People always ask me why I do long distance cycling sometimes biking over 150 miles in one day. My simple answer is that I was never much of an athlete, but the one competitive quality I possess is that if I am targeting a goal, I never ever give up. I can always keep on pedaling one more mile to get to where I want to go.
This is why I ran a marathon in 1984 (and I walked part of it) and why I never quit Karate and stayed at my dojo for 20 years. While I was always one of the least talented students in the class, I just kept practicing and coming back to progress toward my advancement.
Never giving up is good and bad when it comes to small business.
It’s good because during those tough times when everyone else would have thrown in the towel, I am still there searching and testing solutions to move my company forward. There are a lot of times when running a small business where it seems it’s like you against the world. No one else out there supports the achievement of your goal or they quit a long time ago. They may even forget that you are still out there.
My father always told me that “Winners never quit and quitters never win.” Unfortunately, I found this not to always be true in small businesses. More accurately, I have found that “winners know when to quit.”
Never giving up can be bad because sometimes the best thing is to quit and move on to something else. As Will Rogers said, “When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you need to do is to stop digging.” Many times, the best thing is to quit, learn what you can, let go of that failure and move on to another action that gives you a chance of success.
How do you know when to keep going and when to give up?
I decide based on the rate of progress toward my goal. For example, on long distance bike rides (over 150 miles), am I still traveling at 75% of my standard speed? Or is my progress rapidly deteriorating with each mile? If that is the case, it’s time to give up. In karate, when I was getting more hurt than staying healthy, it was time to quit.
In business, am I still making progress towards my goal by accomplishing key objectives to get there? Or have I been largely stopped, and I am just gaining as much as I am losing? It is easy to fool myself because I don’t want to give up.
Successful business people know when to quit and start looking for success elsewhere. Don’t think of it as giving up or quitting; think of it as renewing your efforts but in a different direction.
