Why You Need to Give Up Trying

4 steps to becoming an epic underachiever

February. The time when 75% of us give up on our New Year’s Resolutions. And with good reason. We’ve tried, really, we have.

We’ve spent the last month emulating Gwyneth Paltrow because her name apparently means “happiness”.

We’ve worked hard to master taibo and practice underwater meditation.

We’ve spent 30 long days without a cigarette, eating vegan bacon kale bars and tofu salad with tuno (the soy protein and seaweed-based tuna alternative).

We’ve even ordered a brand new Peloton so we can cycle towards the best version of ourselves.

But has it really been worth it?

After all, your Peloton will never arrive. And that faux bacon and tofu? It’s been shown to cause bloating which is making you look fat. What’s more, Gwyneth Paltrow is not really happy, according to her own words (taken slightly out of context), she is a self-professed mess.

No. February is the perfect time to simply give up.

Why pursue our goals — when we know they are so difficult to achieve? We know all these goals are not making us happy.

Quite the contrary. Most of us are miserable. Brock Bastian, a social psychologist from the University of Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences in Australia, seems to concur.

“Happiness is a good thing, but setting it up as something to be achieved tends to fail,” says Bastian. “Our work shows that it changes how people respond to their negative emotions and experiences, leading them to feel worse about these and to ruminate on them more.”

Sticking to your unattainable goals is clearly not the answer. It’s simply not worth it. It won’t make you happy and it certainly won’t make you healthy.

You know what will make you healthy? Quitting.

According to research, quitting has all sorts of positive side effects on your health, including leading to fewer symptoms like headaches, eczema, and constipation.

So, take the plunge and give up trying. Follow my lead with these four easy steps and you too can be a healthier and happier underachiever in life.

Be Authentic

If you are going to succeed in life as an underachiever then you are going to have to be true to yourself.

Only make sure you don’t share that true self with everyone — because if you do, you may end up alone.

Rather, be authentic with yourself when you are in the shower or when you are with your parents who love you unconditionally.

Save your authentic self for that special someone after they have spent a lot of time with you and you’re sure they aren’t going anywhere.

Being true to ourselves means accepting that we are not going to amount to anything. It means spending time doing what you love to do, not what everyone thinks you should do (provided you don’t love to hurt people outside of a consenting BDSM relationship).

To get to the bottom of your authentic self, try taking a day off and sitting on the couch in front of the TV with a tub of Haagen Dazs ice cream. Get in touch with your body as you sit there.

Are you content? Do you want to go back to bed? Are you bored out of your mind? Do you want to eat more?

Listen to your inner child even if they tell you to eat five tubs of Chunky Monkey.

Next, ask yourself what you are like when you are having your worst day. What five words describe you? Write these words down and make a mantra of them. I like to post mine on the wall so that I see them when I wake up each morning.

Recite your mantra as often as possible. Soon you will become one with these words and your authentic underachieving self will be set free.

Be Grateful

Being grateful is key to loving your underachieving existence. We must love ourselves before anyone else can.

Oftentimes we beat ourselves up for eating that bag of chips or smoking that cigarette. We feel guilty when we don’t look like the photoshopped magazine model.

But this inner dialogue is counter-productive and leads to stress and anxiety.

So, avoid the destructive inner chatter. Find your happy place and be grateful.

Say thank you to yourself for sitting in yesterday’s clothes eating donuts in bed.

Tell yourself that you have done the right thing because washing clothes is hard on the environment and body odor helps others determine whether you are good mating material.

Be grateful for the article that you started but did not finish.

Congratulate yourself on this wise decision given no one read your last one either.

Go out and buy yourself a gratitude journal and write down all the things you have failed to do. Then thank yourself for quitting. You’ll feel like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders.

Being grateful makes us feel good-regardless of what we are grateful for.

According to Ted Talk speaker David Steindl-Rast,

“It is not happiness that makes us grateful, it is gratefulness that makes us happy.”

Be Positive

Take a page from Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton and know that others with no goals are flourishing doing nothing.

Feel positive about your underwhelming life choices and know that your positive feelings will rub off on others.

Know that you have a choice each morning when you get up about the kind of person you want to be.

Do you want to change the world or stay in bed?

If you said stay in bed, then you have a lot to be positive about.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, a lack of sleep can affect not only your physical and mental health but your work performance as well. Getting a good night’s sleep on the regular should be a priority if you want to improve your quality of life.

Learn to be satisfied in the present and wallow blissfully in your underachievement.

Rejoice over your lack of goals. Reinforce the positivity in yourself by telling yourself that you are awesome just the way you are.

Be Open to Change

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

— George Bernard Shaw

As you shift towards becoming your authentic underachieving self, you will need to be open to change. This may mean giving things up.

For example, you may need to switch away from kale cookies to full fat Oreos.

You may need to put away that Pilates mat and replace it with a comfy couch.

You might even find yourself turning away from hot yoga in favor of a hotdog.

These things take time. But it is incredibly important that you willingly embrace these changes.

Being a happy underachiever means making these tough choices. It means giving up those activities that take too much time and effort in favor of more frivolous and meaningless pursuits.

Having an open mind to this frivolity is key in not only unlocking your happiness but in also helping to build your self-confidence.

And self-confidence is critical to your well-being.

According to Psychology Today, greater self-confidence means you will worry less about the kind of impression you are making, and you will stop comparing yourself to others.

What’s more, your relaxed “I could care less” attitude, will put others at ease as well, helping you forge deeper relationships.

In the End

Life is too short to eat kale popsicles and listen to your breath.

So, go ahead and give up trying.

Settle into an authentic life of underachievement. Revel in your mediocrity. Practice gratitude for your new lifestyle daily and feel positive about your choices. More importantly, be open and receptive to this change.

And if you do, you too can lead a happier, healthier, and wholly unremarkable life.

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Are you exhausted by self-help articles? Me too. I should know. I’ve written a lot of them. And I figured it was high time to poke a little fun at these feel-good pieces.

This piece is solely designed to give us mere mediocre mortals an understanding that our higher selves may actually be our underachieving selves. And that’s okay. Plus I really, really hate kale. So, pass me a sugar donut. It’s time to spend the day watching TV in bed.