Never Quit Before the Lesson is Learned

by Sheldon Singleton

Robert Kiyosaki author of the “Rich Dad Series” said “if you are going to quit, quit at the top of your game as a winner, then go to a bigger game”. Too many people quit as a loser at the bottom of their game.

Now, don’t lose your common sense when it comes to quitting something. If something isn’t working and you have given it 100% commitment and effort and have explored many different alternatives to make it work, then take the lesson you learned and go try something else.

Here’s the challenge. Most people lie to themselves and say they gave it all. Human beings have a capacity for creativity and we creatively lie to ourselves. Most of us don’t really give it an all out effort to make something work. We normally give it 5% or 10% or maybe 25% and then justify why it did not work because it makes you feel good. You know how you feel when you gave it all you got because when you finish, you have no guilt. The truth is we never give ourselves enough time and put in enough effort to see the results that we strive for.

In the book “Outliars” by Malcolm Gladwell, he talks about the 10,000 rule. He say’s to become outstandingly accomplished at anything, it takes about 10,000 hours of hard, focused, consistent work. If you worked 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, you will hit 10,000 hour mark after 5 years. That is 5 years, not 1 day, 1 week, 1 month or 1 year. Robert Kiyosaki says he gives himself 5 years to master a new skill. The challenge is that the average person never stays in the game long enough to become a master.

In business, Kiyosaki also says give yourself 5 years to learn new habits and unlearn old unproductive habits that hold us back.

He also said most people quit after their first mistake which is why they fail to learn. He said you must fail faster so you can learn faster and become more skilled. He said the only one that loses is people who are afraid to fail and quit. He said mistakes are priceless opportunities to learn essential lessons. If you don’t learn the lessons as time goes by, you don’t get any smarter.

Here is something I found in the book Failing forward, “Rules for Being Human”.

1. You will learn lessons.

2. There are no mistakes – only lessons.

3. A lesson is repeated until learned.

4. If you don’t learn the easy lessons, they get harder. (Pain is the way the universe get’s your attention).

5. You will know when you’ve learned a lesson when your actions have changed.

So the moral of the story is, mistakes are priceless, learn the lessons quickly and don’t quit. Focus on getting the 10,000 hour mark out of the way.