I Quit, Came Back, and Learned Something Every Time

◷ 5 min read

If you are asking yourself, “Should I give up on my online business?” you have probably already stopped at least once. I have quit several times, and I came back every time. Each break lasted a few months, and each return gave me something the previous attempt could not.

That is the argument of this article: stepping away is not the same as failing. It can be a pause that feels like an ending while you are in it.

Quitting and failing are different events

Failing means you tried something and it did not work. Quitting means you stopped. The two overlap less than most advice admits.

The usual line is “never quit,” and it leaves out the part where people quit anyway. Work gets busy, results are slow, and the effort stops being worth it for a while. Treating that as a character flaw makes it harder to come back, because returning then feels like admitting you were wrong to leave.

I would rather say it plainly: I quit, more than once. People mocked me, and I made mistakes along the way. None of that ended the business.

What the mockery and the mistakes actually cost

Being mocked for starting something, stopping it, and starting again is uncomfortable. It also does not change anything about the work. The people doing the mocking were not the ones who would build the next version.

The mistakes cost more because some cost time and some cost effort I could not get back. But a mistake you have made once is one you recognize the second time. Every restart began from a better position than before, because I knew more about what didn’t work.

What carries over from an earlier attempt

This question decides whether your earlier attempts were wasted. Before you conclude they were, go through what you came away with:

• Skills. Anything you had to figure out to get a site, a page, or a post online is something you can do now.
• Tools and habits. The platforms you set up and the routines you tried, even the ones you dropped, make the next start faster.
• Judgement. You now know which parts of the work you avoid and which you keep returning to. That is useful information about what to build next.
• Opportunities. Each time I came back, I gained a new skill or an opening the first attempt couldn’t have produced.

Not every item on that list will apply to you. But if you list them honestly and the list is empty, that is worth knowing too. Most people who have started and stalled find it is not empty.

Why the latest return looks different

What I am focused on now is Swags Graphic Designs. It is an actual service, whereas before I was doing affiliate marketing.

The difference is practical. Affiliate marketing depends on sending traffic to someone else’s offer, so you need an audience before you can earn anything. With social media design & management, you work for a client and get paid for a service. You can start by offering it to one person.

I am not saying one model is better than the other for everyone. Affiliate marketing suits plenty of people. What I can say is that my earlier attempts are part of how I got here, and I moved to a service by coming back, not by staying put.

Pause or stop: how to decide

Wanting to quit does not tell you whether to quit. A few questions separate a pause from a real ending:

1. Do you still want the outcome? If you want the freedom, the income, or the creative work, the wish is still alive even when the motivation is not.
2. Is the method the problem, or the goal? Dropping a model that does not fit you is different from dropping the whole idea. Moving from one approach to another counts as continuing.
3. What would you do with the time instead? If the honest answer is “think about the business anyway,” you may only need a rest.
4. Is the cost sustainable? If the business is draining money or health you cannot spare, stopping is a reasonable decision. A planned break with a review date is often better than a silent one.

If you decide to stop for a while, set a date to look at the question again. A break with a review date is a decision. A break without one tends to turn into drift, and that is where people lose what they built.

What to do with your earlier attempts

Write down what each attempt taught you, what you built, and what you would change. Then decide what the next version should look like, using that list as the starting point instead of a blank page.

For me, that list is what led to a service business. Yours may lead somewhere different. But it will lead somewhere better than if you treated the earlier attempts as wasted time, because the next attempt is built on the time you spent on them.