An Airborne Situation
Shortly after graduating, I accepted my first job in the New Mexico desert. As an engineer with his heart set on becoming a NASA astronaut, I began looking for opportunities to expand my skillset. I settled on earning my private pilot certification.
One ground school course and 13 flight hours later, I found myself stressed to the limit.
On final approach to the runway, single-engine pilots are expected to “see a specific view” out of the cockpit window. Without the high-tech equipment of more advanced aircraft, this view helps ensure the pilot is on the proper glideslope. Too high, and the airplane lands too far down the runway. Too low, and other dangers arise. Demonstrating to the flight instructor that you can accurately place the plane on the correct glideslope is the last barrier before you’re allowed to fly solo.
Needless to say, it’s stressful.
The skill I was trying to learn had no parallel on the ground. Flight simulators rarely do reality justice. I was sitting in a machine moving 70 miles per hour toward concrete, trying to train my eyes to see something they’d never needed to see before.
Despite the nights, weekends, study hours, and thousands of dollars I’d dumped into the endeavor, I was ready to give up. I vividly remember the thought: “It would be so easy. Just quit. Give up. This isn’t for you.”
I didn’t quit. I earned my certification. But that feeling—that seductive pull toward giving up—would come back years later.
Then Came Piano
On the brink of my 40th birthday, I decided to learn piano.
In my excitement, I did all the research. I price-compared digital pianos, built a custom bench-stand combination, and optimized every dollar. I bought songbooks filled with music I’d surely enjoy playing someday. I placed the orders and waited.
Slowly, the equipment trickled in. I signed up for a gamified learning app, started earning high marks, and played along to real music. This was going great! I decided to go full throttle and hire an in-person tutor.
What she taught me wasn’t thrilling.
With simple exercises, my teacher revealed that my brain and body were completely undisciplined. I couldn’t operate my left hand independently from my right. I couldn’t play the simplest sheet music I could find. My lessons followed those of a five-year-old student who was playing more advanced music than I was.
It took a lot to swallow my pride. It was difficult to admit I was genuinely, deeply bad at something.
Then came that familiar feeling: I should give up.
The Quit Moment
I’ve felt this moment many times. Not just with flying and piano, but with failed side hustles, difficult courses in college, and skills I’ve tried to develop throughout my career. It’s a very specific sensation: part frustration, part exhaustion, part shame.
In my head, the monologue sounds something like:
- “This isn’t for me.”
- “I’m just not wired for this.”
- “Other people pick this up faster.”
- “I’ve given it a fair shot. Time to move on.”
These thoughts feel rational. They feel like wisdom, like self-awareness. But most of the time, they’re not. They’re your brain looking for an escape from discomfort.
Here’s what I’ve learned: the quit moment almost always comes right before the breakthrough.
Not in a mystical, “the universe is testing you” way. In a practical way. The quit moment arrives precisely when you’ve accumulated enough experience to see how far you still have to go. Beginners don’t feel it because they don’t know what they don’t know. Intermediates don’t feel it because they’ve already proven they can learn. It’s the late-beginner stage where you know enough to recognize your own incompetence. That’s the real killer.
If you quit at that moment, you’ll never know how close you were.
The Blame Phase
Before I hit my breaking point with piano, I cycled through every excuse except the real one.
I blamed my teacher. She was too rigid, too focused on fundamentals, not engaging enough. Why couldn’t she just let me play songs I actually liked?
I blamed my schedule. Work was too demanding. I didn’t have enough time to practice properly. If I had more hours in the day, I’d be progressing faster.
I blamed the instrument. The keys felt wrong. I could swear it was playing notes I hadn’t pressed. Maybe I needed a better piano.
I blamed my age. I was starting too late. Kids learn faster. My brain wasn’t plastic enough anymore.
None of this was true.
My teacher was giving me exactly what I needed: a foundation. My schedule had plenty of room; I was choosing to spend time elsewhere. The piano was fine; I was hitting extra keys with sloppy technique. And while kids do have some neurological advantages, adults learn new skills all the time.
The blame phase is a defense mechanism. It protects your ego by externalizing the problem. If the obstacle is outside you, then your failure to overcome it isn’t really your fault.
But as long as you’re blaming external factors, you can’t fix anything. The breakthrough only comes when you accept that the problem is internal, and internal problems are the only kind you can actually solve.
What Got Me Through
I didn’t push through the quit moment with willpower or motivational quotes. I pushed through by changing my approach.
1. I Lowered the Bar (Temporarily)
Instead of trying to play songs, I committed to just practicing scales. Boring, repetitive, unsexy scales. I told myself that “success” for the next month was simply showing up and doing the exercises—not sounding good, not making progress I could show off, just putting in the reps.
This removed the pressure that was making me want to quit. I wasn’t failing to play songs anymore because I wasn’t trying to play songs. I was succeeding at the only goal I’d set: show up and practice scales.
2. I Shrunk the Time Commitment
When I was demoralized, an hour of practice felt like punishment. So I dropped to 45 minutes only completing my scales. Sometimes 30. The deal I made with myself was simple: I could stop after 30 minutes, no guilt — just get the bad day out of the way. Regardless, I had to start.
Most days, once I started, I kept going longer. But on the hard days, I did my 15 minutes and stopped. That’s still infinitely more than zero.
3. I Focused on Process, Not Outcomes
I stopped asking “Am I getting better?” and started asking “Did I practice today?” The first question led to despair because progress is slow and uneven. The second question had a clear, achievable answer.
Over time, enough “yes” answers to the second question automatically produced a “yes” to the first. But I had to stop watching the pot to let it boil.
One particular night, I was walking with my wife along a bridge and brought up my frustrations. I even vented my internal thoughts of quitting, and returning all my equipment. Her reply surprised me: “Do you realize how little time you’ve actually spent playing? It was only a month ago when you even touched a piano for the first time. Now you’re mastering scales and playing introductory songs.” Of course, she was right. But in my head, it had seemed like years since I’d started.
4. I Remembered Previous Quit Moments
This was the most powerful tool. I thought back to the Cessna cockpit, to the moment I almost walked away from flying. I remembered how glad I was that I didn’t quit, how earning that certification felt, how the skill has enriched my life since.
If I had listened to the quit voice then, I would have lost all of that. Why would this time be different?
Every time you push through a quit moment, you build evidence that you can push through quit moments. That evidence becomes armor for the next time.
Three Truths About Learning Hard Things
After cycling through flying, piano, and a dozen other skills I’ve tried to develop, I’ve landed on three truths:
Truth #1: Nobody Is Great at Everything
Being bad at something new isn’t a sign that you’re not meant for it. It’s a sign that you’re new at it. This sounds obvious, but in the moment, it doesn’t feel obvious. It feels like evidence of fundamental inadequacy.
The people who become great at things aren’t the ones who start out great. They’re the ones who tolerate being bad long enough to get better.
Truth #2: The Difficulty Is the Point
If learning a new skill were easy, it wouldn’t be valuable. The frustration, the slow progress, the quit moments—these are features, not bugs. They’re the filter that separates people who kind of want something from people who actually want it.
Every hour you spend struggling with something is an hour most people won’t spend. That’s what creates the gap between you and them.
Truth #3: The Quit Voice Is Almost Always Wrong
The quit voice speaks loudest when you’re tired, frustrated, or comparing yourself to others. It has access to your insecurities and knows exactly which buttons to push.
But it doesn’t have access to the future. It doesn’t know what you’ll be capable of in six months if you keep going. It only knows that right now, in this moment, stopping would feel like relief.
Relief isn’t the same as the right decision.
A Framework for Pushing Through
If you’re at a quit moment right now, here’s what I’d suggest:
Step 1: Acknowledge it.
Name what you’re feeling. “I want to quit this.” Don’t pretend you’re fine or push the feeling down. Recognize it for what it is.
Step 2: Check for legitimate reasons.
Sometimes quitting is right. If you’re pursuing something for the wrong reasons, or if circumstances have genuinely changed, stopping can be the smart move. But be honest: are you quitting because of a real reason, or because it’s hard?
Step 3: Lower the bar.
If you’re overwhelmed, shrink the commitment. What’s the smallest version of “not quitting” you can manage? Do that.
Step 4: Set a review date.
Tell yourself: “I won’t make any decisions about quitting until [date].” Give yourself two weeks, a month, whatever feels right. Between now and then, just show up.
Step 5: Remember your past wins.
Think about other hard things you’ve done. You’ve pushed through difficulty before. You can do it again.
Where I Am Now
I still play piano! I’m not great, and it’s likely I’ll never perform at Carnegie Hall. But I can sit down and play songs that sound like actual music. I can read sheet music. I can learn new pieces. And I get choked up just typing that.
More importantly, I have the memory of not quitting. That memory has helped me push through quit moments in other areas where effort seemed fruitless, like building my professional website, pursuing consulting work, even writing this blog.
Every skill you don’t quit on becomes evidence that you’re someone who doesn’t quit. That identity compounds over time.
My flight instructor eventually signed me off for solo flight. The piano teacher eventually moved me on to harder exercises. In both cases, the breakthrough came after the quit moment, not before.
If you’re in that moment right now, I’m not going to tell you it gets easier. It doesn’t. It sucks until it starts to not suck as bad. But every day you get up and try, you get stronger. One day you’ll look back at the thing you almost quit and realize it became one of the most valuable parts of your life.
Don’t quit yet. You’re closer than you think.
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