How To Stop Quitting When Things Get Hard

Today we’re going to discuss how to stop quitting when things get hard.

I want to share with you how I translate breakdowns (which is probably different than how you translate them). I’m also going to share with you what never works when things get tough and finally I’m going to share with you one of the most powerful exercises I’ve ever learned and exactly what to do when you start getting negative.

What does a breakdown mean?

First let’s talk about when things are getting tough, you typically feel like you’re having a breakdown. Something’s not working, something isn’t the way that you like it or you get a negative surprise. I always look at breakdowns with the thought of “where’s the lesson?” “What’s the thing I need to learn from this?”

Let me give you an example, a not so pleasant example. Quite a few years ago we had a very trusted employee steal sixty thousand dollars from us. I was not in an amazing mindset to were I was able to think “oh no big deal”……right? Instead I’m thinking “what the heck, man?”

I still remember how the conversation went after we figure this out and called her to talk. We ask her… “hey we need some help here because it looks like you’ve stolen money from us?” and she’s like “yeah, you got me.” I’m thinking “what the hell?” It was the weirdest response. I never expected it, but after the few minutes of being angry and feeling betrayed and feeling like you can’t hire anybody nowadays, because you can’t trust them.

I said “okay, what can I learn from this?”

One, I became grateful because it actually could have been a lot worse. She had full access to our bank account, could have wiped us out and headed to wherever and we never see her again with all of our money (literally!) because she was our financial controller. She had access to all of our stuff. Gratitude…..It could have been worse.

Whatever you’re going through right now….probably could be worse (you may not want to think that way) but if you can create a little bit of gratitude, you can actually make it not feel so bad.

Number two, what is the lesson here? What can I learn from this? Which led us to create new systems where we are much less likely to have that kind of scenario show up. It made us a better company by having that happen to us. Now, I don’t wish that upon you and wish it didn’t happen but it did make us a much more stable and secure company by creating new financial processes so that it couldn’t happen again.

Besides this example, look at your example in life. One phrase I want you to embrace is “The lesson is repeated until it is learned.”

A lot of people they go through the same relationship 10 times with 10 different people. Well the only constant is you. The lesson is repeated until it is learned. What lesson do you need to learn from your most recent breakdown, because it may be the most powerful lesson that you have to learn. Once learned, you’ll stop having that exact type of breakdown.

What never works when things get tough?

You may have guessed what never works when things get tough……and obviously that’s quitting. Quitting doesn’t speed anything up, quitting doesn’t make anything improve. Now, let me just say…..sometimes saying “no” to something is the best thing that you can do. If you’re serious about a goal and it’s meaningful to you, then quitting on that goal not only do you not attain the goal but it actually makes you believe in yourself less.

When you commit to something but don’t do it…….it’s not just the goal that you’re missing, it’s also going to result in you believing a little bit less in yourself, which is very damaging. If you don’t believe in you, why should anybody else?

Know that when the going gets tough, you quitting is almost never the answer. Let’s look at it differently. Is there another way to approach it? What is the lesson? (Like I mentioned before) and is this still important to me? Now if you decide “you know what?” This just isn’t important to me anymore then fine. Set a new goal, go off in that direction. If you’re being honest most of the times we’re quitting on something that is actually important to us.

I would love to hear from you (this little exercise will actually help you out). What’s one thing that you’ve accomplished in your life that was not easy to do but you stuck with it and you made it happen? I’d love to hear from you in the comments. What that was and you reliving that moment. Reliving the pursuit of a goal is actually very beneficial to you, because you’re tapping into the muscle and the memory of you doing something that was worthwhile, that was awesome. I would love to hear from you and cheer you on and hear about your experiences. (I read and respond to every comment.)

What is the most powerful exercise I have learned?

So what is this powerful exercise? Before I explain the exercise, let me share with you one of my favorite scenarios where I use this exercise. I speak at a lot of different company events and I’m a keynote speaker at events around the world. I was preparing to go out to Vegas for a very big network marketing company convention where I was the keynote speaker.

We were booked months and months ahead of time and so my team knew everything about it. It’s a Thursday, I speak on Saturday…..I reach out to my team and I said “hey did we send the product to the hotel?” “Is it at the hotel?” “No, it’s not there yet, should get there Saturday.”

“What? Okay all right, I speak Saturday, hope it’s there.”

“Are the order forms ready?”

“Ah, no we have to tweak them.”

“Okay.” (Again, we’ve known about it for months, but order form’s not ready.)

“Okay is the PowerPoint updated?”

“No, we still need to do that.”

“Okay.”

At this point I’m really getting a little agitated, but I’ve built the muscle of awareness. If I’m getting agitated, I know that emotions are propagated.

Whatever emotion you hold on to, you get to experience more of it.

I was in an emotion I didn’t want to experience so I have to do something about it and my go-to is the most powerful exercise I have learned.

Here is the exercise. Stand up, eyes closed (I learned this from one of my mentors Satin Raha, he created this very powerful process) and you do something that you probably would never do. You express in an exhaustive fashion all of your frustrations around the particular problem.

That sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Aren’t you supposed to speak positively and never say those things…. I get it, just pay attention.

Stand up, eyes closed and you move counterclockwise very slowly expressing all of your frustrations, all of the possible scenarios that could go in the wrong direction that you don’t want. You’re going counterclockwise very slowly, standing up eyes closed and you exhaust all the things (I’m going to give you an example). Then once you’re exhaustively given your list of bad things around the situation that’s bothering you……you go the other way, clockwise, the direction of creation, it’s how everything is created.

Look at trees, at crop circles…anything in nature, look at conch shells. They’re created in clockwise fashion.

You go clockwise, the direction of creation and you express what you actually want.

Back to my example…here I am agitated, I decide I’m going to do this process. I start eyes closed, standing up counterclockwise and I say “okay, the paper forms don’t get there. The product doesn’t get there, I bomb on stage, they never want to work with me ever again. No one buys anything and it’s just a total waste of my time and the entire audience’s time.” That’s pretty hardcore….I mean I really expressed how terrible it was going to be. I exhausted my negative thinking and then I stopped and went the other way. What is it that I actually want?

I went clockwise and I said “the company rehires me immediately. Sales are through the roof, they create a leadership group and they hire me to train their leaders. The number one income earner in the company hires me to coach them and people come up to me with tears in their eyes saying it’s the most powerful presentation they’d ever seen”…..right?

That was the exercise. I get to Vegas, I rock it, the company rehires me immediately, sales were through the roof. They create a leadership group, they hire me to coach their leaders. The number one income earner in the company hires me to coach her and I have at least 20, maybe 30 people come up to me with tears in their eyes saying it was the most powerful presentation they’d ever seen.

I’m not saying that doing this exercise will always get you 100% of the things that you focus on and what you actually want……But it did in that scenario. I’ve had that happen over and over and over. The next time that you’re frustrated, going through a tough time or agitated, do this exercise.

You can bookmark this post so that you can come back and make sure that you’re doing it the correct way. This one exercise has helped me tremendously and it can help you too.

Now if you would like a free strategy session to help you reach your goals, regardless of your history, maybe you’ve quit on every goal you’ve ever attempted but you would like some strategy personalized to you and your situation, make sure you click this link…..

https://www.higdongrouptraining.com/

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Click that link, fill it out (no cost to fill it out) and get that free strategy session today.