Learn to give up quickly

We often hear motivational things like “You should not give up!” or “Only those who don’t give up — achieve success!”. I believe that to succeed you need to learn to give up sooner. The key is to learn what to give up on. You should not give up on yourself and your values — this is the only thing. Everything else is there for giving up.

Have you ever seen a match between chess masters? If so, you could’ve noticed that they sometimes stop the game and give up early. Often, observers can’t even recognise why they did that. The reason is simple — they are saving the time of pointless struggle.

In your life, there are also things like that. Giving up on doing some things yourself and asking for help is the best example. Giving up on going the wrong direction and moving to the right track is another.

The more wrong stuff you give up — the more time, energy and passion you would have for important things.

So what you should learn to give up on faster:

• Attachments. To things, people, activities, beliefs, ideas, ways of thinking.
• Routine. Your current routine is what got you to the current state. To move to a different one you need to change it.
• Doing everything yourself. The sooner you give up on things you are bad at and ask for help — the sooner you succeed.
• Changing others. You can influence them and help with their change. But in the end, change is what they will have to do themselves.

What you should not give up on:

• Yourself
• Your values
• Living according to your values — living a meaningful life.

What do you think? What are the things you know you want to give up now?