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November 11, 2014

ARE YOU A CLOSET QUITTER?

While in high school and through to my early 30’s, my mother worked as a legal secretary for a law firm in Philadelphia.  About 15 years in, she announced her retirement.  My mom was one of the hardest working people I have every known.  She was an amazing person who cared for her family and friends with reckless abandon.  She also liked to tell it like it was.  For good or for bad, I believe I inherited this trait from her.  So when she told me she was retiring, I was quick to tell her she hadn’t worked long enough and what she was doing was called quitting.

Many times we like to give nice sounding phrases to the various things we do, so we feel better about it.  After all, a sanitation engineer is a much more important position than a garbage man.  Telling people you are an associate for a major department store sounds more like you work in the corporate office, than as a store clerk in the housewares department.

So when it comes to quitting, we use language to fool ourselves into believing that we either aren’t quitting, or we lay the blame for our failure someplace else, to remove our responsibility and leave a rationalized pathway to quit.  If it’s not your fault, then you really didn’t quit, right?

Here are some sure fire phrases that if used, likely make you a quitter:

1.If the word “tried” is in any part of your language, you quit I tried to exercise, but there just isn’t enough time.  I tried going back to school, but I’m too old.  I tried paying down the mortgage, but too many other bills kept cropping up.

2. You quit before you ever get started: This seems as if it will take too much effort.  I don’t know how to write a book.  It costs more money to start a business than I expected.

3. You quit on your dreams: Success is for other people, not me.  They come from a better family, that’s why they’re successful.  He got promoted because of who he knows.

However you slice it, quitting is in our language.  It’s who we tell ourselves we are.  It’s how we explain our failures, but also our successes. Change your vocabulary and change your life.

Belief doesn’t come from success.  Success comes from belief. ~ Richard Brooke, “The Four Year Career”

BELIEVE IN YOURSELF AT ALL COSTS.

Bearj Jehanian is a Maximum Potential Speaker and Trainer.  Click here to learn more.