Why People Give Up On Goals - The Valley Of Disappointment
Published March 15th, 2023 by Sabah V.
When you take a look at somebody’s achievements from an outsiders perspective, it can look like overnight success. This narrow perception of their life causes us to miss the reality of all the ups and downs that went into their journey. We then begin to believe that the path to greatness is a linear line.
Practical Application
Scroll on YouTube, find someone that has over a million subscribers. You don’t think it’s easy to get a million subscribers, but you feel like they got a more fortunate hand than you because they have a million subscribers and you don’t.
To break out of this mental pattern, I started to click on each one of these YouTuber’s channels and scroll through all their videos. Many times I’d see that they had been posting on relatively consistent schedules for years upon years. I’m talking about hundreds of videos for 5 years straight.
Let’s say this inspires you and you start to make YouTube videos. You upload 5 different videos that you put so much work into, and you only gain one or two subscribers.
You start to feel confused, why did I basically get no traction even though I posted 5 high quality videos. “This is a dumb idea, let’s give up” you think to yourself.
This is what is known as the Valley of Disappointment.
The Valley Of Disappointment
Like I previously stated, when we begin something new, we somewhat expect it to take off in a linear line. We don’t expect to do all this work and get nothing in return. Especially with how the world is today with instant gratification being the norm, it is very easy for people to give up when they do not see the results they expect.
Success isn’t ever a linear line, it is an exponential line. The reason is, it starts off unbelievably slow, and after lots of hard work there is eventually a breakthrough. The space in the middle of these two lines is what is known as the Valley Of Disappointment. A crucial component of James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits.
Believe In Yourself
The reason a small majority of people are successful is because they push through when the reward is little to none, believing in themselves that one day this will take off.
Have you ever seen that viral image of two people digging in a tunnel? One person is further than the other, and he’s tired of mining all the time with no reward so he cuts his losses and begins to walk away. What he failed to see is that if he mined for just a second longer there was a pile of diamonds right on the other side of the wall. He was so close. The second person is further away, but believes that he will eventually hit jackpot, and he is mining away with enthusiasm. He believes in himself. Although he is further away, he is on track to reaching the diamonds first, because the first person gave up.
You have to push through the Valley of Disappointment. You will have a breakthrough. It is hard to tell when, but what if you gave up right before that breakthrough? Understand your potential, you are more than capable.