What I’ve learnt by quitting

Have you ever met a serial quitter? A person who quits everything he tries after a while? Cannot stick to an activity for more than a few months?
(This person is a motivational speaker’s nightmare I tell you)

Until a few years ago, I was a serial quitter. And until a few days ago, every force in the universe made me feel bad about the fact that I was a serial quitter.

“You could have been a cricketer! If only you had continued.” “You could have played in the Olympics! You were so good at table tennis!”

That voice in my head, and the voices around me constantly reminded of the opportunities I had lost, simply because I could not persevere.

I used to feel guilty. But a few days ago, I had a thought that completely changed my perspective about quitting.

It started with a simple question; would I have been the same person that I am today, had I persevered with the first passion I had?

The answer was, obviously, no! My life has gone a certain way because of the choices I made at each turn in my life.

I wouldn’t be the speaker, the writer and the goof I am today if I had persisted with my childhood dream of being a cricketer.

The second lesson that came from that question was, it was because I quit so many things in my life that I was able to understand what my weaknesses were.

I’ll give you an example. I used to be a really good table tennis player, and I was virtually the coach of my school team. Then came a time, when my team got so good that they started beating me! Far from being happy, I stopped playing completely.

At that stage in my life, I could not have continued playing table tennis anymore. It hurt my ego, and I would have ended up bitter and depressed.

This experience taught me two things-
1. I was insecure.
2. You need to constantly improve, or others will get ahead.

If I had had a mentor who could have told me this then, I may have been able to continue. But you don’t have a mentor all the time. So, quitting became my mentor.

This lesson is serving me well today, where as a speaker I am constantly looking to find ways to improve my skills. It’s also given me to security to mentor those who are new to this field, because now I know that I am not competing against them. I’m competing against myself.

Sometimes, quitting is your mentor in life.

You will see a lot of people telling you to never give up. I’m here to tell you that it’s okay to give up.

Because quitting can change your life and teach you things about yourself that you may otherwise never find out.

So here’s to all the times that you quit! Cheers!