You should give up.*

On this site you will find plenty of motivational quotes to help get you fired up when you feel like you’re lacking motivation. Plus, I have explained the three basic components of motivation to help you maximize your output.

Without your hard work and effort, all the encouragement in the world boils down to little more than trite sayings that want to seem profound. If you blindly take it to heart, no matter what, that can lead to some major problems.

I care enough about you to tell you there are definitely times where you should just give up.

Delusion

Lots of self-help gurus will offer encouragement, and supply you with platitudes like, “You can do anything!” but I’m convinced that has the potential to do more harm than good.

Many successful people will tell you they could have never gotten where they are in the world if they hadn’t continued on in the face of opposition. Problem is, you don’t hear from the people who gave up on their dreams, and were better off for it.

Ambition should be measured against reality, and you should have a good bullshit detector. I’m a 5’10” tall dude who grew up in North Carolina. If my dream was to be in the Rockettes, anyone who tells me I can do it is (at best) delusional, or (at worst) malicious. If you really did care about me, you wouldn’t tell me I could do that.

Could you look William Hung (who is that guy?) in the eye and tell him he can be a great singer? If you can, I can’t trust anything else you say. Either you lack the ability to hear, or you enjoy watching people fail and I don’t want to be your friend.

Constant Struggle

If you are emotionally, physically, and financially exhausted, it is time to reexamine your choices. Sure, anything worth-while is worth working hard for, but if it comes at the cost of living your life, then it is probably time to hang it up.

For many years I held on to the idea that I am a performer, and that is how I make a living; by performing. I never let it go, and it resulted in me having very little money for quite some time. If, on the other hand, I had looked at the situation rationally, I would have seen that I could put performing on the back burner for awhile, and then taken a job that paid better. Even though it wouldn’t be something I enjoyed as much, I could have paid off my debt, kept up with bills, and then put money away to properly fund my performing ventures.

If I had done it that way, I would have saved a lot of time and effort in the long run. Quitting would have put me farther ahead.

Take Some Time

Make sure what you are doing is what you want to be doing, and question whether or not you could be better off by giving up. Sometimes it is the best thing for you to do.

You just might find a renewed source of motivation, and sense of clarity when you let go of that all-consuming goal or idea.

The end.

*If your ambition can be waylaid by an article on the internet, you will probably never reach your goals anyway. Don’t let some voice talk you out of what you know it right. Plus, if your goal is something you couldn’t achieve without seeing a quote over an image, you probably aren’t dreaming big enough.