Motivational Monday 9 - Think Twice Before Giving Up

Some days I just feel like giving up. I want to give up on my future and drop out of school; I want to give up on healthy living and eat whatever I feel like and not force my body to do what it doesn’t want to do (i.e. workout); I want to give up on everything and just lie in bed and binge watch hours of Netflix. Life is just too hard sometimes, but, surprisingly, I keep going.

The most stressful thing in my life right now is school. My life could have so much less tension if I just dropped out. I wouldn’t have to worry about going back after graduating with my associate degree; I wouldn’t have to worry about how I’m going to afford to pay to go back, and I wouldn’t have to worry about writing essays for these scholarships that I may or may not get. And maybe if I dropped out, I would stop grinding my teeth, which, I just discovered, I picked up over the past couple months.

Whenever I think about giving up (on anything, not just school), I remind myself how far I’ve come. Would I really throw in the towel after all the effort I’ve put in? Even if I’ve experienced slight setbacks, there’s no reason for me to just quit. I love the saying, “Giving up on a dream just because of a setback is like slashing your other three tires after getting a flat;” I think this saying really puts things in perspective for me.

A few months back I decided to fill out a scholarship application. It was through Phi Theta Kappa, the two-year college honor society that I’m a member of, and I was told that it was just one common application and it was fairly simple. The deadline was coming up in like a week or two. One of my chapter advisors kept telling us that we wouldn’t win if we didn’t apply, so I decided that I would at least try. After all, it was supposedly an easy application to fill out.

Whoever said that it was an easy application had lied.

Image courtesy of Google images.

For the application, I needed to scan both my birth certificate and social security card and upload them to prove that I am, in fact, me. I needed to answer a ton of questions. Then I was faced with a bunch of essay questions that I had no idea how to answer. Then I needed a recommendation letter from a professor or advisor. I also needed to fill out information for my chapter advisor, which was a lot more difficult than it should have been.

Filling out that application was one of the most stressful moments of my freshman year of college. I was about halfway through when I realized that it was going to be more difficult than I had anticipated. Even though it was stressing me out and I wanted to quit, I told myself, “I’ve already put so much effort into this thing; the least I can do is finish it.” And so I did.

And guess what?

I was contacted a couple weeks ago and they told me that I had been selected as one of the winners.

If I had decided to give up, if I had decided that it would be easier to just quit, then I wouldn’t have gotten the award. The same goes for all aspects of life; you don’t get the reward if you give up.

So the next time you feel like giving up on something, remind yourself how far you’ve come. Remind yourself of what you’re working towards. Remind yourself that nothing that’s worth it is ever easy, and everything worth having takes effort.

Keep at it. Don’t get discouraged and do not give up.

Cheers!

Molly