Before You Decide To Give Up On Your Dream, Read On

“Shoot for the moon, for even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars”

You have a dream. Or at least, you used to.

You tried to work for it. In the name of God, you tried everything you could. And yet you still see no result.

You have sacrificed so many things in your life for it. You work too hard on your dream that it hurts your daily work and your relationships. You already paid a good price, but you haven’t tasted success.

But now you are beginning to believe that there is no prize at the end of the tunnel.

Maybe you had a wrong dream, maybe it is not who you are meant to be, maybe you are meant to do something else.

The only reason that kept you going until now, is that you don’t want all the hard work and efforts in the past go wasted.

You hesitate. You are not sure if you should keep going or turning around.

I can feel you. Because I’ve been there myself too.

More than once, I thought of quitting and went back to my job, to settle down with the career I have been following like a normal person. Because pursuing my dream is just too hard.

I thought of going back to my comfort zone and play it safe for the rest of my life. But I was hesitant. How do I know when I should give up my dream for good? What if I was meant to do this, but I was just having the wrong approach?

I managed to find the motivation to stay with my choice, to keep working on my dream because I believe one day things will pay off.

If you are thinking of giving up on your dream, make sure you answer these questions before you decide to quit.

1. Why did you want to do this in the first place?

I’m sure you have a good reason to follow your dream. Maybe it’s a burning dream that you’ve had since you were a kid. Maybe you discovered it late in your life but you felt alive while doing it. Maybe you just feel so happy when you think of it.

Now you are thinking of giving up. When you give up, you give up your reasons as well.

Are your reasons good enough to keep you going through the toughest time?

2. Have you been trying everything you could, or you still have a backup plan?

No, I am not advising you to sell your house to invest in a venture of your dream to prove that you are giving it everything you have. But the thing is, you probably do not try hard enough.

You want to lose weight to have a better health. But you still make excuses for a long day at work to skip your exercise, or to eat those sweet cakes and cookies.

You want to become a famous writer, but you still sit on your couch, watching TV and complaining that you are not productive enough.

3. Have you been acting consistently for one goal and one goal only, or you’ve been spreading yourself too thin?

We are bombarded with information these days. And people are talented. They have many different approaches toward one specific thing.

Admit it. There is something else catching your eyes in your way. You did not have your eyes on your goal only, you even thought of doing something else while pursuing your goals.

4. Why do you want to give up?

Answer this question honestly. Just give reasons, no excuse.

Instead of saying, “I gave up doing exercises because I’m busy with my work right now and I will resume it once I finish this urgent project”, say, “I gave up my exercises because I feel lazy every time I think of working out. I gave up dieting because the sugar is just so good and I want to stuff all the sweetness in my face”.

Once you are honest with yourself, you might realize that the reasons you made are not reasons at all, they are just excuses.

5. What’s the worst can happen?

I hesitated because I was scared of failing, I was scared that I would look like a loser in people’s eyes. So before I tried and failed and made a fool out of myself, I should quit so that I can tell them I did it on purpose.

The thing is, if you don’t keep going, you will never know how far you could go, how high you could climb and you will miss out the chances to be the person you want to become.

6. Can you be happy, complete and in peace if you give up on your goal?

Sometimes you feel hesitation for a reason, that you realized you would not be happy even after you reach your goal.

It’s when you wanted to become a businessperson because of the poverty past. But the more you work, the more money you have, the less happy you feel being a businessperson. Because you are meant to be a dancer.

Pause for a moment and give it your best thought. Can you be happy, complete and in peace if you give up on your goal? If you can, you are on the right track.

7. Can it make you happy?

At the end of the day, all we ever wanted is to be happy. No matter what you do, if it makes you miserable, it is not worth doing.

8. Have you been setting unrealistic expectation?

One of the main reasons why you think of quitting is because you haven’t seen any result. Yet.

But are you being fair, or are you being too hard on yourself? Are you making unrealistic goals for yourself and beat yourself up when you cannot fulfill them?

9. Will you tell your loved ones to give up if they are in your shoes?

Imagine your loved ones are in the same situation you are in. Are you going to tell them to throw away their dreams because they haven’t seen any result yet? Or you would give them some inspirational speech to convince them to keep going?

You can see some great potential in them, and you know they are going to make it. If only they stay with it.

Maybe that’s something your loved ones want to tell you right now.

Take a step back and stay in the passenger’s seat for a while. What do you want the driver to take you to?

Figuring out your dream is already hard. Pursuing it is harder. But staying with it even if you want to give up is the hardest.

If after you answer all the questions above and you feel that your dream isn’t going nowhere and it doesn’t make you happy, it’s time to move on and find your other dream.

But if those questions only make you feel more uncertain, maybe there is something in your dream that worth your effort.

Don’t sweat and try to do things perfectly from the start. Take a step back and try a different approach if you have to. Constantly test your approach and adapt accordingly.

But whatever you do, don’t make up an excuse and later tell yourself, “I should have tried harder”.

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Originally published at: www.liveaworthylife.com

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