Yesterday I wrote:

It’s Not: Forever or a Failure

Starting something and doing it for a while, then changing your mind is often seen as a failure. When in fact, it’s very possible that continuing on and being unhappy would be far more of a failure. Yet from the outside, sticking with it looks more like success than the person who changes their mind, and is ready to challenge themselves in new, interesting, and exciting ways.

Today I share an antecedent to this:

Stick to it! Don’t quit too early. The forever analogy above, and trying something new instead, relates to things you’ve done for a long time and feel committed to. But new things deserve time, effort, and some fortitude in times of difficulty.

It’s easy to make excuses why the new path you are on, or the new hobby you are trying, is too hard or to decide the learning curve is too big. It’s easy to rationalize giving up too quickly. Any new and worthy task or routine takes some grit to stick with. When you’ve given the new thing a few months, or even a few years, that’s when the idea that it need not be ‘forever or a failure’ comes into play.

Before that, when things are still relatively new, there needs to be a time commitment. After time has permitted a long term cost-benefit analysis, only then is quitting not a failure, and continuing forever could be more detrimental and less rewarding than moving on.

Doing new things can be scary, and it can be easy to justify or rationalize or even irrationally reason that continuing on in an activity is too hard, or not worth the effort. Leave a new habit or practice or hobby too soon and a failure is a failure. Continuing on too long, or not quitting because you are scared to vary from your comfort zone can also be a failure.

It’s a delicate dance of time… don’t be afraid to put the time into something new, and really give it a chance… and don’t spend more time on something than is necessary just because these are the same dance steps you’ve been doing for a long time.