EP 241 When to quit on a goal
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[00:00:00] Welcome to the bold goal crusher podcast for anyone looking to stop letting life get in the way and start crushing bold goals. I'm your host, Sara Mayer, and I'm thrilled to navigate this journey with you because it's time to start boldly achieving without working double time. So let's dive in.
Sara Mayer: Hello Bold Goal Crushers! Today we're talking about a very important topic. When to continue towards the finish line, and when to actually quit your goal. So many of us set big, bold goals, and we really want to achieve them. We're working towards achieving them. Or maybe we're not working towards achieving them, but there comes a point in time where you may want to quit.[00:01:00]
Sara Mayer: And before you quit, I think it's really important to have a process for evaluating your goals so that you don't quit too early. There's. A book out there by Napoleon Hill. And it's, I think it's called 10 feet from gold and it's how people quit digging for gold. And they were only 10 feet from there. And I think many times we quit on our goals too soon.
Sara Mayer: So I'm going to insert here before we jump in on how to figure out how to quit your goal. I'm going to insert here that maybe we need to take a pause on our goal sometime. And. Let it still be a goal, but maybe we need to take a pause. So first off, there's various types of goals, short term, long term, personal, professional goals.
Sara Mayer: I like to call them bold goals when they truly are what we deeply desire. And so we'll talk about that. So there is a difference between [00:02:00] making progress, as you know, and being stagnant on pursuing the goal. And I think you all know, when you're making a lot of progress towards a goal, and you are really chugging along, it's a, it's a great feeling.
Sara Mayer: And when you're stagnant, it's not such a great feeling. And I think it's really important to know that there are achievements along goal setting, there's milestones, and then there's the personal growth that comes along with that. And when your goal is on track, and it's exciting, and you're achieving those things, there's a high that comes along with that.
Sara Mayer: But also on the flip side, when your goal is stagnant, or you have repeated failures or lack of motivation, or maybe diminishing returns, you might be running out of money. This causes a lot of self doubt damage to your [00:03:00] confidence, and it can be a reason to quit to be honest. So first off, It's really important to understand that the big, bold goals, the things that you truly want in life are really important, and they're not going to be easy.
Sara Mayer: It's not going to be success after success after success. There's going to be some dips in that achievement and, uh. Achieving those milestones, if the goal truly is something big and bold, so there are several ways that you can really decide if you should continue on or quit. The 1st, 1 is you could do a cost benefit analysis analysis of what it will cost you.
Sara Mayer: And what's the benefit if you persist on trying to achieve this goal? So there's. Really, uh, a lot of times there's a lot of emotion around when we are [00:04:00] thinking about quitting our goal that we've lost. We will lose something. We'll lose credibility. We'll lose respect. We'll lose a part of ourselves. We worked so hard for nothing.
Sara Mayer: You need to take the emotion out of it, and it's easier said than done, but a cost benefit analysis is a great way to really think about. This from a data perspective, so you can evaluate the costs. What are the costs you're going to need if you continue with the goal? And what are the benefits? If you quit the goal, so definitely want to think about costs, and I'm not talking about only money.
Sara Mayer: It could be time. It could be. That's a cost of continuing this goal, or you may have to redo things that you've already done, or you may have to backtrack and return money to people, or you may have to reframe something or pivot. And so it's really important to think about the [00:05:00] costs and the benefits of.
Sara Mayer: Continuing versus quitting. So it could be effort, resources, and there's so many different things, but that's the cost of what you're continuing. It could be time with family. So, some people will do like a pro con list. This is a little different than a pro con list because it's a, what's the cost? And then what do you hope to gain?
Sara Mayer: What are the benefits if you continue? So that's the first one. You could do a cost benefit analysis. You can also listen to your gut instinct gut instinct. A lot of people have intuition. They have strong gut instincts and. Listening to your inner voice can really provide valuable insights on to whether or not to persist or quit a goal.
Sara Mayer: So really tapping into your intuition takes getting quiet and takes really looking at what your intuition is telling you in [00:06:00] order to make those difficult decisions. Next, you can seek external feedback. So maybe there's a mentor, a coach, or a consultant out there who could really help you through waking, working on whether or not you should continue the goal.
Sara Mayer: So, external feedback is great when you're not sure what to do. I think it's really important to make sure it's a peer, somebody you trust. It's a mentor that has objective perspectives, and maybe they don't have something to gain by you quitting or not quitting your goal. And it's important to solicit constructive feedback and leverage the support networks effectively.
Sara Mayer: So really making sure that you're asking for targeted feedback is important. Now, the other thing you need to remember that there is power. In being adaptable and flexible, [00:07:00] so when you're pursuing goals, remembering that the journey is a learning journey is really important and being open to pivot or adjusting goals can lead to greater success.
Sara Mayer: Sometimes we're not always going to achieve the goal that we originally vision. It may come in a different way, or it may come in pieces and stages. So, I remember a guest on my podcast. I cannot remember her name to save my life. But she really wanted a castle and dreamt of a castle, and it had this grandiose yard and all this stuff.
Sara Mayer: And then what came into her life was a castle, but it was smaller in scale. It was different than she envisioned. And so I think it's really important. There's a lot of power of being adaptable and flexible and maybe achieving your goal in stages rather than all at once. All right, next up, you can look at case studies and real life examples.
Sara Mayer: So you may [00:08:00] know people out there who've achieved this goal. So really looking into their goal journey and how they achieve their goals will help fuel your ability to achieve those goals and for you to help decide whether or not to quit or persist. So really looking at other people's real life goal experiences can help you decide whether or not you need to keep going.
Sara Mayer: Now, in conclusion, whenever you're on a goal journey, and you're thinking it may be time to quit, I encourage you to hit the pause button, take a break, and really think about how you're going to get there. Go about deciding whether or not you're going to continue with your goal. You're going to pause your goal or you're going to move forward with your goal.
Sara Mayer: So I think it's really important to really take a step back. There's several ways that you can do this. It's never [00:09:00] easy to decide to quit a goal. Please know it's okay. It's okay to pause a goal. It's okay to persist a goal. It's okay to pivot. It's okay to stop completely. You can do whatever you want.
Sara Mayer: These are your goals. So I encourage you not to quit when you just experience your first break or anything like that, but to. To keep going, but to know that it is okay for you to stop persisting on a goal. If you simply aren't going to be able to achieve it, or your priorities have changed, it's okay. All right, bold goal crushers, it's time to get out there and crush your goals and everything that gets in the way so you don't have to work double time.
Sara Mayer: So let's get to it.
