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"You give up too easily," is what my 10-year old next door neighbor, Mike,
told me in 1972 or so when I wanted to quit playing our game of chase. I
couldn't seem to tag him "out" as the last player the game, despite my best
efforts of 10 minutes of trying. Of course, I vigorously denied that accusation,
but have been given cause to think about what he told more than once, especially
recently.
In my teens and early 20s, I was the most goal-driven, type A personality of
anyone that I knew. Whatever I wanted, I set a goal to achieve it, no matter
what. And, to my credit, that determination helped me a great deal. It helped me
find a way to pay for 2 college degrees without any help or support from my
parents, who thought college was a complete waste of time. It gave me the
courage to move to take my first professional job in the northeast U.S., a
"foreign country," as I thought of it at the time, since I'd never stepped foot
out of southern culture. That move that opened my eyes to a whole new way of
thinking and of doing things. At that time in my life, failure wasn't an option.
And, I most certainly viewed quitting as failure.
And, through the school of hard knocks in the subsequent years, I became
intimately acquainted with failure. I "quit" both of my college degrees, as I
discovered too late that I was bored out of my mind with my choice of my
bachelor's degrees (Speech Pathology/Audiology), and then stayed in a job too
long and suffered from severe burnout so that I "quit" my career afforded me by
my master's degree in higher education administration and completely left the
field. I then started a business in the crafts industry but "quit" that when it
was no longer fun, and I realized that I didn't really have the skills to pull
it off.
My life was in shambles at the time, as I desperately searched for what I wanted
to do when I grew up, and when I finally latched onto the notion of starting my
own business as a virtual assistant, my marriage couldn't take the strain of
that decision. So, I decided to "quit" my marriage and ask for a divorce and
move back to my home state of Texas and reinvent myself. A few years later,
after successfully launching my business, I decided to relocate to Arkansas in
pursuit of another business opportunity, which turned out to be yet another
failure, and I "quit" that as well.
I spent much of this time second-guessing myself and my decisions, wondering if
I was quitting too soon because the going got rough and I was afraid, or if it
was just really time to quit and move on. I discovered that I wasn't alone in my
thinking when I recently read Seth Godin's book, The Dip. He defines the
dip as a temporary setback that you will overcome if you keep pushing. So
starting a new business venture is fun and thrilling in the beginning, but after
two or three years, it can become very hard and not much fun at all. But, on the
other side starting a successful business, most people can see that they are
changed for the better, have learned much along the way, and are hopefully
making money from the venture.
So, how do you decide if you're simply in a dip, or if you really need to quit?
Godin says you need to make two considerations:
- Do you have the resources to get through it? and
- Is it worth what it will take?
As I evaluated my "quitting" as described above, it occurred to me that
the answer in all cases to both questions was a loud and clear "No!" Why?
Because I'd been secretly settling for mediocrity all along. It was time to
quit when the things I was measuring weren't improving, and I simply
couldn't find anything better to measure. Most importantly, the sick feeling
in my gut that I experienced at the time at the thought of continuing
wouldn't let me continue.
I've had moments of panic and fear along my journey, as well, and trying to
distinguish between the fear and when I'm at a dead-end has been difficult.
What have I discovered? The difference between a dead-end and a dip. The
dead-end won't get better, no matter how much I try, and the dip makes me
feel panicked and scared because I know that I will be great at something
and that scares the hell out of me because it pushes me completely outside
my comfort zone. More importantly, in a dip, I've realized that the end
justifies the means.
I'm currently involved in moving a business venture extensively outside my
comfort zone, and it scares me to death. I often wake up in the middle of
the night thinking, "What, are you crazy? You have no idea about what you're
doing. Everyone is going to figure out that you're completely clueless -- a
complete fake."
And that tells me that I'm right on course for success.
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