Why You Keep Giving Up & How to Finally Push Through | April Osteen Simons

If you're tired of starting over and feel like you just never finish anything, this is the moment that changes. This episode is for the person who's tired of quitting on themselves. You're just so tired of that start-stop cycle. It's time to break that pattern for good. Hey, make sure you stick around until the end of this episode. I've got a special offer just for you. I also want to take a moment to pray over you before we close it out. So first, let's talk about why do we keep quitting on ourselves? Why can't we complete anything? First of all, I think we need to realize that quitting doesn't always look like this dramatic episode in our life. It's not about slamming the door and getting angry and slamming our fist on the table. Sometimes quitting is subtle. It's simply you just slowly stop showing up. You tell yourself, you know what, I can do this on Monday. I just need a little break right now. Or how about this? This probably isn't the right time for this anyway. With all these excuses, underneath it all, if we're completely honest with ourselves, we're frustrated because we know we are capable of so much more. We just don't know how to stick with it long enough to see the fruit of our labor. I don't know what that is for you. Maybe you kind of fell off the bandwagon on working out, or maybe you've had this creative idea and you've never put feet to your faith on that. Maybe it's writing a book. Maybe it's something simple as writing in a journal every single night. You have every intention of doing it, yet it's sitting in your bedside table completely empty. Now this isn't an episode about condemnation. This is an episode about shifting our mindset on what quitting looks like and just taking it from a different angle. And what I mean by this is maybe it's not about losing our motivation. Maybe we just haven't trained our follow-through. Maybe we haven't built up the muscle of sticking with it. See, you can't build a strong life with a weak commitment. And we've all been there. And today's a great day just to call out what that is so we can choose a better path. We can choose a path that causes us to follow through in life. In case you didn't know, this month we're doing a series on my book called Better Than Ever. And this book is simply about having a life that's better than ever, being better today than we were yesterday, and just living that abundant life that God has called us to live. And so this episode in particular is on the chapter Train the Quit Right Out of You. So if you haven't gotten the book, stay tuned till the end because I'm going to offer you a special on this book. So what we need to realize is this. Every one of us has triggers that cause us to check out. And if you can learn to recognize what those triggers are, you can interrupt the cycle of quitting. Think about it like this. You don't just quit randomly. You quit on cue. Now, let me give you some examples of real life quitting cues. One is boredom. You get excited about something and then that excitement wears off. So what do you do? You try to drift to something new. Or maybe there's that quitting cue of being completely overwhelmed. The picture feels so far away. And instead of taking that first step, you just kind of freeze. Or there's that quitting cue of comparison. You see someone else doing it, you think better, and they've already covered the field. So you just stop trying because you feel like you can't do it as good as them. Or the cue of discomfort. I mean, the moment it starts getting hard and awkward and inconvenient, what do you do? You back off. Or the fear of failure. You'd rather quit than risk doing it imperfectly. And there's that cue of negative self-talk. You hear yourself saying, you know what, this is just who I am. I never finished anything. The key here, folks, is you have to call out your quitting cues. Maybe you can relate to one of those. There's many more. I just listed a few. Once you call out those quitting cues, that's when you begin interrupting the pattern. See, the moment you say, wait a minute, I've seen this before. I've been bored before and I moved on and I haven't completed. I see it's again. I'm calling it out and I'm choosing a different path. See, that's when you start training your follow through. That's when you start building the muscle of sticking with it. So we're training the quit right out of us. We're interrupting the pattern. And then, this is important, we have to stop letting our feelings have a vote in our life. We talk about this a lot on this channel. Feelings are real, but they're not always right. And if you let your emotions decide whether or not you're going to stay committed, you'll probably talk yourself out of what you are called to finish. Because here's the deal, folks, you're not always going to feel ready. You're not always going to feel motivated. You're not always going to feel inspired. You're not always going to feel like pushing through. That's called being a human being. You build strength and fortitude by choosing truth and choosing commitment. In other words, you're not waiting to feel strong. You're just saying, I'm going to finish this thing. Here's a good challenge for you. Instead of saying, I'm tired. I don't think I can do this. Maybe this wasn't meant to be. I want you to start thinking about how you're talking to yourself and begin saying this, I'm still in this. I finished what I start. I follow truth and not my feelings. I'm not waiting to feel inspired. I'm going to take that first step toward my dream. Why don't you take a moment right here and think about something that you quit recently. Now, no guilt. Just be honest with yourself. Now ask yourself, what would change if this time I finished it? So you have to make the decision that you're not going to wait to feel like it before you finish it. You're simply going to make the choice to follow through. So this week, I want you to focus on finishing something small on purpose. See, the reason I say that is because if you want to stop quitting on the big things, you're going to have to start finishing the small things and you're going to have to do it on purpose. Maybe for you, that's making your bed. Maybe it's sending the email or taking the walk or writing the first paragraph, making the phone call, making one healthy choice concerning your body. The key is one finish at a time. See, every small follow through builds trust with yourself and that trust is going to eventually turn into momentum. You're going to stop saying I never follow through and you're going to start believing in your heart of hearts that you actually finish what you start. You know, for a while, I knew I wanted to write this book better than ever. I had the message. I had the passion. I really did. I even had the notes and ideas written down. But what I didn't do is I didn't make space to write and finish the book. I travel a lot and my days are filled with recording and this book was always in the back of my mind. And I knew one day I'm going to write this book, but I never made a clear decision on when that day would be. So you know what I did? I made a decision. I cleared my calendar and I gave myself the whole month of February. And I just said, you know what? Every single day I'm going to wake up early and I'm going to begin to write. And you knew what I did? I did exactly that. I woke up in the morning. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. And when I needed inspiration, I would go out for a walk and try to get some creative ideas. Some days I walked many, many, many times. But what I noticed is this. Once I got into that groove and I made that decision that, hey, I'm going to write this book and I'm not just going to write it, but I'm going to complete it. I woke up looking forward to writing. I had to make myself stop writing at night. It became so exciting to me. Guess what? By the end of the month, I had a completed manuscript, not because of some magical inspiration, but because I made space and I made a commitment to myself and I followed through. I got rid of my excuses and I put feet to my faith and I simply began. Key scripture that we use on this channel a lot, Galatians 6-9, let us not become weary in doing good for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we don't give up. You could say, if you don't quit. See, that's not just good advice or a pep talk. It's a promise. There's a harvest tied to your consistency, but you won't see it if you stop short. So my encouragement to you today is this. Don't let those dreams just fall by the wayside. Stay in it. Keep planting. Keep showing up. Listen, God doesn't waste the steps that you take in faith, even those small, teeny, teeny steps. Let me give you a challenge for the week. I want you to finish something on purpose. I want you to learn what your quitting cues are and call them out. I want you to be guided by the truth that's in your heart and don't let your emotions rule your life. And then I want you to stop talking negatively over your life and start speaking what you want to see yourself become. Again, today's episode lines up with my train the quit right out of you in my book better than ever. And as I said in the beginning of this episode, today I am giving this for my subscribers for $10 plus shipping and handling. It's normally $20 and it comes with a free seven day reset journal that's downloadable. It's going to help you speak life. It's going to help you stay focused and it's going to help you follow through. The link is in the description below. Before we close out this episode, I want to take a second and pray over you because I know this isn't just about willpower. It's about healing patterns in our lives that maybe we've repeated for a long time, and it's about building confidence. So let's invite God into our lives. God, I thank you for every person watching today, especially those who are tired of stopping short or starting over. I speak strength over them right now. God, just give them clarity, give them focus and fresh motivation. Remind them that they are not weak. They're just in training. Help them to recognize the old patterns and to begin to choose better ones. I declare a new confidence, new follow through and new joy and finishing in Jesus name. Amen. Hey, let's train the quit right out of us one choice at a time. And until next time, have an amazing day.