When You Feel Like Quitting But Can’t: 3 Mindset Shifts to Help You Take the Next Step

It's in this moment that today's episode meets you.

Because it's inside of that moment that we're gonna equip you with the tools you need to move forward, to do what you have to do.

This is the podcast here for you today, helping you to get through what we're going to refer to as your own parking garage moment.

Now, who am I?

Well, I am your host, Kevin Lowe, a guy who went blind over 20 years ago, and yet for some reason has been on this crazy mission in life to use what I've gone through to inspire the world.

And hopefully, today that is you.

And to inspire you to do what?

Well, simply to keep going in life, to not allow the little things to turn into big things, to not allow the big things to stop you from achieving your goal.

Now, today we're taking inspiration from the guest inside of last week's episode.

And that, of course, was none other than the absolutely awesome Steve Garrity.

And if you caught Steve's interview, you heard his story of being diagnosed with cancer.

He would end up having a grapefruit-sized tumor that was cancerous.

This all happened when he was only 18 years old.

But what really I want to focus on today is just one little aspect of his story, one little piece that really stayed with me.

And it was the story he told that happened inside of a parking garage.

In case you didn't catch the interview or just to catch you up on speed to exactly what I'm referring to, I wanted to put you in the driver's seat of exactly where Steve was at this point in his life.

Here he was, almost done with chemotherapy.

He'd been doing it for 10 grueling months.

At this point, he'd lost all his hair.

He was exhausted.

He was honestly a total wreck.

He was physically and emotionally spent.

He had nothing left to give.

And there he was, back in the parking garage for another chemo treatment.

And yet he couldn't do it this time.

He couldn't make himself go inside.

He didn't have the strength.

He didn't have the fight left in him.

And he broke down.

In that moment, he didn't want to keep going.

He didn't want to go back in.

He didn't want to receive another round of chemo.

Now, I want to take a quick pause and illustrate what's really important here.

This wasn't the beginning.

This wasn't the diagnosis.

This wasn't the first round of chemo.

This was after almost a year of going through chemo.

And the reason I bring this up is because this is what's so important.

Sometimes the hardest moment isn't when something begins, but rather it's when you're tired of fighting.

When you've been giving it your all and you feel like nothing's working, and you feel like you have nothing left to give.

It's the ninth inning of the baseball game.

It's the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl.

And you've been getting beat up all game long.

And you feel like you got nothing left.

And yet you've got a coach on the sideline screaming at you to run one more play.

My friend, that's what we're doing today, is encouraging you that at the lowest point that you find yourself, I want you to dig deep enough just to be able to run one more play.

Now, to get real and honest with you, let's face it, we think that being strong is never breaking down.

We feel like to be strong means that we don't have a parking garage moment.

But instead, I want you to reframe that idea.

Because what I feel real strength looks like is sitting in a car in a parking garage, and you're unable to open the door because you've just been going through 10 months of chemotherapy.

Your body is completely wrecked.

You are done.

You're done fighting.

And yet you choose to open the door and step out of the car and walk back into the doctor's office anyway.

That, my friend, is strength.

And the key here is that there's a key difference between wanting to quit and actually quitting.

Your body might be screaming at you, your emotions might be completely wrecked, and maybe your confidence is gone.

But the decision, the choice, that's still in your control.

You still hold the key here.

You are the one who gets to make the decision.

Whether or not you stay seated, whether or not you turn the car back on and drive away and pretend that everything can just go away.

Or you can make the decision to give it one more shot, to run one more play.

And the reason this is so important, and the reason that I bring up the story of Steve Garrity to you is because we all have had that moment.

We'll all be faced with another moment just like it.

I want you to think of the entrepreneur who's in this moment right before finally launching the product that he's been working on, been designing.

Or what about the parent before sitting down to have a tough conversation with your kid?

Or maybe it's an addict.

In the moment before they walk in to another AA meeting.

It's the moment when we all ask ourselves, do I have one more round in me?

Am I able to run one more play?

My friend, that's a question that we all have to wrestle at some point in our life.

What I want you to remember is that so many times we want a breakthrough.

Well, my friend, the breakthrough only happens when we're in the midst of a breakdown.

You hold the key.

You hold the choice, the decision to make, to keep moving forward, to keep swimming.

Wasn't that from the movie Nemo when the fish told us we just have to keep swimming?

My friend, you just have to keep moving forward.

You have to keep going.

Now, it's easier said than done, no doubt.

And so I want to make this as tactical as possible, giving you some strategies.

And so I've narrowed it down to three ideas that I want you to at least think about, to at least keep in the back of your mind strategies that can help you get out of the car and walk in and face whatever you're about to deal with.

My first step is to borrow strength.

Sometimes we don't have the strength in us.

Sometimes we've got to lean on others.

We've got to borrow strength.

Whether that's prayer or picking up the phone and calling a friend, or sometimes it's borrowing it from our future self.

Because honestly, that's what we're doing it for.

We're doing it for the person we want to be, for the life we want.

So if you don't have the strength right now, I want you to borrow it from your future self from tomorrow.

Step two, I want you to shrink the horizon.

Instead of you thinking to yourself about the next 10 months, I want you to just focus on today, this appointment, this meeting.

Don't think about the years ahead.

Don't think about the big picture.

Don't think about what could happen on the other side.

Instead, I just want you to focus on taking the next step.

Shrink your horizon.

And my third tip is I want you to remember why you're here, why you started.

There's a reason that you're in the fight you're in.

There's a reason this matters to you.

For Steve, he was fighting for his life.

For you, maybe you're fighting for your job.

You're fighting for your relationship.

You're fighting for you, your freedom.

My friend, you just have to make the next step.

Open the car door, step out, exit the parking garage, walk into the door, and sit down and do whatever has to be done.

So I leave you with one final thought.

If maybe you find yourself in your own parking garage moment right now, and you feel like you can't keep going, you're crying, you're angry, you're upset, you're angry at the world, you're angry that this has to be happening.

Why can't things be good?

My friend, I want you to be reminded that you got this.

I want you to recognize how you're feeling, to acknowledge it, to understand it.

And then you know what I want you to do?

I want you to open the door.

And I want you to step outside.

And the reason is because this next choice that you make, the next action you take, it might just change your entire life.

My friend, if you didn't listen to my interview with Steve Garretty, I highly encourage you to go back and listen to his interview.

It was just one episode previous to this, and get to hear the full story, to get to hear from him firsthand of exactly what this parking garage moment was like, all in the hopes of it equipping you with the motivation that you need to be able to keep going when times are tough.

If today's episode spoke to you, I would love to invite you to maybe leave a rating and review for the podcast.

If you've never left a rating or review for great grace and inspiration, please consider on whatever app you're on, clicking the little five-star button and leaving a review.

I would love to hear from you.

I would love to know what is resonating with the podcast, what you think.

So, like I said, if you've never done it, maybe consider this being your invitation to do so right now.

And until next time, my friend, I'm of course your host, Kevin Lowe.

And this was another episode of Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.