Before You Quit Your Dream: Ask Yourself This Powerful Question
Figuring out your alternative options may just convince you to stick with your true passion.
You know those inspirational mantras, don’t you?
Follow your passion. Chase your dream. Live life to its fullest.
Maybe you feel inspired when you read those. Perhaps you are annoyed. However, there is a reason why those mantras get thrown around on inspirational articles and various social media outlets alike. They convey an important message.
Chase your dream or look back at your life, asking, “what if….”
If you have already decided to follow your dream, then congratulations. You are one step ahead of the folks who are stuck in a rut, disillusioned and resentful because they are living a life they never dreamed of when they were kids.
However, chasing your dream is not all sunshine and rainbows.
Anyone, who has put in the effort to make their dreams a reality, can tell tales of sacrifices, disappointments, and fears. Often enough, one is so close before giving up.
Many people decide to quit. Others keep going, despite overwhelming feelings of frustration and anxiety.
I, too, gave up on my dreams before. Now, however, I don’t stop so quickly. What is different now from the many times before? My mindset. And one simple question.
Whenever I want to throw in the towel now and give up on my running and writing dreams, I ask myself:
What is the alternative?
My answers always keep me going. Here they are.
The Alternative is to Become a Victim of My Circumstances
“Your life will become more fulfilling when you lose the anger, stress, anxiety, and ‘poor me’ attitude. Let it go.”
— Germany Kent
I didn’t start with many advantages in life. I am the second oldest of 8 siblings, with an alcoholic step-father and a verbally abusive mother.
We were so poor that our electricity, heating, and water got switched off several times. More often than not, we were told not to eat too much at dinner. I didn’t own a toothbrush. At school, I was made fun of.
I grew up with severe social anxiety and questioned constantly why this life was worth living.
My turning point came when we moved yet again to another city because my parents didn’t pay rent. In that new school, hardly anyone knew me. I was still an outsider, yet no one bullied me.
I had the mental space to focus on school when I was there.
And to my surprise, I found out that I wasn’t as dumb and useless as my mom would tell me constantly.
Once my grades started to improve, I felt that there could be more for me out there in this big big world. From then on, learning was my way out. I wanted to be good at school to create a better life for myself.
And I succeeded.
Even though I quit school one year early, I went on to study and work as a research assistant at a university. I even pursued writing a Ph.D. I created new circumstances for myself.
And while I enjoyed a nice salary and created a network of friends, I wasn’t happy. The more I worked in science, the more I realized that my dream had always been something different.
I could have stayed stuck there, thinking that I didn’t want to lose all those years I spent studying for my degrees, all the money I now owed the government and had to pay back.
However, I quit to pursue my dream, working in a call center in the meantime to pay my bills.
I chose never to be a victim of my circumstances. And while it may not always be as fast as I want and potentially harder than I thought it would be, there is always a way out.
The Alternative is Giving My Loved Ones an Honest Explanation Why I Gave Up
“Each mistake teaches you something new about yourself. There is no failure, remember, except in no longer trying. It is the courage to continue that counts.”
— Chris Bradford
Whenever I am on the run and tiredness and boredom urge me to go home, I ask myself what I would say to my partner when I don’t accomplish my goal.
She is as much invested in my success as I am and my biggest supporter.
She gives me space and understanding so that I can go running during the weekend mornings — even though she’d rather have me snuggle up in bed with her. She gives me massages. She searches for recipes and prepares meals that she knows my IBS — plagued tummy can tolerate well.
Do I really want to tell her I didn’t give it my all?
That I decided to quit on my dream because “I was tired”?
The Alternative is Being 100% Certain That My Dream Has a 0% Chance of Being My Reality
“Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
This alternative reality is a powerful motivator. When debating if this writing adventure is worth it — useful even — or if I should not rather be “realistic” and retreat to a safe and stable job, I remind myself that I would be burying my dream.
I give my dream life a precisely 0% chance of becoming my reality by choosing to stop.
Once I realized that I would be the one who is responsible for my never achieving my dream life, something inside me switched, and I haven’t stopped writing since.
I would start and quit many times before, telling myself “someday,” “when I have more time,” or that “writing is not that important to me” — attempts to rationalize away my failure to commit to my dream.
The Alternative is Not Fulfilling My Purpose
“A man’s only aim is to live in fulfillment of his mission.”
— Lailah Gifty Akita
I have a powerful “why” for my running pursuits.
Running has changed my life in magical ways and was the catalyst for my growth and healing from social anxiety.
I want to give back and raise money for mental health research through my races and running adventures. Having this purpose infuses my running pursuits with meaning.
Many people quit their dream because they don’t have an overarching purpose. Something that extends beyond the needs of their ego.
Once I tied a purpose to my dream, I could dig deeper during training and racing and find success that I had never thought possible.
The Alternative is to Identify With Mediocrity for the Rest of My Life
“Being realistic is the most common road to mediocrity”
— Will Smith
Like many people, I let my environment influence my decision-making. Good-meaning folks, telling me I should be “realistic” and go for the safe job.
Their opinions once built and strengthened my limiting beliefs.
As already described, I didn’t have supportive grown-ups who would instill a strong self-belief in me when I was a child.
However, through reading, learning, and most importantly, getting out there and proving to myself over and over again that I was capable of achieving what I set out to achieve, my self-confidence grew constantly.
Today, I believe trying to be “realistic” is what holds most of us back.
None of the people I look up to and who inspire me to seem to be “realistic.” I doubt that Oprah, Maja Angelou, Nelson Mandela, or Marie Curie were “realistic” when they set out to fulfill their dreams.
If people are content living a life that is less than what they dreamed up for themselves when they were kids, more power to them.
I, however, choose to pursue my dreams and finally am strong and brave enough to keep going despite frustrations, struggles, and ever new emerging obstacles.
The rewards have been so much more valuable than the money I earned through any of my jobs.
Ultimately the alternative to not chasing my dream is going back to living my life with increasing feelings of self-loathing, resentment, and slowly dying inside.
The Best Question to Ask
If you wonder if you should follow your dream or give up on it, ask yourself, “what is the alternative”?
If the alternative sounds good or ok, you might decide to quit.
Maybe chasing this goal wasn’t your dream after all.
However, like me, you may also find that the answers will be uncomfortable, and you will find new strength to carry on in the direction of your dreams.
