I sometimes quit because things are out of my control. Nobody quits what they can control, but the moment I get into something where I don’t get my way, or I get reprimanded, or I get corrected, or I go through this, that or the other or it’s bad conditions or bad circumstances, the first thing my immature mind says is, this is ridiculous, I quit.
Everyone feels the urge to ease up or quit, even superstar athletes. That is why the Nike logo “Just Do It” is so powerful. It recognises that I won’t always be motivated to work out, but I need to push past it.
It’s an urge that every champion has felt, every president has felt, every king has felt, every lion has felt, every soldier has felt, every winner has felt, and every victorious person has felt that urge to quit.
Until I have had the taste of finishing, I will not respect myself. Until I followed through until something is done, come hell or high water, tears and struggles and pain, and I go through it anyway and I show up and I continue to fight on, no matter the circumstances, after a while, something begins to wither inside of me.
I haven’t been taught to take anything. I was the baby of my family. My brothers weren’t raised like this, but I was. They did a hard time in a prison camp called nurturing. They were shocked when my mother came into my room and said, baby, what do you want for breakfast?
Some choices might have immediate negatives but future positives. Working out might seem like the ultimate pain if I haven’t done it for a while. There might be feelings of anxiety, and there might be physical pain, but there will be many more future positives, and those positives will outweigh the immediate negatives.
No one is born with exceptional talent. We all start at different levels of ability, but we are all capable of improvement. Extraordinary skill is developed through consistent, disciplined practice. It is easy to attribute someone’s phenomenal ability to innate talent, but that’s rarely the case.
My greatest strength as a human being is my ability to transform myself. There have been days when my alarm went off early in the morning that I did not want to get out my bed, did not want to put on my clothes, and didn’t feel like brushing my teeth.
Donuts give me immediate pleasure but leads to long-term pain when it becomes an uncontrollable habit. Sitting on the couch instead of exercising is easy, but it makes my life much harder than the alternative in the future.
Discipline is doing what needs to be done when it needs to be done, especially when I am not excited to do it. Anyone can work hard when they are motivated, but to be consistent, I must push myself when I am not motivated.
I had not been nurtured to bear anything, to take anything. And being a man was hard work because I didn’t have anybody to show me, and it’s hard to be what I cannot see. My urge to quit only creeps up when I have toiled in the sun and tried to achieve my goals through sweat, blood, time, and tears and after all this, I do not have what I wanted.
Then quitting is the foremost thing on my mind. At the very least, think before I quit. Quitting is easy, continuing and focusing on my task is difficult, yet fruitful.
Any task I take at hand or any commitment I need to follow is always an emotional journey, under which I give in to my temptations to quit. My mind gets blocked with all types of fear like the fear of success, of being judged, of losing or gaining etc.
However, there is always hope for me to succeed in whatever I do. The light of achievement beckons me to pull myself together and get through my darkest hour. I must remain forever vigilant and stand guard. Neglect starts as an infection and becomes a disease. Everything matters. How I do anything is how I will do everything.
Discipline and excellence are habits. The slightest neglect repeated becomes a bad habit. The longer I allow the behaviour to persist, the deeper its roots will grow.
Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, an hour, a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever. That surrender, even the smallest act of giving up, stays with me. So, when I feel like quitting, I ask myself, which would I rather live with?