We are constantly told to start doing something, finish it, and not to give up.
However, recently, I learnt about the concept of quitting. Quitting is healthy, quitting is beneficial, quitting is the answer.
When I first read these lines in the book The Practice of Seth Goldin, I was shocked.
Why would I quit? If I start a book, I will be more inclined to finish it. I would feel ashamed if I wouldn’t finish it. It would make me feel like I am a failure.
I have the same approach with any projects I start. I would not quit and I will always strive my best to follow through. Like with this #30DayWritingChallenge, I will not allow me to call it quit halfway.
But again, I read this somewhere else about quitting. It was then clear to me that in some situations, quitting is the right answer.
It does seem that both teachings have a common pattern: QUITTING EARLY.
For reading, Seth said when choosing a book to read, it’s good to scan the book, assess if the topic is something I would be interested in, and try a few pages. If it is an interesting book, I should continue reading. If it is not, choose a different book. I find this very enlightening and liberating. This perspective allows me to feel better if I come across a book I don’t like and quit early. I can feel the benefit of this approach, I won’t have to cope with a boring book and move on to more exciting ones.
Same principle can be applied to any projects in life. We must learn to quit early, to assess if a project is good enough to invest time and effort in, and to be move on quicker to better projects. This doesn’t mean we should quit whenever things are hard, it is to quit when we know for certain something would fail.
I still need to do some more research around this to solidify it but I find this is helpful in shaping my future choices and decisions.
I hope this helps you a bit too,
Thao
#Day29 #30DayWritingChallenge
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