I had a friend in high school who was proud of himself because every time someone told him that he should quit smoking, he told then that he wasn’t a quitter. We all grow up learning that quitting is a bad thing and that you should stick things through. If you think about it, that’s pretty bad advice.
When you ask a kid what he wants to be when he grows up and he says Superman or a Garbage man, do you push him to keep to his plans? Absolutely not! So why do we put so much emphasis on not quitting?
Quitting can be one of the greatest things in the world. Quitting bad habits, quitting bad things in general that just aren’t working or quitting things that don’t really apply any more. If you start doing something because of a goal that doesn’t exist anymore, then you could be wasting your time if you continue just to finish.
Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Bill Gates and many other very successful business people quit school because they realized that it didn’t apply anymore and would be a waste of their time. High school is designed to give you a foundation for your education and college or university is designed to give you the tools to build a career. If the potential career that university can offer you doesn’t compare to a business that you built while in school, there is no reason to stick it out and lose out on your business just to say you finished school and you didn’t quit.
You have to make goals for yourself and plan around them. Create short term goals, medium term goals and long term goals and work to accomplish them. At a certain point, you’ll probably look at one of your long term goals and realize that you don’t want it anymore or it doesn’t apply anymore. At that point, you have to take a look at what you were doing to move towards that goal and re-evaluate whether you should still be doing it or quitting it.
If you are working on a project and nothing is working out for you, you have to be very honest with yourself about sticking to the project. By quitting, you free yourself up to new potential projects. If you stick to it, make sure it is because you believe in the project and you believe you can succeed. If not, you’re just being stubborn.
Lastly, if you continue to do things just because you’ve always done them, chances are that you are missing out on a ton of luck. You need to take a look at everything in your life on a regular basis and figure out what needs to stay and what needs to go.
Job – I enjoy it and I’m building my career – Keep it.
Smoking – making me sick – Quit it.
Family – I like them and see the benefit of having them around forever – Keep them.
Bad Friends – They bring me down – Quit them.
By taking this look at your life, you’ll see more opportunities to get lucky. By quitting the things that are bad or don’t belong, you are freeing up more time and energy to get lucky. It’s a win-win.