3 powerful questions you can ask yourself when you feel like quitting

3 powerful questions you can ask yourself when you feel like quitting

Whether it’s your New Year resolution or a life changing goal, chances are sooner or later you reach the point when you feel like quitting. The inspiration is gone, the discipline with it. You start coming to terms with quitting and decide to give up. Your mind tries to justify the situation and silently whispers “Don’t worry. One day you will try again!” Sounds familiar?

Keeping your New Year resolution is a hot topic in media. In fact, FAILING to keep them is! So if you feel like quitting, giving up on achieving your goal or resolution right now, hang in there and stay with us. I am going to share with you 3 simple but powerful questions that stopped me from quitting.

Before I share the 3 magical questions that saved me from quitting on many occasions, I want to acknowledge you for your honesty and authenticity. Admitting that you are actually considering quitting achieving your goal is an important step. Acknowledgment helps you to deal with the situation. So what are the 3 powerful questions I am talking about?

Question #1:

What makes me want to give up?

There are many reasons why one wants to give up. The most common ones are:

• I’m too busy, I don’t have time
• It’s pointless, I can’t see the results
• I can’t do it, I can’t be bothered any more

The reality is: if it was easy, you would have done it ages ago. The key to moving forward is to understand what exactly is it that forces you to give up. What is that one thing, that underlying reason that makes it seem unachievable? Identify the real reason that stops you.

For instance, I was preparing a press release to advertise about our upcoming E.D.E.N. conference in the local press. I was asked to write the press release and also wanted to write a feature for a women’s magazine. I was about to quit completely. The “obvious” reason that I was telling my friends was “I don’t want to write about my story and me. This community group is about empowering others and inspiring women, not about me.” What was really going on (the “real” reason) was that I was scared of being judged by the public in the community where I live. As soon as I realised what the real reason was, I recognised how silly and pathetic this was and I started to put in place a support structure to deal with this sabotaging reason.

Question #2:

How important is this for me? What difference does achieving my goal make to me and others?

I learnt these questions from a friend, who runs an amazing project Southend in Transition and later on at several personal development courses. These questions will help you get a good perspective if you can answer them honestly.

Every time I was about to quit following my dream, I asked myself “On a scale from 1 to 10, how important is achieving my dream to me? If an answer was less than 8, I realised that it is not that important. It’s simple. If it is not important, why would I bother in first place?

The second question indicates the impact on others. If you actually stick with following your goal and get re-inspired, what is the impact on others? What difference does it make to them? Using my example, fear of being judged that stopped me from publishing in local media, I realised that by overcoming my fear and actually working on publishing the press release, I will make a difference to other women who, just like me, have visions and want to live a fulfilling life. This really gave me a new perspective and re-inspired me to keep going.

Question #3:

What is the real cost of quitting?

The real cost of quitting is not necessarily money that you lose or could lose. By the real costs of quitting I mean:

• the lost confidence,
• the loss of self-appreciation
• the lost belief that you can actually do something worthwhile and do it well,
• the loss of affinity and connection with others
• carrying a regret
• feeling like a victim of circumstances
• the list goes on.

Again, using my example of publishing a press release, I realised that my real cost of quitting would be losing my confidence. I have already done a couple of press releases before. My fear was totally unjustified, so not taking the opportunity and taking another shot to achieve my goal.

Dear reader, now is your time to discover what is that one thing that makes you feel like quitting. You have already started taking a first few steps to achieve your goal, to follow your dreams. Keep going. How did you answer these questions? Did you find them useful? Always happy to read about your discoveries. Feel free to leave a comment below.