I get a question, "how do you know when to quit?" from many people.
It's a simple question but it's very different in terms of what triggered a person to prompt such thought. Therefore, the answer to the same question depends on a person's mental standpoint.
Let's all be brutally honest here.
If you are asking to find a reason to stop or need consent of others to do so, I advise you to quit right now. Your why is just not big enough. You'll eventually quit. Nothing personal, it's just the way it is for everyone.
Now, if you are casting the same question because if you fail, you'll feel that your time and energy are wasted, again, move on and do something else. The process has to be worthwhile regardless of an outcome.
If not, continue. Let's rock this thing down.
Attacking the fear of unknowing if the effort and desired outcome are going to meet
A human has a lizard brain and because of which, we instinctively shy away from uncertainty. It's much comfortable when things are pre-set. So, a person might be asking the question, "how do you know when to quit?" but what that person really seeks to find is how can I continue when the outcome is not so obvious and fear kicks in? In this case, we can easily get rid of the anxiety rooting from uncertainty by approaching with a little bit of logic.
Nothing in life is certain. Our future is a series of events with probability. The same car we drive, the bed you woke up from this morning, your partner who you kissed three minutes ago might not be there tomorrow to experience; we might die later today, or the things that we use everyday might break and are taken away.
The point is that even the things that are deemed to be very certain might not exist or occur tomorrow. Once we acknowledge this, it's easy to conclude that everything is uncertain. Therefore, the best thing that we can do to ourselves is to embrace the fact that everything is uncertain and continue what we've started .
Many people suggest testing the water to measure the chances of achieving a goal. This idea might be effective when it comes to finding efficient method to accomplish something but not so much so in figuring out the probability of success. The greatest error in this notion of gauging is that it puts many people to make a poor decision: to dabble. Since the majority of results are achieved after consistent effort over the long haul, every time your dabble the result is obvious, fail.
In conclusion, it's an absurdity to even attempt to gauge whether something is going to work or not. No one knows until it's finished. The only way to find out what works is to complete with commitment.
If you commit with constant focus and dedication, only two things can happen. Sometimes, you are forced to stop because lack of resources and time. On the other hand, you are bound to succeed.
So, going back to the initial question of when is the right time to quit, the simple answer is NEVER.
It's crucial to decide on what to dedicate on as it's going to take up most of our lifetime. In the next post, let's find out how to figure out what to commit.