Without wasting a second of your time, let’s dive in.
1) Take a Step Back
When feelings overwhelm you and you feel that you just can’t take it anymore and want to throw in the towel, don’t give in.
Give yourself some breathing room.
Tell yourself, “You know what, I don’t need this right now. I am going to just take a step back. I am going to give myself a break I deserve so that I can deal with this with a cool head when I feel calm and collected.”
Sure, go into your bedroom or to the beach and shout, “This sucks!” or just yell your lungs out. By all means, you can cry it all out! Drain the negativity but don’t allow your feelings to dictate your actions.
Simply because when you are caught in the moment of intense emotions, your mind is clouded and unable to see past that current situation. And any decision made in that spur of the moment may not be the best for you.
Walk away, give yourself a break, and take the timeout that you totally deserve.
2) Take a Timeout
So you took a step back from the situation, and allowed your feelings to settle.
But before you think it’s okay to reassess the situation, take a timeout.
Allow your mind to be completely distracted and rested from the incident, buildup of events, or circumstance that made you so close to quitting.
Spend an entire day, or the entire weekend just doing whatever you like. Whatever. Be it just chilling out at the beach with a book, or hanging out with your buddies without talking about work, playing football or any sport, or shopping; anything that takes your mind off work.
This allows you to return to the issue with a calmer and refreshed state of mind.
3) Seek an Objective Opinion
Like it or not, we all know some friends we have are so dead honest and objective that sometimes what they say don’t sit well with us.
But now that you are calm and cool, it’s time to revisit the situation with an objective person.
Sometimes all we need is someone to tell us as it is.
We don’t need sugarcoating or anyone to baby us at this point because we need to know our blind spots. We want to know what a third party thinks that can help us understand the problem so we can deal with it objectively.
Only when we find out and understand what we have been missing or that we have not been getting it, then can we figure out for ourselves how to best deal with similar situations or challenges in future.
4) Re-evaluate the Situation
Now that you have taken a step back, recalibrated your thoughts and emotions to a balanced state and sought third party opinion, it’s time for you to re-evaluation the situation with a clearer perspective.
To get started, you can simply pull out a sheet of paper and begin jotting down what you are thankful for first. This is important because you are setting the tone of this exercise as a positive and constructive one.
Now that you have a list of things you are grateful for, write down what are the causes or triggers for your intense feeling of quitting. Is this a one-off incident? Did you over-react? Or is this an accumulation of emotions or problems that were not addressed when they should have been?
Break it all down for yourself so that you can see clearer the root of the problem before moving on to the next step.
5) Having a Closure
Perhaps after getting everything off your chest and mind, and breaking things down for yourself, you are able to address the different nuts and bolts that could have added up and created this low point.
Most importantly, give yourself the closure that you deserve when you decide to push through those feelings of quitting.
Tell yourself that if the problems can be solved without quitting, then you can work things out!
Of course, if you have worked things out and after months, or years, find yourself terribly drained and demotivated, then perhaps leaving this work environment would benefit you.
Always remember to take a step back, give yourself a timeout, seek a objective third-party opinion, re-evaluate the situation before you decide what is best for you.
