I am sure you have heard it said that winners don’t quit and quitters don’t win. I ran tenaciously with this mindset for many years.

In recent times, albeit paradoxically, it dawned on me that every person who ever succeeded was a quitter. At critical junctures of their lives they had to take decisions on sticking to something or quitting. They chose to quit. They understood that if they did not quit at such times, what they refuse to forsake might make destiny forsake them. Then I came to the understanding that it is ok to quit. It however depends on what you are quitting and why. There are times in life when to win, you must quit. In life, we form our habits and our habits later turn round to shape our destiny.

Instead of reforming a debilitating attitude that threatens to truncate your future, simply quit and start developing an alternative habit that moves you closer to your destiny. Success in life is not only a function of the things you pursue, it is also a function of what you had to let go in order to facilitate your pursuit.

Travelers on the path of destiny must learn to travel light. When you pack for an international flight, you are guided by the baggage allowance limit. One kilogramme above that means you will pay extra or you might not fly with that luggage. If you are not willing to pay for excess luggage, the airline desk simply advises you to stand aside and shed the excess or you may not get on that flight. Life is not radically different. There is a price to pay for habits that might constitute excess luggage on the destiny route. If you want to significantly win in life, you do well to quit the following:

Quit grumbling
Murmuring is the language of slaves. No grumbler has a celebrity’s spot in the future. Grumblers are self-centred wimps who think that the sun needs their permission to shine. They are usually highly opinionated and never see anything right or good in anyone apart from themselves. Grumblers are largely ingrates and characteristically toxic to any team. They not only drag themselves back, they are injurious to corporate health. One grumbler given room to operate in a team will sow the seeds of discord faster that you can uproot them! They usually take a ‘siddon-look’ approach to issues while waiting for an opportunity to exultantly declare , “ I told you so. The rest of you should have listened to me.”

Murmuring was the major reason why a 40-day journey from Egypt to Canaan eventually took the children of Israel under Moses 40 years to undertake! Grumbling is the spirit of rebellion and dissension masquerading as well-intentioned dissent.

More often than not, grumblers have no credible alternative solution to what they grumble about. I cannot stand grumblers around me. They are usually cowards whose only weapon is to disdain what they are not even willing to take the responsibility to confront and correct. Champions avoid their company like the bubonic.

Quit giving excuses. Excuses are the pastime of failures. Excuses are the veil that losers use to cover their slothfulness. When winners find an excuse, they don’t pick it up. Even when they accidentally pick it up, they usually refrain from giving it. Excuses only legitimise the blame game. You do not have to struggle to come up with one. They line up before you daily waiting to be used as weapons of escape from personal responsibility for cause and effect. The weather, the traffic, your parents, your siblings, the teacher you were convinced didn’t like you, your spouse, the cantankerous in-law, the unreasonable boss. The list goes on ad infinitum.

Highly effective people, however, recognise one fact: Nobody succeeds beyond his best excuse.

A crippled man had stayed on one spot literally for 38 years. One day, an opportunity came his way to beat the norm by taking the short cut to his healing, the very reason he had been stuck in a rut for so long. When Jesus asked him if he wanted to be healed - a question that should have prompted a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answer, he suddenly became a historian and regaled Jesus with the story of why he had remained the way he was; no man had come to help him. The interesting thing about it is that the guy could actually move. Afterall, he said in his statement, “... while I am coming...” If only he had leveraged on the minimum movement in his limbs, it would not have taken him 38 years to get into the pool in time for one of the angelic healing rounds.
Quit gossiping. A gossip is a deliberate misrepresentation of facts about somebody who is not in a position to defend himself by reason of the fact that it is told behind his back! Anyone who gossips about another to you will definitely gossip about you to someone else. The bible calls a gossip a talebearer whose sole purpose is to separate friends! ...Continued

Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!