How To Never Quit - The Key To Reframing The Toughtest Obstacles
By Leo Gura - January 15, 2014 | 12 Comments
A radical, powerful way of looking at obstacles so that you never fall off track with your important goals ever again.
Big Ideas
The Defining Moment
- The defining moment in any endeavor or project that you undertake is the point when you feel like all is lost and you will give up.
- The project either becomes too stressful, too challenging, or too mundane.
- Your mind is a master at coming up with excuses for why to quit.
- But this is exactly the moment you should be excited about, because this is what separates the winners from the losers!
- You have to realize that that moment when you feel like quitting is critical to your success.
Winners vs Losers
- Really successful people, world-class performers, are the ones who lean into the defining moments. They know that obstacles are directly create their success.
- Mediocre, average people are the ones who quit because they trick themselves into believing that an obstacle is a sign of serious trouble.
- To achieve anything big in life you’re going to have to learn how to reframe obstacles into opportunities.
- Successful people do this naturally. They realize that obstacles grow them, toughen them up, and separate them from the competition.
- The reason most people are mediocre is because they only want to do the things that are easy and comfortable.
- The point where most people give up is the point where you have to keep going!
Your Brain Is A Thermostat
- Your brain will always try to keep you in homeostasis, even when you’re trying to make a positive change in yourself.
- Most people are always eager at the beginning of an endeavor, that’s easy. What difficult is pushing through when you feel like giving up.
- Most people don’t realize that their brains will naturally send them signals to quit once they push their comfort zone a little bit.
- Your brain works like a thermostat, locking you into whatever mode of performance that you’ve recently been at.
- Changing the thermostat takes extraordinary effort.
- Any time you try to change your thermostat, you will feel resistance and discomfort.
Value = What’s Rare
- Realize that the reason you chose to pursue that big goal of yours in the first place is because it’s valuable, rare, and difficult to achieve.
- It must be this way. If your goal was insignificant, commonplace, or easy to achieve, you would either already have it or you wouldn’t want it.
- For example, if you’re trying to become a doctor, the reason a doctor is so respected and well-paid is because it takes a lot of hard work to become one.
- For example, if you’re trying to start a business in a new market, the reason that market is lucrative and open is because it takes a lot of hard work to exploit it.
- Consider the vast disparity in effort required to become a doctor vs flipping burgers at McDonald’s.
Everyone’s In The Same Boat
- The next time you’re feeling discouraged about your big endeavor, tell yourself to get excited. Because this obstacle will set you apart from everyone else!
- Knowing that most people are quitters, you can get doubly-excited about every obstacle because you know it will set you apart.
- Every extra mile that you run in a marathon race is an extra mile that someone else will quit.
- You have to keep reminding yourself that every obstacle you face, others will face.
- This holds true for obstacles that don’t seem like obstacles: like the boredom you might be facing in your career right now.
- Don’t get discouraged! Everyone will experience lulls in their career. That’s just part of the game.
- Whether your journey is smooth or rocky doesn’t matter. Ultimately all that matters is that you stay on the journey until the very end.
Seth Godin’s Dip
- Seth Godin talks about this topic in his brilliant little book, The Dip.
- Godin calls The Dip that moment when you are ready to throw in the towel.
- The key is to ask yourself in that moment whether the endeavor you’re about to quit has heart and long-term potential. If it does, you MUST NOT quit!
- The only endeavors you’re allowed to quit are the ones that have no long-term potential or conflict with your higher values.
- If you know the endeavor you’re working on is meaningful, then you just have to reframe every major obstacle as getting you one step closer.
- Not only is the dip weeding out the competition, it’s also making your stronger, smarter, and more resilient.
- Just the mere fact that you toughed it out past a major obstacle gives you incredible growth and personal power.
- If you want to become world-class at anything, the only way is by going through obstacle after obstacle as your competitions gets weeded out.
- If you want to be a well-known actor, a musician, a politician, or a successful entrepreneur, you will have to go through a gauntlet to filter you out from the crowd.
- The best filter of winners vs loser is emotional labor. Winners are always willing to endure emotional hardship to reach their goals. Loser never are.
- Sure, everyone would like to be an actor, an entrepreneur, or an athlete, but are they willing to pay the cost?
- There are millions of people that want things for free or at low cost. There a many who want things at medium cost and even high cost. But very few want something at great cost.
- The ultimate competitive advantage is being willing to pay extraordinary cost to get what you want.
Purpose & Vision
- Having a life purpose is so important. It will help you stay on track and tell yourself that the hard work is worth it.
- What you need to persevere past all the challenges is true vision: a crystal-clear picture of your dream.
- If you don’t have a vision right now, or your vision is lacking, don’t despair. Vision can be deliberately created.
- From now on, start seeing every obstacle in your way as a huge opportunity for you to advance and set yourself apart.
- The next time something catastrophic happens with your endeavor, tell yourself that you just have to keep going.
Bottom Line: Don’t let obstacles discourage you. Start reframing every obstacle as a big opportunity to set yourself apart.
Linda W. says: Hi Leo, I have just started retraining to be a child psychotherapist and have found that I have spells where I just do not have enough time to study, but I can now really see that I need to reframe these times of thinking ‘I just can’t face my books’ to ‘well, if I do, this will set me apart from the rest’. (When I do get back on it, I always remember how much I’m interested in it!)
Really looking forward to hearing your ‘building a vision’ video! (I have one but it fades somewhat sometimes!!!)
Brilliant tips, thanks again.
Linda.
Eliot Green says: Hi Leo, I have been with You a few weeks and really enjoyed your videos and they have really helped me. The last week I have had a bit of a Dip, I am working hard but progress has been slow and I started to feel down again. This latest video was just what I needed. Many Thanks your work is appreciated.
Leo Gura 
Anissa says: Hello Mr Leo,
It is really great to have a person in the world like you. I have goals to achieve and I have started giving up because I have made only small steps towards them and as you know there are obstacles in life . But after listening to this video I told myself, This is the moment where I should continue working to achieve my goals. I know everything is stuck , I am surrounding with problems that make it difficult but I am determined to try to solve those problems and go further.
I would like to thank you and I wonder if you accept that You help me with some advices.
Thank you very much
Anissa
Amazing insight. Very powerful, encouraging and motivating. Once again, life changing perspective. Cannot thank you enough Leo!
marc says: You said it very well Leo that obstacles are such a normal thing in every endeavor and if i surpassed it makes me a winner. As if you said to me directly “don’t quit” ’cause obstacles is just an illussion.. winners never quit ! Thanks Leo.
Samantha says: I’m so happy to have found your videos! I’ve been reading self help books for about five years now, but your videos are really the icing on the cake. This video has really helped me with my perspective on some of my goals, which are; mindfulness, weight loss and going to college after being out of school for awhile. It’s good to keep goals in mind and I’ll just have to reaffirm myself day by day.
Hi I just finished listening to your video on defining moments.
I been fighting all these past issues n mistakes n problems. Now a lot are present. I have all these blocks that I slot of times felt like just dying. There is no where for me to run if I give up. It’s do or die. I must see the light, n as you said if I make it out this dark side I will see what other people fail to see. It will make me so great spiritual.
SEP says: DEAR LEO I HAVE A IDEA FOR YOUR WEBSITE AS TRANSFORMING PART THOSE WHO ACTUALLY CHANGE DIFFERENT PERCEPTIVE OF THEIR LIVES TROUGH YOUR VIDEOS , SHARE THEIR EXPERIENCE AND SEND THEIR PICS LIKE BEFORE TRANSFORMATION AND AFTER TRANSFORMATION SPECIFICALLY FOR EACH TOPIC , IT WILL BOOST YOUR VIEWER RANKING TOO , JUST MAKE SURE THEY DONT SEND VIDEOS LONGER THAN 5 MINS , NOT TO BE BORING .. YOUR THE BEST AS A SAID BEFORE UR STEVE JOB OF PHILOSOPHY
Max Gron says: How I persevered during those “tough obstacles” is when they’ve driven the necessity for me to numb all kinds of pain with alcoholic wine, the needle hurts mentally and physically and no medicine in the world will take away this pain thus wine heals it and makes me feel better mentally, religiously, and physically, that’s how I’m a success in life, also, suffering fools for so long even my mother drives me to persevere through the obstacles with alcoholic wine.
CJ says: Thank you Leo for your work. I continue to listen to a lot of your videos especially when things I have been working on throw me curve balls.