I'm sure the title of this blog strikes you as a bit strange. Maybe I better explain. You see, a few years ago as I was looking to get my life moving in the right direction, I went through the process of looking back to see if I could pinpoint where I had gotten off track. I discovered in the process that at key moments in my life when I faced great adversity, I quit. Not every time but enough to feel like a quitter.
In 7th grade I went out for the grade school football team. Now I was not fleet of foot, by any means, but thanks to an athletic older brother I had played a fair amount of sandlot ball and had a pretty good set of hands. At the first practice the coaches put us in the position for which they felt we were best suited. Now our coaches, having slotted their sons in the key high profile positions, I realized I would be relegated to the offensive line. How could they allow this great set of hands to be wrapped for blocking? Well, after just a few practices it seemed the unsung glory of an offensive lineman was not for me. With a bit of negotiating and pleading to my mom (definitely against my father's better judgement), I quit just a few weeks into practice. What a relief, or so I thought.
Next it was as a junior in varsity basketball. I was slotted as a started but after some serious ball handling gaffs and the resulting turnovers, I soon found myself on the bench. We started the season 0 and 7 and with each game the tension became even greater. The coach began grabbing at straws and finally called up some sophomores to the team. I became less and less engaged and stopped giving my all in practice. I, of course, blamed my plight on the coach. He pushed me too fast. I wasn't ready and now look at me. So I made the decision that if he put one of the sophomores into a game before me, I was done. Well, it happened and I quit.
At first quitting was tough. There was great anguish and the fear of confrontation but, as with anything, I would get better with some practice. I went on to quit the first college I attended when I started floundering. I quit a few courses of study at the new college when the road got a little tough. I quit several jobs when the oven got a bit hot for me. I seemed to live by the slogan, "when the going gets tough, the tough get going...out the back door."
I chose quitting over the potential prospect of failing. When doubt and insecurity told me I couldn't dig out of the hole I had dug for myself, I would just quit. In my mind quitting would free me from complete humiliation. All I had to do was play the victim and develop the necessary rationalization that I would use. There was always a very good excuse for quitting. I could convince myself that there was no other way. I thought I had convinced others of this as well but I am sure they knew it was just plain giving up. The other part of my "quitting" rationalization was that now I can pursue something new for which I am better suited. This is how I became an expert at starting but inept at completing. The grass was greener and I would leap that fence only to find again and again that it was astroturf (that's fake grass for anyone under 30).
Now, as a grown man in my 30's I had to come to grips with the fact that I escaped nothing by quitting in the face of adversity. The consequences of these actions had caught up to me. I now had allowed the fear of failure to firmly root itself in me. Instead of facing the fear and the adversity, I ran away and the result was the consistent desire to run from my problems. At different times in my life I found new ways to run in the form of drugs, alcohol and tobacco too. While in my career, I would quickly move onto a new job when I felt I might be found out for the failure I believed myself to be.
Fortunately, along the way, I had read enough books like the Power of Positive Thinking, The Magic of Believing and Think & Grow Rich. The words from these books did not motivate me to act but they had convinced me that there was always hope to choose a new path. I may not have believed in my abilities but maybe out of desparation I decided to started making some changes. Then it came to me. Hey, wait a minute. I am good at quitting. Maybe I could use my quitting skill on some of the destructive behaviors in my life.
OK, OK, maybe I wasn't on to something. I know quitting bad habits is not as easy as quitting 7th grade football but I realized the consequences of my early decisions. It was this awareness that helped me understand what I needed to do. It was not an overnight fix but armed with the understanding and wisdom from past failures, I could make new decisions that would bring more of the results in life that I desired. I am certainly not where I would like to be but I am on the right track and I now view adversity as an opportunity for growth and not the scary giant I used to run away from. I have successfully quit quitting!
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