Is it time to throw in the towel?

You’ve established your goals.  You’ve created and executed your plan.  You’re getting nowhere.  How do you know whether you should work harder or throw in the towel?

It may feel like the universe is trying to send you a message –it’s coming in loud and clear.  Before you give up, decide if the problem is lies in the goal, the plan or the execution.  Then you can make a decision that you can live with and won’t regret down the road. 

Start by asking yourself the following questions:

1. Can I live with the alternative?
2. Have I really given one hundred percent to making this a reality?
3. Is my personal bias or agenda preventing me from seeing the solution?
4. Does this goal still fit into my big picture plans? 
5. Do I expect immediate gratification? 

Can I live with the alternative?  There is always an alternative.  It could as simple as doing nothing at all, it could be moving in another direction, or it could force you to make a decision that you don’t want to make.  Put together a list of what would or could happen if you didn’t achieve this goal.  Are there any options you can live with?

I worked with a client whose time management problems were affecting his ability to be successful at work.  No matter what steps we took to remedy the situation, we were never successful because time management was just the symptom of a larger problem – over commitment.  Until he decided if he could live with the alternative, releasing projects that he enjoyed working on, he would never achieve his goal and his over commitment would continue to wreak havoc on his career. 

Have I really given one hundred percent to making this a reality?  Be honest.  Have you really done everything you can (within legal and ethical standards, of course) to achieve your goal?  If not, what’s holding you back?  Are you doing this for yourself or for someone else?  Is fear keeping you in your comfort zone?  Does your plan require you to devote more time to shoring up your weaknesses rather than leveraging your natural talents? 

How will you live with yourself if you throw in the towel before you have given it your all? If it is a goal worth pursuing, rework your plan so that you are comfortable with the execution and then give 100% to making it a reality.

Is my personal bias or agenda preventing me from seeing the solution?  How many times have you let your personal biases or agendas get in the way of seeing the clear solution? 

I have a good friend (we’ll call her Grace) who took a job with a company that she thought would be perfect for her career.  On paper, it was.  It was a promotion with promises of more to come, a salary increase, and an organization with a good reputation.  Grace started this new job with optimism and a determination to be the best.  What she was lacking was flexibility.  She had a predetermine plan for achieving success that would have worked fabulously if she were with her previous employer but not at her new job.  Her personal agenda, achieving success by following her plan, and inability to adapt to a new environment resulted in a rough start.  Once she was able to look at the situation objectively and let go of her agenda, the solution was obvious. 

Planning is important, but so is flexibility.  Sometimes we have to have to be open to following a different path if we want to reach our goals.  Look at your situation objectively.  Have you been overlooking a clear solution?

Does this goal still fit into my big picture plans?  It’s okay to stop pursing a goal that no longer serves you.  If you haven’t already, complete the ideal life exercise.  Get a clear vision of how you would like your life to be and then answer the following questions.  Who is in your life?  Where you do you live?  How do you spend your time at work?  How do you spend your free time?  What gives you the greatest satisfaction?  Include anything else that you feel is relevant.  Once you have you big picture plans, determine if this goal still fits into those plans.  If it does, continue to work on it.  If not, ditch it.

Do you expect immediate gratification?  Some things can’t be rushed, they have to be cultivated.  In this age of technology, we often expect life to give us instantaneous results.  Realistically, you have to give your efforts, sometimes repeated efforts, time to make the impact that you intended.  In advertising, the rule is to run an ad at least three times before you can expect to see any results.  Follow this rule of thumb when implementing your professional goals. 

For instance, if your goal is to make new contacts in the community, a good approach would be to attend networking functions.  You don’t give up if nothing came from attending just one function.  Commit to attending the same group three to five times.  If you are doing everything right and you aren’t building connections, find another group.  Don’t just quit, assuming networking doesn’t work. 

Making the decision to continue working on your goal or to throw in the towel is a difficult one.  Six months after I started my coaching practice, I considered giving up and going back to work.  I had done tons of work with little to show for it.  I was frustrated, and going back to the corporate world offered a quick and secure solution to the challenges of being an entrepreneur.  However, I asked myself the questions above and took my time making a decision.  What I realized was that I had worked hard but I hadn’t really given one hundred percent to making it work; I had a plan that I refused to deviate from, even when it made sense; and I wanted to believe that you could build a full practice in six short months.   After reflecting on my “big picture plans,” it was clear that going back to work would be the easy way out – an alternative that I couldn’t live with.  So I continued, became more flexible and the foundation that I had laid finally started paying off.