Today as I got about 10 minutes into a planned 20 minute run on the treadmill, almost everything in me wanted to quit…almost everything. I’ve been chalking up really aggressive and longer workouts this week, it’s Thursday and I’m shot. Here’s the deal, I do NOT like to quit short of a goal and today that goal was to run for 20 minutes, not ten. My mindset is to never stop short of a goal, I don’t even want to pause for a breather because it feels like cheating. I adopt this idea that if I rest for a minute, somehow the work that I already did doesn’t count. Today I made an exception. I pressed pause because the alternative was possibly not finishing at all. I reminded myself that pausing isn’t quitting and taking time to rest isn’t cheating.

This Isn’t Just About Running or Workouts

Last year I wrote some thoughts about how to make change in your life and stick with it. One of my points was, “Learn to rest, not to quit”. Today that phrase, which was previously just a small point, became the main thing in my mind. I thought, “I’m going to hit the pause button. I’m going to recover and breathe for 5 minutes. My body is telling me that I need to adjust.” So, that’s what I did, I pressed pause. My body recuperated and when I returned for the last 10 minutes of my run, I felt better and stronger than the first half. There is no failure or defeat in that. I adapted to what my body was telling me, adjusted my strategy, and still finished what I set out to do. Adapting and adjusting is not the same as quitting.

It’s a fact that we get physically, mentally, and spiritually tired. If we have no strategy for allowing rest, the trajectory will almost surely be quitting, especially when you’re tired. It’s important to practicing resting so that it becomes a skill and a valuable resource. That way, quitting never becomes the default. The all-or-nothing approach doesn’t work long-term, it isn’t sustainable, and often you end up right back where you started, in the middle of nothing and no closer to your goal.

When Quitting Takes Over

How many times have you started something and then told yourself it wasn’t working so you quit? We live in such a fast-paced society and there’s a huge push toward instant gratification. It is sometimes hard to remember that results take time, consistency, and dedication. It might have been a diet, learning to play an instrument, or speak a new language. The tendency to want to quit can easily take over if you let it. Instead, in all of these situations we have the opportunity to take a breath, rest, adapt, and adjust rather than abandon the goal.

Altering Course Is Not The Same As Quitting

As a teen, my very first part time job was at a fast food place named RAX. One neat thing about RAX was they had a pretty sizeable salad bar, you know, the kind that has the gelatin dessert with off-brand whipped topping, chocolate pudding, and some sort of cold chicken salad. My responsibilities at that job included loading food items onto multiple trays, stacking them 4 high, then refilling the empty stations at the salad bar. That was it, for 4 hours straight I refilled containers at the salad bar. I realized after a few days into my employment there that I had to start looking for another job because I’d go out of my ever loving mind doing this day after day. It wasn’t that I wanted to quit. My motivation and ambition to work were still in tact so what was my reason? I had no respect for the job. I knew I needed some other type of work that was going to challenge me in different ways. Within the month I found an entry level position in retail where I ended up working for several years and I loved it. It wasn’t glamorous but I respected the work and the people who gave me that opportunity.

Practice Resting And Adapting

Sometimes we need to rest or stop and take a breath, then get right back to work on the goal. Sometimes we need to rest, then alter course, still with the same goal in mind. Practice and create a lifetime of resting, adapting, and adjusting so that quitting doesn’t instinctively feel like the most obvious answer to everything that’s hard to do.

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