Sometimes giving up is best move

Persistence is a good quality. When applied in the right quantity, the end result is a good payoff. But too much persistence can lead to pathological consequences.

I remember watching my son’s Labrador retriever puppy persistently hanging on to his sock. The harder my son pulled on the sock, the more tenaciously the pup held on. Finally, my son was able to get the dog to give it up by offering her a piece of food. Persistence, like self-discipline and orderliness, can lead to great accomplishments, but sustained persistence is often annoying.

Have you ever given in to a persuasive, persistent salesman just to get rid of him? Or have you ever relented when one of your children persistently begged for something? Biographies of great people are filled with examples of not giving up on something until the task was accomplished.

We have all heard the old saying, “Don’t’ keep beating your head against a stone wall” or “He kept on trying until it finally killed him.” So we must decide. When does persistence become pathological? When is it too much of a good thing?

These often are difficult questions. Only time, maturity and experience can help people learn to distinguish the point of diminishing returns. The ability to determine when one has persisted long enough in a situation or task is often linked to being able to look at the “big picture.” Being able to see the whole and separate it from its parts often makes it possible to look at alternatives for getting from point A to point B and being flexible enough to see that there is “more than one way to skin the cat.”

Effective managers possess the ability to stand back and look at the big picture. With this visionary capability, they are able to see into the future and set goals and directions that give leadership to other members of their organization.

Over the years, in counseling with individuals, I have noticed that many of them run into difficulty because they “lock” into one particular way of looking at something. With their determined approach to a problem, they are unable to shift their thinking to see alternatives and perhaps better ways of doing things or thinking about a solution to a problem. Determined and unrelenting, they tend to believe that their locked-in mindset, which may have become inflexible thinking, is OK because they are laboring under the false assumption that they are being persistent.

The counselor’s task is to help them be more objective about the situation, to try to look at the situation in a broader perspective and perhaps to re-evaluate whether or not their persistence is going to pay off, or whether it instead indicates faulty thinking.

Psychological testing is a frequently helpful in assessing whether an individual is either too persistent in his approach to things or gives up too easily.

Parents can provide children with the ability to distinguish between being too persistent and giving up too soon. Sometimes showing that a change in direction, a new look at the old problem by exploring alternatives and redefining a goal, is a good solution. Knowing when to persist and when to desist is remembering that giving up on the old sock is sometimes the best choice.

Harold H. LeCrone, Jr., Ph.D. Copyright 1988