How to stop quitting on yourself

Welcome to This Daring Adventure podcast where we work on bridging the gap between where we are and where we want to be in order to live a bigger and bolder life. In this podcast, we will provide inspiration, tips, and skills you need to make your life the adventure you want it to be. Here's your host, mindset mentor, and life coach, Trista Guertin

Hey everybody. Welcome back to This Daring Adventure. So today I we are gonna talk about quitting and how to stop quitting on yourself. This is interesting because I have been working on a few things, and I had a few small goals for March. And I was diligently following them, doing them, checking them off on my little index card. And our brain really does mess with us in terms of what it tells us. We feel like doing what matters, what doesn't matter. And how we're feeling, and it can really derail us. It can can throw us right off. Even at the very beginning, and I may have mentioned this the other day or in the other episode, And I wanted to do three pushups every day. Three pushups isn't very much, but the idea was to do it every day to say what or to do what I said I was going to do. That was the important thing. Three pushups is manageable, but the very first day I had left it until the end of the day, I was getting ready for bed, getting into my pajamas and realized I hadn't done my pushups, and I actually had the thought, well it doesn't really matter. I can do it tomorrow. And then I was like, what? Wait, no, no. So I got down on the floor and I did the pushups and that really changed things for me. And I knew then I could make it through the month doing what I said I would do. Doing it that first day, not quitting on myself before I had even started was important. And we think that it's not gonna matter. Nobody would've known if I hadn't done my pushups, but I knew. And I felt like there were so many times where I didn't do what I said I was going to do, that I was going to be the person who did. And that changed everything because it's not so much about the action as it is getting yourself to do the action, to take the action, to show up, to follow through. And so let me ask you, how many times have you quit? On something important to you without ever saying the words, I quit, maybe you didn't dramatically give up. You didn't make some big announcement, but you skipped the workout, bought the thing, put off the project, didn't send the email, didn't apply for the job, didn't start the business, didn't have the conversation, and you told yourself something very reasonable. You know, our brain does tell us. Something that we easily believe I'm tired. I'll do it tomorrow. I just need a break. I'm too busy. And probably in the moment it didn't feel like quitting. It made sense, felt logical, but the biggest goals in your life are almost never destroyed by one big decision to quit. They're destroyed by hundreds of tiny quits that seem harmless in the moment. And those quits, those little quits quietly accumulate until one day you look at your life and think, why didn't I follow through? I, so today I want to teach you something pretty powerful. How to recognize the little quits that are sabotaging your life and how to stop them. Before they become the big quit. What is quitting? Quitting means one of two things. First, it means to stop or discontinue something. Second, it means to stop trying. To give up. Now, when we imagine quitting, we usually picture the big moments. Someone quits their job, someone abandons their business, someone stops working on their goal. That's the big quit, right? But the big quit almost never happens. Suddenly it builds slowly because before the big quit, there were hundreds of little quits. Now the little quit is when we give into the urge for momentary comfort instead of staying committed to our long-term goal. Little quits sound like I just need a break. I'm too tired today. I'm too busy. This is too hard. I'm not good at this. I'm confused about what to do. I'll do it tomorrow. I just don't feel like it. And for me. When I was going to do my pushups or not do my pushups, it just doesn't matter. Can start tomorrow. Now, here's the tricky part. These thoughts sound reasonable. They make sense probably in the moment. You're tired, you're rushed. You don't feel like it. We never feel like it, and they sound responsible. They sound like you. Just being realistic. But most of the time they're simply excuses that your brain is offering you to avoid discomfort. Your brain loves comfort, loves the ease, wants to conserve energy, wants to stay exactly where it is. So when you try to grow and change and build something new or become a new version of yourself, your brain starts offering you little exits, little ways out. Or little quits. And then these little quits become big quits. Imagine you were deciding to write a book and you decide you're gonna sit down every day and write for 20 minutes, but then you skip one day, you're tired, you tell yourself it's not a big deal. And honestly it isn't. Missing. One day of writing won't ruin anything, but the next week you skip another and then another, and each time your brain will tell you a perfectly logical story. It's fine. You'll catch up. You're still committed. You'll do it tomorrow, but slowly the little quits start adding up. And then when it comes to finishing the novel, you realize you haven't done half of the writing that you wanted to do, and now you decide not to finish the book. That is the big quit, but the quitting started months earlier when you quit on yourself in small ways, you gave yourself an out again and again and again. And this matters because this is exactly how people stay stuck. It's not because they make one dramatic decision or they've made a mistake. It's because they slowly chip away at their own commitment and their own self-trust, and each little quit then becomes evidence. Evidence that you don't follow through. Evidence that maybe you're not disciplined evidence, that maybe you're not the kind of person who does big things, maybe that there's something wrong with you, that you just don't have it in you, that it's too late, it's too hard, and your brain collects that evidence and eventually it uses it to justify the big quit. But here's the good news. If the little quits create failure, then eliminating the little quits. Moves you towards success and helps you to create whatever it is you want. So how do you stop quitting on yourself? There are basically three things that change everything. The first is you want to make a real commitment. Most people say they are committed, but they're actually just interested people. Try committed people, follow through. If you wanna stop quitting, I. You need to know why your goal matters. You need to have very clear reasons, and don't just pick one reason, pick five. Give yourself five good reasons. Ask yourself, why do I want this? And then ask again and again and again, and tell your reasons. Feel so powerful that quitting feels unacceptable, because when your reasons are weak, your excuses will win. Next. Expect the desire to quit. There's gonna be discomfort, but this is where most people go wrong. They assume that something has gone wrong. When they feel the resistance, they think this, it shouldn't be hard. I shouldn't feel like this. I shouldn't feel like quitting. But the resistance is always going to be there in some form or another, especially when something is new and wanting to quit is very normal, completely normal. Right. We all do it. Anytime you try to grow, your brain is going to offer you reasons to stop, but the discomfort, the resistance, the reasons your brain offers you, none of it mean something has gone wrong. It just means you're doing something new and it's going to take effort. It's gonna take energy. There's going to be discomfort. There might be some fear and some doubt along the way. But instead of being surprised by the urge to quit and the resistance and the discomfort and the fear and the doubt, expect it, plan for it. It's gonna be there. So know ahead of time your excuses. So know ahead of time what your excuses will sound like, because when you see them coming, you won't be tricked by them. You'll have that awareness of what your brain is offering you that is not helpful and you don't have to listen to it, and in fact, you can't listen to it if you want to create the result that you wanna create. And then third. Decide who wins in the moment. When you wanna quit, you get to make a decision. You can listen to that voice, that part of your brain that wants the comfort and the ease, and to stay the same. Or you can listen to the voice that wants growth and something more, something bigger, something different, something upleveled. You wanna uplevel yourself, so ask yourself, why do I wanna quit right now? And compare those reasons to the reasons you started. The reason to quit right now is about temporary relief. The other reason to keep going is about the life you want to build, the person you wanna become, what you wanna create, and then you get to decide. Not emotionally, but deliberately, because success doesn't come from never wanting to quit. It comes from choosing not to. So the real skill isn't motivation, it's not discipline, it's self-leadership. It's learning to stay with discomfort long enough to create the life you want. And every time you refuse a little quit. You build trust with yourself. You prove that your word matters, and that changes everything because the people who create whatever they want, the people that create extraordinary lives, big results, aren't the most talented. They are the people who simply stopped quitting on themselves. So the next time you hear yourself say, I'll do it tomorrow. Let's pause and ask yourself one question. Is this a real decision or is this a little quit? Because your future isn't gonna be decided or determined by those big moments. It's gonna be built in the small ones, the days you show up, even when you don't feel like it. The days when you keep going, even when you just wanna lie down every single day. So if you were ready to do this work you want some support and you're realizing how often those little quits are showing up in your life, I want to invite you to join my community called You, Redefined. It's where midlife women come to rebuild the most important relationship. They have the relationship with themselves. Inside the community, we work on the exact skills that stop the cycle of quitting. Learning how to manage your thoughts, learning how to follow through on your goals, learning how to lead your life instead of reacting to it. Because the real transformation is this. You stop doubting yourself. You start trusting yourself. You become the woman who does what she says she's going to do, and when that changes, everything else in your life starts to change too. I will put the link in the show notes. You'll receive a 30 minute coaching call, one-to-one with me each month. There's a private podcast and all of the tools and skills that I teach in this podcast, come join us. The transformation is real. I'll see you there.