That time when giving up was healthy

In the last blog post I told you not to give up, right? Right. So, am I going to contradict myself straight away witht this post? The answer is no (obviously, I am not a masochist).

In the last post I said that the first step we all need to take is to listen to our inner compass, to take some time for ourselves and understand what we really want to accomplish. This is how we find out what is really important. This is how we recognize the things we don’t want to give up.

Once we know what we want, the second step is to learn to give up.

This may seem contradictory but it’s not. If you want to accomplish something, if you want to find the strength not to give up what you love, you need to learn to give up what is unhealthy for you, what holds you back or simply what distract you from your purpose.

We are all human and we have a certain amount of energy at disposal, right? There are very few people who are capable of doing a lot of different things and do all of them really well (believe me, I really envy those people!). Most of us (and I am among this group) can focus only on a few things at a time.

So we can’t split our attention among too many things or the risk is to do all of them in the wrong way. Our time also is limited and we need to use it properly.

We need to focus on what is important and give up all the rest that is not.

For instance, as you may know I love music and when I was a child I used to take piano lessons. At first I had private lessons, then, at the age of 11, I entered the Conservatory. I really liked to play but that kind of study required a commitment I wasn’t able to give.

I struggled a lot, I really tried but that wasn’t for me. So, after a huge amount of thinking, at the age of 14, I decided to quit. I treasure that experience but I was starting hating music, that is why I understood that was unhealthy for me.

Giving up on something that was causing me pain turned out to be the right choice even if it wasn’t easy, because I don’t like to leave things half done.

So what is the difficult part in step two? The tough part is to discern what is unhealthy for us and consequently it’s not worth our time and efforts from what is hard but is right to pursuit.

This is a matter of experience, a matter of trials and errors. We all have to try before we can say if it’s our cup of tea or not.

Just remember: there is nothing to be ashamed of in giving up on something that we feel wrong.

What about you? When did you give up on something that felt wrong? You can share your experience in the comments!