What are you working on today that feels like a lost cause? Is it a proposal? A job application? A broken process no one else cares to address? Perhaps you’ve been working on it for weeks or months. Perhaps you just started, and it already feels like a joke that your effort could yield anything at all, much less something valuable.
Do you feel like throwing in the towel? If you’re running a company and things are beyond painful, don’t give up. If you’re sick of trying to rally your team on a Zoom call, only to have lackluster participation and more miscommunication than you ever thought was possible, don’t give up! If you’re looking for the next opportunity – don’t give up!
Times are changing, and they aren’t going to stop. You may be tired. You may be discouraged. You may be pretty positive that everything you’ve been doing thus far to make it through the situation you’re in today was a total waste.
I’m here to tell you today that no, it hasn’t been a waste. There is no waste – you learn something, become something, understand something, grow into something as a result of every choice you make. If you choose to keep going, even if you feel pathetic in the effort – you’re growing. If you choose to stop…you won’t get very far. If you choose to cry for a minute, it’s okay. Take your minute. Then keep going.
Remember when we talked about the Valley of Despair? It’s a real thing, and if you think we might all be in it right now, I would tend to agree with you. We’re all in a position we’ve never been in before. We’re trying to figure out how to keep doing the best we can with what we have, and some days it just doesn’t feel like enough to bring us out of the malaise.
When you’re in the midst of transition, it’s the time to remember that there’s a thing called the neutral zone – and you’re probably in it. It’s not the time to give up on the movement you’ve started to take. The things you initiated to take advantage of the change – supporting staff with remote work, a new take on how you serve your customer, a new perspective on who your customer is – it’s not time to give up on those things!
I’m going to give an example of a man I am always very inspired by: Nehemiah. Yes, that is a book from the Old Testament, and yes, he was King Artaxerxes’ cupbearer after Israel had fallen to the Babylonians (although, by this time, Babylon had fallen to Persia). No, I am not going to do this story justice here – but I’m going to reference it anyway. Nehemiah was a badass. He said, they need help rebuilding the wall in Jerusalem – and I’m going. I’m going to get the king’s blessing, I’m going to go there, and I’m going to rally the people there to get this thing done. At this point, they’d been trying to rebuild for several years with a lot of stopping and starting.
So he went to Jerusalem and didn’t care that there were brigands and thieves on the roads. He didn’t care that the neighboring people were opposed to rebuilding the temple. He didn’t care that basically everything that could be against him and his compatriots, was. He had an important task to accomplish and he refused to let anything get in his way.
I love Nehemiah. I want to be like him. He did not take no for an answer. He did not give up on what he knew mattered. He did not allow himself to get caught up in what his circumstances looked like! He stayed focused no matter what came against him. He led his team to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem in 52 days – a project that had been waylaid for years.
You have projects in front of you, too! You have things that only you can accomplish – in your business, your job, even your relationships. What’s trying to intimidate you? Write it down. Are you going to let it? Maybe you don’t feel like you can stand against it. But luckily you only have to deal with things one day at a time – and we don’t know what’s going to change next, so that’s really all we can do.
Activity: What’s one thing you’ve been tempted to give up on in the last week? What’s kept you going up to now? Why is it important – especially now – that you not give up on it?