Don’t give up. Don’t quit. Eat glass.
We are all victims of the over-promotion of overachievers. Let me tell you a quick personal story.
Some years ago, I was an aspiring tech entrepreneur. Like many, I arrived in Silicon Valley with an idea and many dreams. In 2014 everybody was living off the genius and vision of Steve Jobs. I was also one of them. Very quickly, I realized that everybody wanted to be like Steve Jobs. I didn’t. I thought the world would be unbearable if everybody were like Steve Jobs. One is more than enough. By many accounts, he was a visionary and a genius at the right time at the right place. He was also a very difficult man to be around.
When you hear or read about Steve Jobs, and other high-performers, it’s all about persevering, never giving up. I call this the overachiever fallacy. People who fall into it, are pressured to eat glass, spit iron, and stay the course.
During the last year of my five-year-long startup journey, I secretly wanted to give up. What I was doing was not any more meaningful to me. Nevertheless, I couldn’t. I felt the pressure to continue trying, as I fell victim to the overachiever fallacy. Fortunately, it took me only one year to realize this. Some never realize it.
Nowadays, I celebrate people who tried something and quit. It is not worth falling into the overachiever fallacy. Think about it:
- Should you stay in a job that is not giving you what you want?
- Should you continue to work for a bad manager?
- Should you stay in a city or country that is not living to your standards?
- Should you stay in a bad relationship?
- Should you continue to hang out with people that don’t accept you as you are?
Giving myself permission to quit, give up, and close an important chapter in my life gave me the freedom, the space to breathe, to start another one. There is not only one chapter we should live in. One’s life is made of multiple chapters, and you need to close one before you start another one.
To make space for new adventures, you need to close past ones; sometimes, that means quitting. Also, note that many people quit once or twice before landing on their success. The world is not interested in that story, though. I am.