Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. Albert Einstein
Winners never quit and quitters never win. Vincent Thomas “Vince” Lombardi
You can fail so very often. But you are not a failure until you give up. Unknown
Quotes like these motivate us and provide encouragement when things are going badly. I’ve seen this advice play out in my own life. There have been times when success came after I tried that one last time following several failed attempts. It makes me wonder how many people stop trying just before they were about to succeed. But I do think there is a time to give up.
Clinging to this advice too tenaciously can enslave you to endless attempts and effort on a lost cause. Wait, I don’t like the term ‘lost cause’. I think what happens more often, and what is perhaps more accurate to say, is the effort required to succeed becomes so huge that the thing is no longer desirable to pursue. ‘Desirable’. There’s a subjective term. But then, giving up is a subjective decision. Suppose you discover that to succeed will require all your money and time as well as some money and time from family and friends over an extended period; perhaps beyond the scope of your life. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible; just extremely difficult. If you are not ready to pay that price, you might give up instead…or at least modify your efforts and expectations.
When we start down a path like establishing an internet business, we have some expectation of how much effort we’re willing to give in exchange for a rough estimation of compensation whether that compensation is money, satisfaction, fame or something else. What happens very often along the path is we realize the effort required will be much greater than we expected. It’s at these points that we re-evaluate our decision to continue down the path. For example, if we realize at the same time that the compensation will be less as well, we might jump off the path. Or, perhaps we learn the compensation will be greater than expected which drives us forward. Or, perhaps we decide to stay the course and give it more time. Maybe re-evaluate later. After all, we’ve already put in so much effort. It’s a shame for it to go to waste. I think we sometimes stay on bad paths because we don’t want to think we’ve been wasting our time. But is it really a waste? Everything we do teaches us something…if we are paying attention. We usually learn things that help us choose better paths in the future; things that also increase our capacity to succeed.
What is the answer?
I think the answer is to be really in touch with yourself and the tradeoffs you are willing to make. I say ‘in touch’ because this stuff changes over time as you and the environment changes. What are the most important criteria for making the decision? That’s important to know because sometimes criteria conflict and you need a way to decide which is more important; i.e., which one wins.
Like spring cleaning for your brain, we should periodically re-evaluate what we’re doing in our businesses as well as in our personal lives. Does our previous decision to pursue each thing still make sense? Have our assumptions of effort and compensation been accurate? Has our criteria for decision making or our tolerance for failure changed since we started down the path?
I recently made a decision to de-emphasize some services in favor of others for one of my internet businesses. I have a lot of expertise and experience in some of these de-emphasized areas. It is difficult to let them go. However, my time is more limited now and I cannot ignore what the market is saying about which services they want. Given my current criteria, the painful choice is the right one. Of course, if things change; i.e., effort/compensation/demand/me, I could find myself re-establishing them later.
How do you make difficult decisions? What is your thought process?
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