Never Give UP! Don’t you DARE give up! Giving Up is NOT and option! Whew. Enough cyber yelling. Today I’m here to remind all of us that “giving up” can sometimes be the best thing we do for ourselves in our commitment to achieve our goals. Sound counter-intuitive? Probably. Let me explain.
So, most of you know I work with people in their efforts to change. I guess you could call me a Change Agent. A big part of change is setting goals or intention mostly so we can see and even measure the change. Good stuff. Except when it’s not. Look at Rumi’s quote in the photo: “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” Fixating on achieving the goal in spite of sacrifices it might take to get there is not the definition of success. Example: spending a lifetime of hard work to achieve financial success while losing out on the precious time spent in relationships. Example: deciding to cross that marathon finish line no matter the cost only to end up with career-ending running injury. Example: staying in that now unhealthy committed relationship because you made a commitment to stay. Last example: determined to get to that magic number on the scale, you put our life on hold deciding you cannot “be happy” until you sacrifice enough to achieve that weight (no new clothes, no dating, don’t go for that promotion, etc.).
Think of your lives and moments when you were blinded by getting to the outcome, achieving the goal no matter what. Maybe there was shame in the idea of “Giving Up”. Maybe you associated “Giving Up” with FAILURE. Here’s my suggestion. Let’s not call it “Giving Up”. Call it anything else that connotes Wisdom, Moving On, Letting Go. Or, call it “Giving Up” and embrace it! Be proud that you gave up on that toxic relationship, that crappy job or that starvation diet. Hmmmm. Maybe there’s a bumper sticker or t-shirt slogan in this somewhere. Ya think?