Giving up? Or giving it all you've got?

How many times have you taken up something new, gotten all excited and then realised how much competition is out there? Do you continue because you have something to prove or do you quit because you’re scared?

No matter what you do, there is always going to be someone out there who does it better. Someone who’s more devoted. Who has more contacts and more resources than you do and who believes in themselves more than you do.

So what? Are you going to quit? Throw in the towel and admit defeat?

I don’t think so!

You trod on. You squash those negative thoughts and you give it all you’ve got. If you enjoy what you’re doing and you believe you’re good at whatever it is, or if you’ve been told you’re talented on more than one occasion, then the right thing to do is keep going. You owe it to yourself.

Do you want to look back in twenty years time and think, “I wish I‘d kept going. I wish I hadn’t quit.”

I don’t! That’s not me! It used to be, but not anymore.

It’s taken quite a while for me to refer to myself as an ‘author’ or a ‘novelist’ but that’s what I am. Even though I’ve been writing for years, it wasn’t until April 2012 that my first novel was published. Sure I’d had the occasional article in newspapers published and a poem of mine is included in an anthology somewhere (I really should find where I put that book.) but the thought of referring myself to others as an author, made me uncomfortable, to say the least. It still does, even now that my second novel is in the process of being seen in print.

Why?

Because Facebook has opened up my eyes. The number of literary geniuses who are out there, is astounding. Every author who I’ve made contact with, is in one way or another amazing. Whether it’s the way their imaginations run wild, the words they use or the way they string those words together, they’re all wonderful and unique in their own ways. I find myself reading their work and thinking, I could never write like that!  Who am I to even think that I can compete with these remarkable men and women?

I have to keep reminding myself that I’m not competing with any of them. I’m only competing with myself. Learning more as I write and bettering myself as I do. Sure I’m a late starter, so to speak, and I may not be a huge success in the end, but I enjoy what I do and that’s a good enough reason for me to keep going.

So next time you feel like quitting, ask yourself...Are you doing whatever it is you’re doing, for the benefit of others? Or are you doing it for yourself?

If the answer is, ‘I’m doing it for myself’ then that’s the right answer, and you should never quit!

 

Until next time...

Keep smiling!