“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again… Then quit.
There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.”
~ WC Fields
Someone once said that “winners never quit, and quitters never win”. I prefer Seth Godin’s philosophy; “winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt”.
The truth is that sometimes, it’s a good idea to quit.
I came to this conclusion last week during yoga class. My teacher is adamant that her students only hold a pose for as long as they can maintain “integrity” in it. In other words, when you fall out of alignment, you release the pose. There’s no point in doing a half-assed “bakasana”, because it does your body more harm than good.
Similarly in life, we tend to hang on to “poses” long after we have fallen out of alignment with them. They’re the jobs we don’t give a crap about, or the relationships that fizzled long ago. But what if we gave ourselves permission to release and let go of these “poses” which no longer express our full integrity?
If you’re unable to give your best to something, your heart is not in it. If your heart’s not in it, do yourself a favor and quit.
You may worry that if you become a “quitter”, you’ll never get anywhere, which could not be further from the truth. When you leave behind the things that aren’t working for you, you increase the energy, drive, and focus being channeled into the things that ARE working for you. In this state of mind, quitters always win.
Quitting doesn’t mean you abandon the POSE for good; you keep practicing. But by following the path with heart you set the conditions that will eventually create the highest expression of yourself in your career, health, relationships, and everyday life. This perfect state of alignment allows your true self to shine through in all you do. 🙂
Wow Kar, this has got to be my fav post so far. Love it. Thanks, and just a footnote to the readers, “The Dip” by Seth Godin is a great reference for this idea.
Great post. I find the same is true in writing.I have to tell myself “enough is enough” and realize that a piece just isn’t working. That may mean I discard it completely or put it away for a few weeks. Sometimes, returning to a project I’ve set to the side can give me new insight into what it was I was trying to do; new life for a dead letter.
This is so true! I love the yoga analogy (I love making analogies. I think they really help us make sense of deep stuff)! And like you said, alignment is so important… sometimes, I just get a kink in my life! 🙂 Nothing major, it can always be adjusted.
Your posts always inspire and make me think!
@ Patrick: I know what you mean. Sometimes I get quite “attached” to a bit I’ve written, and think it’s just SO clever, that I don’t realize that it doesn’t fit in. Then later, I read it and realize it needs to be — deep breath — deleted! 🙂
Hi, Karen. Basically I agree with what you say. Only that I think there are things that we can decide to quit easily (it so obviously won’t work for us) and other things that may take longer time to make decision about, especially things like relationship that once we quit, we’ll never be able to regain. What if we find out later that we don’t really want to quit, but just need a break to refresh it? If we decide too quick to quit, we may regret it for the rest of our life.
KB I’ve been thinking a lot about this ‘quitting’ conundrum in the last few week as I have been listening and re-listening to Think and Grow Rich – where Hill repeatedly said “winners never quit, and quitters never win”. Thank you for your insights in this timely post.
Much Love & Gratitude,
Andre
Is this your way of saying that this is your last blog? Sigh.
Is it so short because you were concerned that we’d quit reading & not get to the end?
I’ve never even been to a yoga class, so I feel like a real champion of this philosophy!