When You Feel Like Giving Up on Your Business
If you’re reading this from your couch on a cloudy Sunday after another week has sped by, and you’re feeling depleted, and your motivation levels are about as fruitful as your bank account is lately, and the term give up is starting to sound less and less evil … welcome to the right place. You’re not alone. This is where you should be when you feel like giving up.
Chasing your dreams is not going as planned. You’re a talented, educated, motivated person — and you assumed that those traits would prevent you from feeling what you’re feeling right now.
Feeling like a failure.
Feeling that you must be doing something wrong.
Believing that this is not how it’s supposed to be.
You’re not someone who fails or who will give up or blame something else for why you are where you are now … but it’s pretty damn tempting sometimes.
When you feel like giving up, ask yourself: How did you get here?
Maybe it was one thing after another. A series of misfortunes that kept altering your course until you looked up one day and asked yourself that very same question:
How did I get here?
This is where you might start mentally listing all the things that you think put you in this position — the learning curves and deals falling through and unexpected expenses and so on…
But listing out all the reasons why you’ve failed is not going to do anything for you except make you feel sorry for yourself.
And feeling sorry for yourself only keeps you stuck where you’re at.
What to do when you feel like giving up.
Well, this is where I need to turn the blog around and advise you from my point of view, because I don’t know exactly what’s happening in your life. But, if I tell you what’s happening in mine, I hope that’ll help you decide for yourself.
My partner and I are not meant to be 9-5 employees. We’ve been exposed to what life is like for people that have built their own empires, and there’s simply no going back now. The thought of ever-again reporting to a “boss,” having to ask for vacation time, or spending the next 50 years making under $100k while helping hold up someone else’s empire is just not an option anymore.
I would truly move back home into my parents’ basement before I could return to that life.
If you’re like me, you tried the corporate thing — and it just never felt like what you were supposed to be doing. This wasn’t the right way for you to spend your time.
Then you set off on your own. You consulted for companies, and that was great until you realized that you’d somehow become a full-time employee to someone whose moral values didn’t align with yours. So, you got out of there and started from scratch again.
Then the universe challenged you. It threw you rejection after rejection and then piled a bunch of expenses on top of that. And you were so busy keeping your head above water, trying to get everything done, that you just dealt with things as they came up.
But, now you’re sitting here … months later … wondering if you should give up.
When you feel like giving up, at what point is it stupid not to?
When you’re not making enough money to get by?
When you’re asking yourself how you’re going to pay rent this month?
When your best friend kindly fills your Nespresso drawer because you’re completely out and unwilling to restock until you’ve paid yourself?
Yeah, these scenarios will all make you feel like you’ve failed. And, you know what, you probably have failed. But the biggest failure you’ve experienced is happening right at this very second…
because you’re reading a blog about what to do when you feel like giving up.
Why did you start on this path?
What led you to pursue this life of unsteady income? Cause I’m guessing you didn’t truly believe you’d be cashing million-dollar pay checks immediately.
You started this because you have a dream.
You dream about never worrying about making rent again.
You dream about retiring your mom and dad, and paying for them to actually be retired instead of working part-time jobs to stay afloat.
You dream about travelling freely to skip -45 winters, and giving your siblings jobs that they enjoy instead of letting them accumulate a life of debt, and building your own home where you can grow a food forrest that feeds you year-round.
And you’re probably surrounded by people in life who have stopped dreaming.
Now ask yourself: do you want to be like those people?
Are you willing to let go of your dreams, and settle for what you don’t want?
I don’t think you are — otherwise you wouldn’t be here.
You’re just waiting for affirmation. You’re waiting for someone to tell you you’re doing a good job, and to keep going.
And I’m here to tell you that all you have to do is just that.
When you feel like giving up, all you have to do to succeed is not.
Do you think that any of the successful people you look up to got to where they are today without being where you are right now?
Anna Wintour was fired from her position as a junior fashion editor at Harper’s Bazaar.
Bill Gates couldn’t get an investor or financier to support his first company.
Steve Jobs was a college drop-out, labeled as a “bad businessman,” and eventually got fired from his own company.
I could go on about big names that faced years of rejection and failure:
Walt Disney
J.K. Rowling
Oprah Winfrey
Chris Pratt
Vera Wang
Jay-Z
Jeff Bezos
… you get the point.
You are not a failure because you’ve been failing. Every single fuck-up you’ve experienced up until today has slowly been turning you into the person that you need to be to make those dreams actually happen.
There is a reason that the term “The 1%” exists…
99% of people will give up before they achieve their dreams.
So, think about where you are right now.
Maybe you’re broke.
Maybe you’ve been rejected.
Maybe you’ve lost friends and opportunities along this journey.
Well 50% of people in this world would have probably given up once they lost money.
Then 50% of those when they faced multiple rejections.
And probably another 50% every time they faced any kind of loss after all that.
You’ve already beat out so many people who could not handle what you are sitting with right now.
And yet here you are — asking a stranger to tell you that it’s okay to quit.
That’s not what you’re gonna get here.
When you feel like giving up, don’t. You need to keep going.
Whatever your reason is for feeling stuck, take this as your sign to get the fuck over it.
Success leaves clues — you’re just not picking them up.
You don’t know how to get more people looking at your social posts?
Go look at someone who gets lots of engagement in that niche, and literally copy what they’re doing.
You don’t know how to get people interested in your business?
Reach out to someone that seems successful at this, and ask them if you can pick their brain. Wealthy, successful people are very rarely stingy with their knowledge — most of them promote wealth.
You don’t know how to create an offer that people will want?
Go watch Alex Hormozi’s free course on exactly how to do this (Seriously, it’s full of valuable knowledge!)
Stop listing all the reasons why you can’t take action and just do it.
Take one step.
Then another step.
Then one more…
and I promise you, you will look up one day soon and be in a different spot.
When you feel like giving up, remember that dream.
You’re already winning. You’re just shedding some of that losing skin.
Maybe you’ll even look outside and see that the sun has come out.
Keep going.
If you need more inspiration for why you should keep working toward your dream, this post will really help! For more tips on next steps you can start taking today, click here!
If you’re interested in making money online, but have no idea how — you are an inspired idiot!
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