Nobody likes a Quitter, right?

Quitting is for Losers, isn’t it?  So how can quitting be good for you?

The answer is brilliant in its simplicity.

Commit to quitting these things today. Right now, this very minute:

• The “I can’t” mindset
• Blaming others for your unhappiness
• Running from your fears
• Accepting mediocrity
• Allowing others to fold you into their own misery
• Giving any other person the power to hold you down
• Saying “Yes” too often
• Begrudging success in other people’s lives
• Feeding negative energy
• Hoarding your resources, witholding your support to others
• Being ungrateful for all of your experiences, even the difficult ones

We could go on, for this is by no means an exhaustive list of things you need to quit immediately if you truly want to live your life to your best potential. But this list serves as an excellent foundation from which to leap into that life you have always wanted.

Each bullet point contains behaviors prevalent in some manner within each unfulfilled life. Inside each person who laments the missed opportunities, despairs over impossible obstacles, and chafes against the unfairness in their life, these behaviors run amuck.

Not you, you say? You don’t do these things? The challenges in your life are different than everyone else? They harder, more serious, truly unfair and tragic? 

Yeah Yeah Yeah we know, it isn’t your fault that you are so stuck in your life. Go ahead, keep telling yourself that if you want to stay stuck.

It’s time to take inventory and some responsibility for where you are.

We once spewed the same excuses. We once fled the painful truth, too. And we simmered in frustration, brimming with aspirations we simultaneously dreamed of and smothered with our own crippling habits.

For each of these bullet points, we had “valid” excuses:

• “I really can’t get the job I want because the job market is so bad.”
• “I really am trying to do better but (insert someone in your life) keeps sabotaging me”
• “I can’t start my own business – what if I fail?”
• “I am too far buried in debt/trouble/impossibilities to get out now. I’ll just make the best of it.”
• “I would donate time/money to help, but I’m too broke and too busy.”
• “There is nothing to be grateful for today – everything about it sucked.”

Recognize yourself in any of these? Even a little bit?

Our brains are wired to protect us from pain and risk. The survival instinct has good intentions, but is also the cause of so much of our self-imposed limits.

It’s hard to acknowledge our own responsibility for our unhappiness. It’s hard to realize that in spite of enormous loss, or suffering, or pain and hardship, we still have ultimate control over our reaction to those circumstances. It’s hard to push ourselves past our discomfort and fear, and into the very things we are programmed to flee.

But unless you do exactly that, you will never realize your life’s full potential. You will always cling to the perceived safety of tolerable lives instead of pushing yourself to persevere through those challenges, and live that life you really want.

What that life is – what fulfillment means – is unique to you.

What’s harder – pushing through struggles and pain and setbacks, or living in a permanent state of frustration and mediocrity?

Before you can implement productive habits and behaviors, you must get rid of the detrimental ones.

Commit to quit today.