system (ahem, person) will deteriorate eventually. The rate of decay is based on the combined additive effect of many small decisions and actions. Every time we give up in the middle, we put a tiny hole in the balloon of flailing self-confidence. Enough tiny holes amount to a balloon that cannot rise no matter how much hot air is pumped into us.
If that’s not enough to motivate you, consider what the disastrous effects of giving up on these tasks mid-project may impact:
- Chemotherapy treatments
- Raising children
- Civil rights
- Animal welfare reform
- Stopping climate change and deforestation
- Cleaning the oceans
- [Insert any cause you feel is pivotal to continued life on this planet]
All of this to say, I get it. You may be halfway through a project that’s taking forever. You may be questioning your motives, your support systems, and your reason to get up in the morning. But if you’ve started and you’re halfway there, it’s too late to quit and too early to give up. Keep pushing. Keep fighting. Even if it sucks. Especially if it sucks.
Whatever you do, don’t give up in the middle.
