Lesson from a Quitter
but
and quitters never win or at least
that’s what i
and probably many of you have been told
in truth though we often overlook the
importance of quitting though it may be
a wise choice that will actually lead us
towards
success allow me to show you how
first giving up one thing allows you to
spend that feed up time
and effort on another one way to look at
this
is through the idea of opportunity cost
have you ever been in a situation where
you have to choose between
attending an event where you could be
able to meet friends
idols family relax yourself
and staying at home and doing work
in this case whichever you don’t choose
is called the opportunity cost
which can’t exist at the same time as
the other option
this means if you have chosen to attend
the event you can’t stay at home and do
work
and vice versa you can’t always do
everything so prioritizing what’s most
important
and what makes you happiest is key
in this case if you felt like attending
the event could help relax you
or that staying home and doing work can
make you feel more productive
and responsible and that’s what you
should go for
quitting frees up time spent on a
project that might get nowhere in favor
of something new and more promising
but giving up without success doesn’t
seem so bad now
does it one classic example of the
benefits of quitting
is bill gates in 1973
he enrolled in harvard university first
pursuing a korean law
then just two years later he dropped out
of college
and right at that year he developed and
created
his own business with a revenue of over
143
billion dollars microsoft cooperation
has now become one of the biggest
business in the world
being his biggest success and one of our
biggest pride
had he decided to not quit college he
would have gone into law instead
which most likely wouldn’t have given
him the chance to be able to develop
microsoft
to where it is now another example is
steve jobs
in 1997 when apple was facing strong
competition from microsoft
he chose to discontinue 70 of apple’s
product
to be able to focus on its four main
ones
which slowly paved its way to its
current success
had he decided to keep manufacturing the
same products
apple would have faced huge losses to
microsoft
as you can see it is not just us who
have actually thought about giving up
throughout history there has been other
famous people have
who have quit on several things but
however
they still succeed so if you ever
thought about giving up and how it could
be good
you shouldn’t be ashamed of yourself
instead you should just think of it as
yourself trying to find a newer and
unique way
to solve your problems
second the lessons you learn from giving
up are invaluable
quitting gives you a glimpse of what the
other path would have looked like
and opens up an option that could make
you happier than you could have been
if you choose one path you’ll never be
able to know what the other path would
have looked like
and the possibilities that are held
within it
and on the other hand
you’ll be able to have an upper hand on
those who have not done it before
you will know how to deal with failure
when it comes and whether to keep
enduring or quit
this could be an experience that not
many people have actually had
creating an advantage not only for you
but for those who you can possibly help
last but not least the possible benefits
for your mental health are not to be
ignored
we can discover this idea in two ways
number one doing something you dislike
and dealing through constant failure for
something that doesn’t make you happy
can cause a lot of stress and quitting
those things
can make can relieve you way better
for example put yourself in a situation
where you have been trying to fix a
clock for over two weeks now
but it has still no sign of improving
whatsoever
this has been causing you a lot of
stress since number one
that clock is quite expensive and number
two
you want to be determined to fix it
because you don’t want to seem as a
loser
from other people’s perspective because
they say quitting is for losers
but if it’s not worth it why not just
quit
in this case if you can just buy a newer
and better one
replacing it then why are you still
trying to fix it
can i please ask everyone in this room
to raise their hand if they’ve ever felt
like they’ve done something that they’ve
disliked before
from what i can see most of us have done
things that we didn’t enjoy and i
believe that
everyone each and one of us has problems
of our own with
this issue when we do something we
dislike
the most common problem that occurs is
basically stress
and according to mayo clinic stress can
result everything from anxiety
to drug and alcohol misuse only if
you’re not afraid to push yourself way
out further than you should be
negatively then you should be able to
protect yourselves from these possible
outcomes
by quitting
number two doing something new
bad jobs and hurtful relationships can
make life seem less meaningful
and quitting these things will give you
the opportunity to reflect
and find more meaning in life as you are
now free
to discover different aspects of
yourself
and as a bonus you can now add to the
list of the things that you don’t know
make you happy
it’s just as they say beating a dead
horse won’t get you anywhere
it will just wear you out let me
illustrate with one example from my own
life
for a period of time i underwent huge
amounts of stress
from trying to pile too much on my plate
i was juggling school
exams along with competitions swimming
and piano
with so much to do i found myself unable
to
concentrate on and do well on any of
these tasks
and that’s when i decided that maybe
quitting wasn’t such a bad thing
after realizing that swimming was my
strongest suit i decided to stop doing
it as regularly as i did before
and i’ve come out to the other side much
better because of this decision
so much time has freed up for me to be
able to rest and focus
on my other tasks and
the stress of balancing a packed
schedule has simply vanished
as you can see quitting isn’t as bad as
it seems
it all depends on your perspective and
circumstances
and even if your change of course isn’t
all what you thought it would be
at least you’ll never be stuck wondering
what could have been
thank you