Giving up Doesn't Make you Weak
Giving up Doesn't Make you Weak
Giving up doesn't make you weak and it doesn't make you a coward. Giving up means that you were strong enough and smart enough to realize that you couldn't handle something anymore and you're ready to put your energy else.
It is OK to give up on people who disappoint you over and over again. Don't feel like you owe anyone your time or energy who isn't giving you theirs.
As someone who is extremely stubborn and doesn't "give up" easily, this has been a hard lesson for me to learn. It is perfectly OK to give up on someone who you've tried your hardest with and have gotten nothing in return. It is OK to walk away sometimes.
However, on a spiritual level, when things are tough you can look at the situation in two ways.
Is the universe telling us we are on the wrong path and need to change – or are we being tested to see if we can persevere and are determined enough to succeed?
According to Psychology Today, the notion that persistence is essential for success is deeply embedded within American culture.” As children, many of us were given the advice, “Never give up.” Having spent well over a decade investigating the effects of persistence versus giving up, however, it can be argued that this isn’t good advice. As you may have discovered, doggedly pursuing a goal can sometimes backfire.
Technically referred to as “goal disengagement” it turns out that giving up can sometimes be a healthier alternative. Although researchers still aren’t certain exactly why goal disengagement can sometimes be beneficial, one likely possibility is that it frees people to pursue other, previously overlooked goals. If we spend all our energy on goals that have outlived their usefulness, we're missing out on opportunities to do other, more meaningful things.
Dozens of studies show why giving up can be good. In one study researchers surveyed women who had given up on the particular personal goal of having children. Sometime around age 40, the goal of having children becomes blocked for many women. Knowing this, some women who have not yet had children increase their efforts to become pregnant, either by traditional or medical means, as this age approaches. The researchers surveyed a large sample of women either before or after this milestone. Before turning 40, most women in the sample said that having children was a major life goal for which many were actively striving. After turning 40, however, women tended to give a very different answer: Only a relatively small number said they still counted this among their most important goals. Realizing that they were passing the age at which this goal would be most easily achievable, many had given up trying. As sad as this might seem to the outside observer, this decision was related to greater emotional well-being for the women. Specifically, the post-40 women who disengaged from this goal felt less depressed than those who continued to actively pursue it.
Another good reason to disengage from a goal is that it’s no longer personally important. The natural human tendency is to think we should continue to pursue a goal until it’s achieved. Sometimes, however, circumstances can change before we reach that point. When people have difficulty motivating themselves to pursue a goal, sometimes it’s because the goal isn’t as meaningful to them as it used to be. People change over time, and there’s no reason that their goals shouldn’t change, too. Of course, not every activity in our lives has to be meaningful. Most of us do things every day—like completing work assignments or doing the laundry—in order to avoid detrimental consequences, like getting fired or having no clean clothes to wear. There’s nothing necessarily unhealthy about that. But it’s worth considering whether there are any goals that, if you did withdraw from them, wouldn’t negatively impact you, but might free you up to engage in more meaningful activities.
And that’s the key to understanding when giving up might be good: There’s another, more personally meaningful or satisfying goal that one could be spending time on.
So, maybe before you continue with repeating patterns, stand back and evaluate is it now time to give up, without any guilt, and move in another direction.
Try it and see!
Love & Light
Roger
“For those who understand – no explanation is necessary – for those who do not understand, no amount of explaining will be sufficient”