Giving up and letting go is not same

You know there is difference in giving up and letting go of something. Right?

Have you ever given thought about this?

Have you ever been in this confusion, this situation where you had to give up your longtime dream or goal because of the uncertain situations and our mind plays game with us and we keep asking ourselves, are we giving up or letting go?

This can be the hardest thing you have to decide but certainly the most important one.

So, why I chose to write on this topic today?

This morning, while I was running in a park with my Nike+ Run club app listening to a guided run by Coach Bennet, lost in my thoughts and trying to enjoy the surrounding, I heard a voice in guided run say,

“Of course, there is a difference between giving up something and letting go of something. Letting go is your choice. You have to decide what will be beneficial to you”.

As soon as I heard this, my subconscious mind rushed back to reality and got me thinking when was the last time I gave up on something and was it really giving up or did I let go of that because it was doing more harm than the good.

Ah, it is so hard to decide between the two. Here, I have two incidents to share where I was in that situation. One is life changing while other one is trivial but it had big impact on me.

Incident – 1

In my first job, I was working as Recruitment Specialist for a US based MNC firm and it always had graveyard shifts. I was doing well in the job. I wanted to be the best and wanted to achieve the best performer award for the same, also hoping that eventually complete my then dream, to settle in US.

Now, it was really big firm and the chances to get such opportunity were really slim. And on other hand the shift timings were taking toll on my health. My body was not really happy with the odd timings and signs were clear that I should not continue this.

I would always shrug all the warnings from my body and would continue working to get to that mark. In process of doing that I did permanent damage to my body which I still regret.

Finally, after giving a lot of thought I left that position and started working for myself. Was that giving up or letting go?

My team leader thought I was giving up since I could not achieve anything significant in my duration of work over there. But to me, it was my choice of letting go. Had I not let go of that job then I would have wind up doing the same thing till date with severe damage to my body and mind.

Incident– 2

A little background: I want to run a marathon. I am planning to run marathon since long time but have not participated in any because I always feel I have not prepared enough. In a desire to complete this milestone, I have pushed myself too much and suffered from Shin Splints due to which I had to stop running completely in past.

So coming back to the example, as I said I was running today morning and I badly wanted to complete 5k in 45 min. My gear fit showed I was at 3.5 km in 30 min and I was tired and I had started feeling slight pain in my shin bone.

I was disappointed as I wanted to complete 5k no matter what. I said I am not giving up and decided, not to listen to my body (again) and continue with the run but then it struck to me what Coach Bennet said in his Podcast on Nike+ Run Club app which I quoted earlier.

Letting go of things is not giving up on that. I could again attempt to run 5k tomorrow or may be day after that but if I continue to run today I would incur a permanent damage and won’t be able to run at all. I decided to let go of this goal today and promised myself to run again tomorrow.

Note: Always weigh the Pros and Cons of what you want, a goal, or a dream or anything. If the process of achieving that goal does more harm to you than the good of achieving that goal than it is always better to let it go and choose your goal more wisely. Get control over your own life.

And I am aiming to run a Marathon in next month.

Fingers crossed!