In my mind quitting was always a bad thing. It was a lazy approach. It was the easy thing to do when things were difficult. But I missed half of the equation. This is why.

Let’s suppose you start learning a new language. You’re so excited that very soon you understand some words. In fact, you are now able to speak a bit. You decide you want to have a basic conversation with natives so you keep learning. Progress made and you’re now able to make simple sentences and can understand some key points of the conversation with limited vocabulary. You like it so much that you want to speak and understand well with almost no mistakes. However, you realise you are not learning as fast as before and you’re struggling. You came to the conclusion that it’s not worth the effort.

This is a common human behaviour. We quit when it hurts. But there’s something on the other side of the bridge if we’re truly willing to cross it.

The Dip

In his book, Seth Godin defines The Dip as the “long slog between starting and mastery. A long slog that’s actually a shortcut, because it gets you where you want to go faster than any other path.”

We all hit the dip at some point in life. However, we frequently quit here. In fact, if we quit in the dip very often, then we become serial quitters. How many times you found yourself starting multiple things and achieving very little?

Get Through

If you can keep going when everyone is expecting you to stop, you will then achieve great results. People getting through the dip are limited. But if you make it, then you’ll see how much value you can generate.

Smart Quitting

Remember the first paragraph? Well, what I missed was the fact that sometimes we need to quit the right things at the right time. This is strategic quitting. This can lead to success. For example, we are significantly investing resources to be the leader but nothing is really changing and we’re going bankrupt and mentally unstable. This is the moment to consider exploring another segment. Obviously, these processes are much longer and complex than the example but my point is that identifying the right moment to quit is a wise decision. It’s one step forward to success.

Final Thoughts

Becoming serial quitters this is the problem. We don’t stick to anything because we feel pain. This is dangerous because it can also prevent us from creating habits resulting in no personal development.

The truth is that there’s no overnight success. When starting something you need to be prepare to struggle for years. But if you manage to overcome the dip, you’ll eventually notice that besides the success waiting for you on the other side, there’ll be something else. Something even more valuable. Your transformation. This is about who you become the process.