Quitting happens in pieces

Quitting happens in pieces.

Think of it as how Hemingway described going bankrupt in The Sun Also Rises:

“How did you go bankrupt?”
“Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”

We don’t usually notice the gradual part, but it’s where the sudden part comes from.

You can continue going through the motions, creating the approximate outward appearance of somebody who is still in the game, while simultaneously giving up in small ways.

Two-thirds of the way into a training run, you let fatigue take over, and while you don’t stop, you forget about the technical skills you’re practicing. You let your cadence go from fast and springy to slow, shin-slamming stomps. You forget about the mental skills you were working on, give up on segmenting, let yourself be overwhelmed by how much pain lies between you and the finish line, and slip into poisonous, negative self-talk. Your feet are still moving, so it doesn’t feel like you’ve quit, but the process has begun nonetheless.

Or, perhaps you’re in the middle of a stressful verbal exchange with a teammate. You’ve been working on being a stronger leader and communicating with better emotional regulation. But you let your emotional impulses take over. You’re still in the conversation, but you’ve gone from consciously managing yourself to lashing out thoughtlessly, at the mercy of your emotional impulses. It’s the same as staying in the gym while doing half-hearted sloppy reps. It’s quitting, but in small pieces, rather than all at once. It’s still the reinforcement of weakness, and it’s still a choice.

This is why how you train matters as much as what you’re doing. The quality of your effort dictates the trajectory of your development. Just showing up isn’t enough. You have to show up with everything you have, and hold the line when stress and fatigue try to beat you.

Small acts of quitting are still quitting. Don’t practice what you don’t want to become.

Emotions save time

Emotions save time.

Cognitive processing is costly and slower than emotional heuristics. And, while some skills can be stress inoculated or drilled to the point that you can perform predictably well in high-stress scenarios, not all potential scenarios can be accounted for when developing these skills. This is where learning to identify and work with emotions to make rapid decisions comes into play.

When this works well, we call them instincts. We have a feeling about the right path forward, trust that it’s correct, and respond before our thinking catches up.

When it goes sideways, we react poorly to an emotional impulse, then tell ourselves afterward that we don’t know what happened.

Instincts are not situation-specific, unlike stress-inoculated skills. They are general emotional and behavioral impulses.

Now is the time to learn how to identify and work with emotional impulses - from everyday situations and feelings to the more intense ones.

When you’re used to managing your emotional life, you know which feelings demand action and which don’t, and you don’t have to wait for your thinking brain to catch up when it matters the most.“Denial,” as Gavin de Becker wrote, “Is a save now, pay later scheme.”

Efficiency matters as much as fitness

Efficiency matters as much as fitness.

This is why an exceptional athlete who is learning to swim will get lapped by a sleepy geriatric in the pool. Or why two different athletes with different training backgrounds but similar levels of aerobic fitness can have very different 5-mile run times.

There’s a lot more to movement than putting out as much energy as possible. It’s also about how much ground you can cover at a given cost.

Running economy is one of the strongest predictors of endurance performance. It describes how much oxygen and energy you need to move at a given pace. If two people have the same VO₂max but one burns less energy to maintain an 8-minute pace, that person can either run faster or last longer before fatigue sets in.

The difference often comes down to mechanics and coordination. Cadence, vertical oscillation, braking forces, posture, and tissue elasticity all influence how much energy is lost with each stride. These factors are trainable. They improve with technique work, strength, repetition, and time spent moving well.

This is a critical factor in SOF selection for performance and durability.

You can be aerobically fit and still struggle if your movement wastes energy. A candidate who runs efficiently will arrive at the next event less fatigued, recover faster between efforts, and maintain performance deeper into long days. They’re also much less likely to suffer from things like shin splints, ITB syndrome, and other injuries.

This is why investments in training for efficiency tend to produce compounded results.

If you save a small amount of energy every stride, every step of every run, ruck, and carry costs less. Over hours and days, that margin becomes the difference between hanging on and falling apart.

Fitness matters. But the athletes who last the longest are usually the ones who move the best.

Avoiding assumptions, building trust

Assumptions are the root of most misunderstandings.

One person expects A, B, and C; the other expects D, E, and F. When neither delivers, resentment can quickly grow.

To avoid this, establish a relationship by getting to know others and their goals and agreeing on how to work together.

This is especially important when building new relationships. Taking the time to ask, listen, and understand others will immediately increase buy-in and establish you as a trusted ally. Even if you're not in charge, taking the time to get to know those around you and establishing parameters for open communication will demonstrate that you're a valuable asset to the team. ​

This principle applies to all relationships, including those with friends, coworkers, and your spouse. When making plans with someone, clearly stating your intentions, asking for theirs, and working toward a consensus is far more effective than operating on assumptions.

Managing expectations well requires developing a handful of skills:

+ Knowing yourself: knowing your own tendencies, needs, and desires.
+ Cognitive empathy: learning how to see the world from another person’s perspective.
+ Listening: shutting up, being curious, and striving to understand.
+ Asking questions: knowing how to inquire and follow up to keep the conversation on track and move toward mutual understanding.

This might seem like a lot of work, and it is, but the quality of our relationships dictates the quality of our lives. There is no more important set of skills than knowing how to relate to others.

We work on these skills (and many more) with all of our clients because being a SOF operator isn’t just about being mentally tough or physically capable. Those, in fact, are the easiest capabilities to develop.

The social, emotional, and mental side is the reason for the majority of failures and non-selects among individuals who show up physically competitive for selection.

Do the work to be a complete person, and you’ll be far more successful, regardless of the path you’re pursuing.