Why Quitting is the key to Winning
I grew up playing all kinds of sports and one of the most famous sayings (that all of us have heard at least once) in our life, comes from one of the greatest sporting minds in history: Vince Lombardi.
Lombardi very famously said
‘Winners never quit, and quitters never win’.
A very powerful quote which has been interpreted in diverse ways over the years. What he forgot to mention is that this only applies when you are working towards your dreams. I am very competitive when it comes to sports and for the longest time, I believed that quitting is equivalent to losing. While quitting is often associated with failure, and has a lot of stigmas associated with it, I have found it to be quite the opposite. Quitting for me has been empowering.
If failure is the key to success, quitting is the right-hand man.
Quitting is not the same as failing. Quitting means to stop and let go. Sticking with something that you should have quit, in the long run, is quite harmful. In fact, by not quitting, you are setting yourself up for failure.
It is tricky to figure out what you should quit and when? Where do you draw the line?
It is in fact not that difficult to decide when to quit versus when to grind it out. It becomes easier to make this decision when you have your goals and dreams in place. It becomes easy because you can quit the stuff that you don’t care about or that don’t take you closer to your goal, so you can focus on the ones that do. In short, a massive productivity gain!
Let’s say you work full time and you are also training to be a wrestler. If your main aim is to become a world-class wrestler, there will come a point when you will have to quit your job. In addition to that, you will have to quit eating junk food or quit going to social events because most of your time should go in training.
The more directions you are being pulled in, the slower you will travel. You can do the job and become a world-class wrestler but that might take you 10–15 years. Something which will only take you 5 if you quit your job. After all, to be great at something you have to quit the other.
Sourav Ganguly quit Football for Cricket.
Virat Kohli quit eating Butter Chicken (and other junk food) to become a World-Class Cricketer.
AB De Villiers quit Rugby for Cricket.
Success is fifty percent hard work and fifty percent quitting the non-essentials so you can choose the essentials. After all, to become an overnight success, you need years of hard work with a pinch of luck (read being in the right place at the right time), which can only happen if you choose the right things.
Here are three things you can quit right away and move a step closer to whatever it is you are going after:
Quit being a victim. Be a player instead.
Being a victim means blaming the circumstances. Being a player means being in control. Everything that happens to you is either because of circumstances that are in your control or because of circumstances that are not in your control. In most cases, people choose the latter. This includes me. I am guilty of doing this from time to time myself. Next time when you are late to a meeting, instead of saying “I was stuck in the last meeting”, say “I chose to stay in my last meeting due to which I am late to this one”
Quit complaining.
When you disagree with something, you only have two options: Either you agree, or you align. Complaining won’t take you anywhere. Trust me when I say it will do more harm than good to your mental state of mind.
Quit talking about people. Talk about ideas instead.
Try this and you will realize that the possibilities are endless. That there is a lot in this world that you are not aware of, so much unexplored!
Greatness takes time, but greatness also means quitting anything that is not your ally on your path to mastery!
~x~x~x~x~x~x~x
This post was first published on my blog. Follow me there if you like what I write.
If you like this, please clap below.
