how to not give up

I get a lot of questions in my inbox everyday so I thought I’d answer one of them in full detail for this week’s letter. A lot of times on the daily Q&As in my Insta stories I actually still have a lot to say but there’s just not enough room on one screen and the font size can only go so small. No word limit here, so let’s go~!

Today’s question is:

“How will you overcome it when you feel like giving up? I understand that dieting is hard. Sometimes our body feels tired, or that day we have migraines. Will you rest on that day and continue the next day? or you will just do what had been planned on that day itself?”

Firstly I want to define giving up.

I define give up as when you truly utterly quit. You walk away and never come back again, which is totally different from a break. If you’re working hard on something and life’s just punching you in all kinds of different directions and you need some time off, that’s a break. That’s not giving up. A break is when you say,

“hold up I got other priorities to deal with now, I’ll come back for you later.”

I think a lot of times we’re all just super hard on ourselves and think that everything is ruined and over the moment we aren’t “perfect” to our plans. Losing weight, like life itself, has a lot of ups and downs. There’s gonna be days where following your diet plan feels impossible, and there’s gonna be some days where you felt like you made zero effort and everything went perfectly smooth.

It’s normal, it’s how the journey is supposed to go.

If you’re feeling tired you have all the right to take a break and get back on track the next day. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. 365 days in a week, if you’re consistent for 300 days, and take breaks for 65 days, you’re still gonna be making a net positive progress towards your goals. Don’t be afraid of taking a break. Sometimes you really do need it to re-energize your body and mind. If you feel you need it, take it. No need to for excuses or to look for justification.

You feel you truly need it, then take it.

Of course there’s the other side of the spectrum. It’s easy to fall into the trap of “well everyday feels tiring” and end up taking a never-ending break. Which is I guess fine too, but you gotta be real with yourself. If you’re taking breaks for the smallest hiccups constantly, don’t be expecting any kind of results any time soon. If it really happens way too often then you might wanna rethink your goals or your current diet/workout routine.

Perfect days are rare.

It’s like winning the lottery. Don’t expect it, as it’s also something you can’t control. If you win the lottery yay! By all means celebrate and enjoy it! But on the days you don’t win the lottery, you still gotta put the work in towards your goals. Not everyday is gonna feel good. It’s like work. Waking up and going to work to earn that paycheck at the end of the month isn’t gonna feel good every single day of the week. But we prioritize and make effort for it and keep showing up no matter how life is feeling cos the end goal (paycheck) is important.

I’m gonna be honest, the way I tackle a day I feel like giving up is to force myself to get started even when I’m not feeling up to it. I tell myself “just do 25%, if you still feel tired after 25% then fair game, take a break.” 9 times out of 10 that works for me as once I start it starts to feel good and less dreary. But of course there’s always those few times where I tried 25% and really am just not feeling up for it. On those days I take the break and try again tomorrow.

For the past couple of months one of the daily things I do is walk on the treadmill for 1hr. Slow easy pace just to get my steps in. During that week where my whole family caught the bug, it was hard getting that 1hr in everyday. There were days I just didn’t want to get on the treadmill. Those day I told myself “ok how about 15min”. That usually gets me going and I start to feel “well it’s already 15min, what’s another 15min?” and before I know it I’m cutting closer to that hr and end up finishing it off. But there was a day or two where after the 15min I said “I’m done.” and just took the rest of the day off.

The goal of weight loss, health, muscle gain is a goal of consistency and patience.

It’s a goal that requires discipline more than anything else. You don’t have to love what you’re doing, but you have to do it if you want the end results. And it’s not that you gotta be doing 100% everyday to get to the finish line. Something above zero everyday is more than enough to get you there. Perhaps your goods days hitting 80-100% is easy. On tough days when life’s being hard 40-60% is plenty. On super hard mode nightmare days, 1-10% is a victory.

It’s that little bit every single day and not giving up that gets you there.

Feeling like you want to give up is normal. Doesn’t make you weak.

You can’t control how you feel.

Your actions on the other hand are fully in your control. What you do in those times when you feel like giving up is what matters most. There’s no exact right or wrong way to do it. Taking a break, taking it slower, or just powering through are all choices to consider based on your circumstances.

Or perhaps you do give up.

You give up cos you understand the realities of your goals. Perhaps you were overly ambitious setting your goals. That’s ok too.

Nothing wrong with making super ambitious goals as it’s normal to be greedy on what you want to achieve. It’s just usually at some point reality hits and you realize it’s not quite possible to reach (like trying to lose a crazy amount of weight sustainably in a mere few weeks or months). Which is fine, just change your goals. Change your goals to something more realistic, and go at it again.

Failure isn’t a bad thing.

It’s in failure that we learn the most valuable lessons, and from those lessons it helps us makes changes and adjustments that ultimately brings us closer to our true end goals. Failing vs giving up are two completely separate things. You can fail and give up, or you can fail and keep going.

Failure isn’t the end of the journey. It's room for adjustments.

I hope by sharing this mindset it can help you overcome the urge to give up and help you muster the grit needed to push yourself forward. But also I hope it helps you understand that it's ok to take a break if you need it, and there's no shame or guilt to a break at all.

Also remember you can always hit reply and send me any questions or concerns you have. I’ll always try my best to answer it in some shape or form.

Till the next one, hope you're well! 

—Po