Seth Godin’s book, The Dip, talks about the power of quitting. He discusses the need to identify when to quit and when to stick when you are doing things that seem to not work. It’s a power packed 80  page book and I would highly recommend that you read it. I got a copy from my public library.

“The Dip” is the long steep climb from beginner status to mastery. Seth contends that there really is no way to succeed reliably unless you are top of field. Even if you have a tiny, specific niche that only a few hundred people participate in, you must be their #1 choice for whatever it is they want. It’s about satisfying the client within their world view, within their specifications, within their needs. It’s not the whole world you need to please. You are not competing with all other business people. Rather, you need to satisfy the world of your client competing against the people who do the same thing you do for that niche. That’s all.

Regardless of your devotion or luck in life, you will face the Dip and you need to decide ahead of time how you will persevere through it. These are the times you will study, you will practice, you will fail, yet you will keep going on to mastery. These are times you won’t quit. This Dip is what you need to plan to face, and you shouldn’t even start the adventure unless you have sufficient resources, time, courage, and fortitude to get through the hard part. Few people make it through, which is why the people who do get paid so well. It’s a rarity and scarcity always makes for high reward.

Seth warns that using quitting inappropriately isn’t smart though. Don’t quit every time you have to face the Dip otherwise you’ll always be quitting at the very time you should be forging ahead. You will end up always quitting and never succeeding. Like a woodpecker that taps 20 times on 1000 trees instead of 20000 times on one tree, you will not get dinner. You’ll get tired and discouraged. You will quit.

So, let’s think about our businesses - what are you doing now that you should quit? This would include addictive behaviors that are only harder to quit the longer you do them (like smoking) and dead end pursuits, things that will never get better no matter how long you do them (like trying to change your abusive spouse). Dig deep into your daily activities, both mental and physical, and examine what you do. Is there something you could stop doing that would give you more time to become excellent at your business? How about your bookkeeping or your web programming? Are you struggling with that because you are unwilling to quit even though you are probably already as good as you will get no matter how much more time you spent at it (and that “good” is totally mediocre)? These activities are wasting your time and keeping you from being truly phenomenal. Quit them. Figure out a way, today, now. Being a quitter could be the best thing you do for your business.

What about the things you want to quit but shouldn’t? For example, is salesmanship something you could be brilliant at but you don’t study or practice it? Could you become a millionaire if you simply devoted sufficient time to getting amazing at sales? Time to get going! Understanding the reward, the ultimate payoff, and embracing the Dip on your way to the reward, will make it easier.

Being excellent takes effort and you have to push through the hard stuff, you have to conquer The Dip. But you have to push through the right hard stuff, the things that will enable you to be truly excellent, not just cause you to spend more time being ok. It can be tricky, I admit, to sort these out, but ignoring it won’t get the work done. You have to be willing to examine what you do and throw away the so-so stuff and grab the super great stuff with gusto. Stephen Covey says it like this - You have to be willing to sacrifice the good for the great.

Decide today that you will no longer settle for mediocre. Whatever you do, be excellent. If you can’t commit to that, don’t start that project. No one pays for just ok and it’s simply not that fun to just be ok. Anything worth doing is worth doing right, so hold your head high as you travel through the Dip and keep going. You are on your way to success!

Together, we are stronger.
Vicki Flaugher, the original SmartWoman

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