Pat Flynn
When I started this blog a little over a year ago, I hired a personal trainer to help me “look good” for my wedding, which happened to be about three months later. During this time, working out 2 hours a day with my trainer, David, I learned a lot about the body, but I learned even more about the mind.
I had written a few posts about the correlation between earning a passive income and working out at the gym, which I’ll quickly summarize for you below:
- Both are not easy;
- Both take time and dedication before you begin to notice any significant results;
- Your “workout plan” should be determined by what you want to achieve, not the other way around; and
- You’ll want to give up.
This last point is a killer. You’ll want to give up.
For most people, including myself, anything that requires an exhaustive, extraordinary, and often painful amount of effort includes thoughts about giving up.
- “It’s too hard…”
- “It’s worthless…”
- “It hurts…”
- “I don’t have the time…”
- “I want to quit…”
Have you said these things to yourself before?
I have…plenty of times. When I was training with David for my wedding, I thought about giving up at least once during each session. When I started getting serious with my online business, I thought about giving up because I wasn’t sure if what I was doing was worth the effort. And several times within the first 6 months of creating The Smart Passive Income Blog, I wanted to give up because it was hard to keep up.
I have many other examples from my life where I wanted to give up, and in many instances I did. I’m not proud of those moments. And what makes me even more depressed is to see other people’s hard work come to a halt because they’ve given up as well. I often come across superb blogs in random Google searches, only to find that the latest blog post was from 6 months ago, or longer.
It’s my hope that the following list of “hacks” will prevent you from giving up and help you keep going. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do—just don’t give up, because you could have something special in the works, you just don’t realize it yet.
1. Remember Why You’re Doing What You’re Doing
If my mind tells me to quit, I consciously remember the underlying reason why I put myself in that situation in the first place. This can be a hard thing to do, especially if you’re frustrated, or in pain. But, sometimes all it takes is a conscious effort of just remembering why we’re there to put it all back into perspective and keep us going.
2. Don’t Give Yourself a Back Door
Sometimes, we’re given an option to back out, which makes giving up much easier (and tempting). We should eliminate those options, so we have no choice but to follow through.
For example, many gyms will give you a free training session before you make your decision about setting up a long-term training plan. In addition, they give you the option of getting your money back for any training sessions that you don’t attend.
Why not buy 3 months worth of training sessions without taking the free training session, and without the option of ever getting your money back? This way, you won’t be tempted to skip any sessions, and you’ll have the motivation to go and get your money’s worth each and every time.
3. Tell Someone What You Plan To Do Next
By simply announcing what you plan to do next, you feel like you have an obligation to follow through. If you don’t, you might feel that you’re either letting a person or a group of people down, or they’ll see you as a failure (or both).
This is a technique that I use all of the time, especially here on this blog. For instance, I announced that I was writing an ebook before I had even started. This forced me to make sure it was going to get done. And yes, it’s done. 🙂
Also, I often announce what my next blog post will be, even though I don’t know exactly what that blog post will include. That way, I’ll be sure that it will indeed be written on time.
4. Give Yourself a Deadline
For many people, including myself, if there’s a due date for something, giving up is the last thing on my mind.
It’s ingrained in our minds to think this way because of how we were taught in school. If you give up, you get an F. No one wants an F.
So, figure out a due date that will force you to work on your task and write it where you can see it. And, if you’re like me, you may end up with better results because you work better under pressure too!
5. Find People With Similar Goals
Find people who share the same goals as you, and be there to support and motivate each other at all times.
When I’m with a person or groups of people who want the same thing as me, giving up doesn’t even cross my mind. I don’t know if it’s because I don’t want to let those people down, or because I don’t want them to “get ahead” of me—whatever it is, it works.
This is why it’s so much easier to go to the gym or stay on a diet if someone else is doing it with you. It’s also the reason why I’ve been able to keep up with this blog and my other internet businesses too.
I have quite a few “online buddies”. Some of them are part of mastermind groups I’m in, and others are just like-minded people who I chat with on Skype. We share our goals, our hardships, and help each other out when we’re in need.
A part of me really wants to make sure I keep working hard so I don’t let these people down. Another part of me wants to work even harder, so I can keep up with them, or, do better, if possible. It’s like a friendly competition, where we all just want to be successful together.
How about you?
What techniques or “hacks” have you used to keep going, when you just wanted to throw in the towel and give up?
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