In the back-and-forth I had with Scott, I think one point got buried, and it was exactly the point you made.

We grow, and our goals change–our whole lives change. We experience new things in life, and that leads us in new directions; ones we probably hadn’t even seen before. So of course your goals will change.

But as you say, there’s a very important distinction: changing direction, even if it means stopping the acheivement process of a goal you once wanted, is not quitting! The opposite, in fact–it’s expansion, expanding your life with new destinations, new desires, new possibilities.

Thanks for coming, Steve. There’re a lot of good articles on the Carnival this week. I can’t wait to read them!

Great Blog! I found you via the Personal Development Carnival.

My personal experiences and observing other people, leads me to believe you are right. If you think you can succeed and refuse to quit, you will succeed. It’s that simple.

One thing that has happened to me is this…
I set a goal and I reach the goal and once I am there I realize it isn’t what I thought it was going to be and I don’t enjoy the place I am, so I change direction and set new goals. But I don’t consider this quitting. I consider it a change in direction.

Welcome to the latest edition of the Personal Development Carnival!
—
Steve Johnson presents When Not To Quit posted at The Fast Lane.
Chris Gribble presents Leadership – it begins in the home posted at ChrisGribble.com.
Jeff Plumb presents Sup…

I wrote an updated response to my article When to Quit, here:

http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2006/10/21/when-to-quit-continued/

Don’t worry about my bursts of perceived negativity I’m simply offering up opposite perspectives so you can view a problem logically through all sides. I am a big believer in setting goals and dreaming far beyond your imagination.

I agree that yes, one should enjoy the journey (isn’t that a choice we can make?).

But if you don’t focus on the outcome, where will your journey take you? If you’re not constantly aware of where you are going, and making a conscious effort to get there, the path you’re on may end up leading to nowhere.

You touch on an important point with this: “if the ONLY reason you are pursuing a dream is to reach the pot of gold at the end, that isn’t enough reason to pursue it.”

That’s the reason that it’s so important to know why a particular goal matters to you. If your reasons why you want it don’t really matter to you in the end, you’ll end up removing it from your list.

I’d like you to consider this: the only reason we take actions in our lives is because we believe that in the end, that action we take will make us feel good in some way. No other reason exists.

Again, thanks for taking the time to respond. You seem learned beyond your years. Just don’t let cynicism rule your evaluations; it can lead to a negativity in outlook that you can ill afford. Ask me, I know this from experience!

I think you misunderstood the reasoning for my post somewhat. I might need to write a follow-up post to clarify.

The whole point of my article was that it didn’t matter whether pursuing a dream was difficult or not. The point was that your choice to pursue a dream should be dependent on whether or not you will enjoy pursuing it. So if I really get a lot of growth, passion and fulfillment out of working towards being a basketball player even though I’m 5′5″ then keep working at it!

My point was that people should stop focusing on the outcome and focus on the path that leads to it as that is where we will spend the majority of our time.

The other point is that if the ONLY reason you are pursuing a dream is to reach the pot of gold at the end, that isn’t enough reason to pursue it. I can disagree with you about the inevitability of success, but that wasn’t the heart of my article.

Thanks for your comments on my post!
-Scott Young