Most people who have succeeded in their endeavors have thought about giving up at some point. It’s their perseverance that set them apart from everyone else.
You may have seen the illustration of two miners where one gave up too soon and the other carried on and got to the diamond. You may just be a bit more work and a bit more time away from success.
For bloggers, this is especially the case. Many bloggers do give up too early because, after months of hard work and little to no result, they decided to give up. When in reality, it takes 6–8 months at least for each blog post to rank on Google. It takes time for Google to trust your content and your site. So if you give up too soon, you may forfeit all the hard work you’ve done up until that point.
Similarly, doesn’t matter what it is, it’ll take time to see your effort come to fruition. There’s no such thing as overnight success. Every person who has had “overnight success” had done the hard work beforehand.
Table of Contents
Let’s illustrate with an example
Bobabaoslimes, a small business that sells slimes made more than a million in just 6 months after starting her shop it may have seemed like an overnight success but she had done 6 months of work to prepare for a perfect launch and had been diligently making and sharing videos of slimes on social media for 1.5 — 2 years before her store launch.
It always seems so easy when others do it as if they had lucked into it, and I’m sure some have lucked into it, but most people have worked really hard to get to where they are today.
In fact, 88% of millionaires are self-made. They didn’t come from wealth and weren’t born with a silver spoon in their mouths.
I don’t know what it is that you’re working on but there can be so much reward when you come out on the other side.
How to persevere when you feel like giving up
Here’s what you should do when you feel like giving up.
1. Think about how far you’ve come
Sometimes we are so caught up with getting more things done that we forget to look at how far we’ve come. It’s important to look at our accomplishments thus far with pride and remember to give yourself a pat on the back.
It’ll motivate you to keep going seeing that you’re in too deep to get out, sort of like how medical school students can’t give up because they realized they’ve given up too much to change their minds now. I’m just kidding.
But thinking about how far you’ve worked to get to where you are today will put into perspective just how much work you would’ve to forfeit if you give up now.
2. Imagine the outcome
Whenever I have a goal, I always like to imagine how it’d be when I finally achieve it.
The power of imagery is well… powerful. Seriously, you should try it sometime.
Now I want you to close your eyes for a bit (maybe after you finish reading because you wouldn’t know what else to do lol):
- Imagine how it would feel when you finally finish what you set out to do when you get to your goal
- What would your close friends and family say when you tell them the good news?
- What would you do to reward yourself for your accomplishments?
- What reward would the accomplishment naturally bring?
Seeing the image in your head can push you forward because the only way to get there is to carry on.
3. Remind yourself why you started
It’s always good to remind yourself of the reason you started in the first place. What makes you want to start? What were you hoping and thinking would happen?
Even if the goal has been modified or the result may not be exactly how you planned it to be when first starting out, there could still be a reason to keep going because you cared enough to start.
You can always modify your motivation as you carry on. It doesn’t have to be the same reason you had for starting but it sure is going to be the reason that pushes you to carry on.
4. Look at success stories
I always find it inspiring to look at other people’s success stories. I’d look at what they did to get to where they are today and to see how well they are doing now makes me feel so motivated because I know I could do the same.
5. Compare with yourself
For a lot of you, you may feel like giving up because you’re not where you want to be yet. You may see someone else at the place you are working so hard to get to and realized how far behind you fall. If you let your thoughts spiral out of control that negativity will take your energy away from your actual work.
Instead, you’d wallow in self-pity, and soon the work itself becomes a constant reminder of a failing comparison you unfairly draw upon yourself.
Always compare with yourself only. No one is given the exact same chance at success. Some people may have better luck, they may have wealthier parents to get them started, they may have more natural talent in specific skills, they may have more time to devote to their crafts, etc compared to you. It’s unfair to compare yourself to another.
It’s like comparing an orange with a stop sign. There’s no correlation. Focus on yourself. Everyone else is staying in their lane and you should too. This isn’t about you versus anyone else, it’s you versus you from the day before or a year before.
6. Take it at your own pace
Don’t rush. Always do things at your own pace.
I want to share with you a personal story. When I was in school, many kids would compare grades with each other. I forgot how I arrived at such a realization but I found out that some students would act like they didn’t study as much as they said they did and they made it appear as though they aced the exam with no extra studying beyond attending classes.
They’d said things such as, “Oh I forgot to study. I didn’t even finish watching the tutorial videos” but they would then flash their A+ in everyone’s faces. It made a lot of students insecure as they think they weren’t very bright. How did it take them so much longer to study and yet they still ended up with worse grades?
People aren’t necessarily always honest about how much work they’ve invested beforehand and it may seem as though you’re falling behind but in fact, you’re right on time and may even be performing better than most.
Take it at your own pace, whatever that may be.
There are a lot of unknown sacrifices and hard work that goes on behind the scene and it is a whole lot of drama to find out what’s real and what isn’t. Remove yourself from that drama and focus on your own pace.
You don’t need to compare your pace with anyone to be considered successful.
“A flower is still beautiful despite the beauty of other flowers” — my own quote 😀
7. Take some time to do what you love every day
It may seem like you’re wasting time when you do things that don’t directly involve your goal but it’s important to stop and take a break to enjoy life. To enjoy doing what makes you happy.
You can tell me that your work makes you happy but I’ll tell you that I’m sure there are other things that make you happy too. Take the time to cultivate it, don’t let it wither away.
Doing something you love every day can make the pursuit of your goal that much more enjoyable because your life isn’t completely consumed by your work. You actually have a life beyond it and you may feel less of that unrealized resentment as you carry on.
8. You must love what you do
I can’t stress this enough. You must have passion for what you do. If you don’t, you’ll so easily give up.
I used to have a blog in a lucrative niche that was doing really well but I had to let it go because it was torturous to have to keep up with it (maybe I should carry on a bit further and hire someone to do it for me? Nah, it would’ve taken me more time to automize it and it would’ve been awful for me). I didn’t love what I was writing and every time I start writing it felt like a prison sentence. No kidding.
You must love doing what you set out to do. I know a lot of you may be dismayed to hear that because you may not love what you do, maybe your passion has burned out, maybe you stopped loving what you do. What should you do in those cases?
Well, you have to decide for yourself. Each case is different. Say you’re in the 4th year of your engineering degree, I’d say push forward because you’ve come so far and you can always pursue something else after you finish your degree if you realized engineering isn’t for you. Studying engineering and working as an engineer are totally different things after all.
Or, say you started a business painting nails but you realized you absolutely hate it. You hate how the customers are often rude and cocky. You hate how the paint smell. You no longer find any passion in it because you realized your only passion in painting nails is actually to paint your own instead of someone else’s. Personally, I would quit in that case.
You have to decide for yourself but having a passion can give you so much of an edge in what you’re trying to accomplish.
For others, it may feel like a job but for you, it feels like a hobby and you don’t mind working late into the night to make it happen.
9. Consult with a mentor
Mentors can be hard to find but if you can find a mentor, you should totally ask them to guide you in your journey.
You’ll be able to tell whether you’re on the right track and whether there’s something you should do differently.
Having someone there to consult you and help you make sure you’re doing the right thing can offer so much relief at times of doubt.
Consult multiple mentors don’t let any one mentor decide for you your next step.
10. Assess whether it’s working and know what’s sunk cost
Finally, you do have to access whether it is working or not. Sunk cost is the effort, time, money, energy, etc that you’ve invested into something that you can’t get back.
Sometimes if something isn’t working, it’s best to give up and not hold on. You can’t get back those hours you spent might as well not invest more into it.
Final thought
Whatever it is that you’re working on, I know you know the power of perseverance. Most people don’t succeed in blogging, YouTubing, building up a brand, etc because they don’t persevere. If you look at the people who do consistently put out high-quality content over several years on various brands have seen some form of success.
The same can be applied to whatever else that you’re trying even if it’s not building a brand.
I hope you give these things a more thorough analysis. Good luck!
