When is giving up OK?

“Never give up,” I’m sure you’ve heard that.

I’ve been working with a coach for the past few months. I’ve had morning mind and body exercises to do, and I’ve been doing them, but I wasn’t getting the results I wanted.

So today, after a call, we completely changed the ritual, and after doing the new exercises I felt fantastic.

I gave up. And I’m stoked I did.

If something’s not working, the next step is to diagnose why it isn’t working.

There are generally only three reasons for this:

  1. You aren’t doing it with the quality it needs

  2. You aren’t doing it with the quantity it needs

  3. It’s the wrong thing to be doing to get your desired outcome

The first two reasons are not reasons to give up. That’s called laziness. Double down.

The third reason is a great reason to give up. Otherwise you’re just repeating the same thing and hoping for a different outcome. Do not double down, change.

Stay committed to the outcome, sometimes you just need to be flexible in the approach.