This is literally the reason that the emotion of frustration exists.
Our brain is aware of when we stop making progress towards a goal we care about. The feeling of frustration builds until it becomes so strong it essentially forces us to stop.
Then, to get rid of the emotion, we have to step back and reassess. And then either see if we should try a different approach to the problem, give up on the problem entirely, or triple-check that the same course of action is still worth pursuing and thus "re-energize" ourselves.
If we never felt frustrated, we'd keep attempting futile goals for so much longer. When you feel frustrated, the answer is never to just ignore the feeling and try to "power through". It's to step back and reassess at the first opportunity.
It's easy to confuse laziness for frustration though. I think a key requirement in your comment is that you're grounded emotionally and know what you're feeling when you do. I know too many people that give up at the first indication of resistance but I'm fairly confident its their laziness.
1. Frustration depends entirely on the expectations of the outcome of an action.
2. Frustration is a spectrum.
3. Frustration is necessary to engage your full focus
If it were on a scale of 1-10. 4 through 8 would be the ideal frustration to keep you engaged in a goal. Below 4 and you would not be able to engage with the task fully. Above 8 and its a signal that either your expectations about the outcome are completely wrong or your approach is completely wrong, and you need to step back.
Playing your little brother in Street Fighter will never make you better at it, until he starts beating you and making you annoyed that you are losing, forcing you to concentrate and pay attention to the more subtle details of the game.
But sometimes you gotta power through it, you just need to plan for it in advance, so you might feel frustrated, but know you are not mad for not stopping.
Disagree strongly, frustration is like the setup before the payoff, it's what makes figuring out something "worth" it - the more frustration, the bigger the payoff.
This analysis is interesting, but I think there’s a small self-reference problem hidden in it: what exactly counts as an “impossible goal,” and who gets to decide that?
It’s obviously true that some people chase almost “fantasy-level” ambitions. But for most of us, the reason we keep going is that, somewhere in the background, we still believe our goals are possible, possible enough to justify the time, effort, and even psychological pain. If some external standard comes along and declares “this is impossible, you should give up,” that can reduce stress in the short term, but it may also plant a long-term regret that keeps growing with age.
Looking back on my own life, the goals I abandoned for internal reasons (“this no longer fits who I am / I don’t want to pay this price anymore”) are the ones I can live with. I learned from those failures and even feel a bit stronger because of them. The painful ones are the goals I dropped mainly because someone else convinced me they were impossible. Those still feel like open loops.
So maybe the more useful takeaway isn’t “giving up is good,” but: keep reassessing your goals realistically as you grow. If, after a sober look at your skills and constraints, you still feel a goal is worth the cost, then commit and try. At least when you’re old and sitting in a chair somewhere, you’ll be less haunted by “I never even gave it a shot.”
> So maybe the more useful takeaway isn’t “giving up is good,” but: keep reassessing your goals realistically as you grow.
This is ultimately what the article is talking about. It's not about giving up on your ultimate goal, it's about giving up on your current approach and finding other ways to progress towards your goal.
I like your advice. It's like setting some metrics on your own progress and happiness level.
On the other hand, sometimes without pushing, you won't be able to fully enjoy something "later".
Stupid example: learning piano or guitar. Which metrics would you use?
In addition, here the issue is also about children, not just grownups: when to stop paying for their "xyz" course? And how do you teach them when to stop/change?
If we're able to guess that right, I guess we can educate children better to have better grownups.
The author of the article obviously didn't read the paper.
The paper's finding focuses on goal adjustment/flexibility being a functional response when encountering difficulty meeting a goal. Disengagement had correlations with impairment. Which probably tracks most people's life experience.
| This interpretation aligns with our finding that dispositional flex-
ibility, rather than more proximal disengagement or reengagement,
more strongly predicts functioning. Notably, we observed a positive
association between disengagement and impairment. Although this
could reflect a ‘dark side’ of disengagement—where letting go of goals
offers short-term relief but risks longer-term purposelessness and
dysfunction11—this pattern was not evident in longitudinal or experi-
mental studies. An alternative explanation is that the association is
bidirectional, with impairment potentially prompting disengagement
as a reactive strategy. Given these complexities, we advice caution in
interpreting this finding and highlight the need for further research.
I'm not sure if this falls under the same vein but in 2016 I just decided to stop paying my bills and I didn't have a job. I was just "free". I mean my life was imploding (and it did eg. 350s credit score/getting sued by debt collectors) but man I felt so free that time. I didn't have to get up/sleep at any particular time or be anywhere. I long to get back to that state (although with money saved/invested). And the goal isn't to do nothing but not to be forced to do anything.
I'd feel the same when between employment like in 2023 the tech industry tanked so I could not get hired for a year (there were 6mo contracts which I did not accept). Before I decided to eat it and work at a factory, I was just watching TV/enjoying a couple months off (I had to sell all my possessions at a loss to get by). Eventually at the end of 2024 I did accept a 6mo contract that is now going beyond a year.
The thing I didn't realize is the 6mo contract while short pays double a factory wage so it's like being employed for a year.
In my experience what matters most is understanding your goals, or lacking clear goals, what you want and enjoy. It’s remarkably easy to latch onto goals that seem like great ideas but ultimately don’t align to your own happiness.
That’s not to knock ambition, but to frame it in the most practical terms. How will success actually and specifically benefit you?
> It’s remarkably easy to latch onto goals that seem like great ideas but ultimately don’t align to your own happiness
I wonder if the whole idea of goals and ambition being able to deliver happiness is wrong. Certainly whenever I’ve set a goal and achieve it nothing much changes in how I feel about life because I was hoping for too much and so must just find a new goal.
I've cost myself quite a bit over my lifetime by quitting work I disliked for pick-a-reason without a plan to replace the income. I wish you the best in your search for a new revenue stream.
I did that once: I was planning to quit to start a business, but when I realized the environment at my day job was toxic, I quit about 6 months sooner than planned.
>According to a review of more than 230 studies recently published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, adjusting our goals in response to stress or challenges, rather than grinding on, is often “a more appropriate and beneficial response.”
That is also what people who persist on the path of their goal do. And that's not giving up, as the title claims.
The issue is that we live in an era were a 2-bedroom house is already something people can start giving up on. So the threshold for whats attainable is getting lower and lower, and soon enough just food will be enough.
Its only an issue because people don't want to compromise on location, aka they want the most convenient place possible (because they 'deserve it'?), but half of other folks living and working in the area want exactly the same. And it doesn't really matter if we talk about SV or some other big enough city anywhere else, they all share the same situation.
And commute is unacceptable, for some even 20 mins according to same topic being discussed also here ad nausea.
Btw having a house is a luxury basically anywhere in the world, not sure why the baseline expectation is that its some UN-enforced basic human right. I for example lived, live and will live in apartments only which cost less than 50% of similarly-sized house and derive life satisfaction other things than gardening and constant upkeep of property. Really not getting this want-luxury-as-baseline mindset.
Modern upbringing of children is full of nonsense forced by business and political goals. Rhymes that go "rain, rain go away" etc. Values that prioritize and reward sales skills, TV shows that show telling lies and pretending is acceptable and fun, weirdness is desirable etc. Importance of presentation over core content and so on.
We trained our mind to ignore and forget all animal instincts, body signals and wisdom acquired through ages.
Of course, ancient battle wisdom from the East tells you how to approach issues - saama, daana, bhedha, danda - that is - make friends, negotiate, divide and rule, use force. At any point, if things look infeasible, retreat and avoid. Pure common sense.
> Of course, ancient battle wisdom from the East tells you how to approach issues - saama, daana, bhedha, danda - that is - make friends, negotiate, divide and rule, use force.
That's probably something you learn in India. In the West that'd be Machiavelli (and countless Roman/Greek philopsophers/generals, etc), for whoever went to school.
Anyway, all this is somehow unrelated to the article.
The main issue is that people nowadays have somehow internalized a weird "alpha male, never give up, don't cry, just shut up an resist, impossible is nothing" mindset. The issue is that many parents don't want to create "weak" grownups, with the side effects of creating potentially sick ones, who will grow and will have kids and "won't repeat the same mistakes as my parents".
In my experience the smartest and possibly most successful (not rich, but successful in terms of satisfied/happy/in a good state financially) people are the ones that know when to change course. Finding the sweet spot (the "when") is just pure talent. This is extremely difficult for a parent to understand: when to jump in and tell your kids "it's OK, do something else" without shame.
> Modern upbringing of children is full of nonsense forced by business and political goals. Rhymes that go "rain, rain go away" etc.
I don't understand what you mean by "rain, rain go away" in the context of modern upbringing of children. I know of the nursery rhyme with that line, but that's at least 350 years old.
Social media established a hustle culture in young men, cost of living forces people to work without taking vacation. The modern trend is 72 hour weeks in Silicon Valley corporations. Houses are speculation objects rather than affordable homes for families. In this society you have to teach children early on about how money works and how to keep jobs or you'll find them in a vicious cycle of trying to afford life. Giving up simply is not an option for many people anymore.
> Newer evidence suggests that ditching tough-to-attain goals
> can actually be good for us.
> adjusting our goals in response to stress or challenges, rather than grinding on, is often “a more appropriate and beneficial response.”
It depends a lot on the goals. I give up often and quickly. One reason is ... lack of time. (And also lack of discipline, but lack of time is really one key reason I toss away many things these days. You live only once, at the least most of us.)
There is, however had, one interesting study from psychology. I forgot the name, but they showed tests with kids as to "if you eat this now, you won't get an additional reward, but if you won't eat it for an hour, you get more lateron". Now this was not the setup, I am just quoting this from memory. The adults left the room so only the kid was there and some sweets on the table.
It was quite convincingly shown that the kids with more discipline and will-power, aka who refused the sweets in order to get more reward lateron, were also more successful on average lateron. Or, at the least, avoided some problems such as drug addiction and what not. So I think the "benefits of giving up" has to be put in context. It depends on what and how you give up. I may not give up on A, but then I may not be able to do B, because of lack of time, lack of resources and so forth. So these are just trade-offs, but discipline and will-power are just about almost always really excellent traits to have or train for.
In SW development the bar is constantly being set extra high expecting people to meet it constantly if they meet it once. Maybe some random unachievable internal date for some pointless goal for a back slap and a feel good headpat. Yeah, no. You will fail sooner or later as the denizens of management and PM-topia expect that is the norm. Better to relax and let every date be missed and tell them life's a bitch.
This reminds me of Henri Laborit's book entitled "Eloge de la fuite" (in praise of flight) which states that when faced with stress, we can respond with action, flight, or inaction. Unlike the other two responses, inaction is toxic to the body. Maybe giving up corresponds to flight. I didn't read the article.
I don't believe in "giving up" but I do believe in picking battles and leveraging higher order effects. A short term retreat to win a long term war. Walking away can be the best strategic option.
For example, if you find yourself in strong disagreement with the current leadership at your company, instead of having cataclysmic battles every day on Teams, you could simply hand in your resignation letter and walk away while the boat is still afloat. Keep your chin up and firmly depart with grace.
Short term, this looks exactly like giving up. Long term, it can surface the foundation of your arguments and force those higher up the chain (investors) to potentially come back to you and your arguments in the future (assuming you were actually right).
I'm living this one right now. It's surreal watching people who attempted to game of thrones me ~every day get perp walked. I wouldn't say I enjoy this because it would have been better if we had figured out a way to work together. It definitely wasn't a skill problem on anyone's part.
It is often best to use your opponent's momentum and energy against them. If the problem you are dealing with is other people, giving up is a reasonable default. If the problem is some challenging machine learning algorithm or other personal project I think you should be more cautious about walking away. This can turn into a bad habit.
The fewer chefs you have in the kitchen, the easier it is to assign blame and figure out what the real issues are. You can become part of that refining process if you have the contingencies to endure this job market.
Yesterday I spent two hours looking for something that I thought I needed. Ten minutes in I thought of an alternative solution that wouldn’t require the item I was looking for. I wanted to do more interesting things, but I still /had/ to find it. I’d accidentally end up doing it again when I try to stop. A friend who was observing this tricked me into eating something, and then I was able to stop.
If I forget a word mid conversation, I spend a lot of time trying to remember it. I can google or ask the chat bot, but emotionally I want to get there it on my own.
I think that I’m addicted to the feeling I get when I find these things or solve a very difficult problem. After reading an earlier article about “aha” moments, I wonder if it’s the same circuit. Maybe there is also a natural predisposition for hunting in my brain, which is why food seems to help me get past these … moments.
It makes absolutely no sense to do an analysis of such a broad subject and then analyze it in such superficial detail. At least this article does nothing but give the most vague description of what might in general happen.
It is of course obvious that any hard goal requires effort and effort is linked with a lot of "bad things". The whole article can be reduced to this. Trying requires effort and effort is hard.
[+] [-] crazygringo|4 months ago|reply
Our brain is aware of when we stop making progress towards a goal we care about. The feeling of frustration builds until it becomes so strong it essentially forces us to stop.
Then, to get rid of the emotion, we have to step back and reassess. And then either see if we should try a different approach to the problem, give up on the problem entirely, or triple-check that the same course of action is still worth pursuing and thus "re-energize" ourselves.
If we never felt frustrated, we'd keep attempting futile goals for so much longer. When you feel frustrated, the answer is never to just ignore the feeling and try to "power through". It's to step back and reassess at the first opportunity.
[+] [-] xeromal|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] timacles|4 months ago|reply
1. Frustration depends entirely on the expectations of the outcome of an action. 2. Frustration is a spectrum. 3. Frustration is necessary to engage your full focus
If it were on a scale of 1-10. 4 through 8 would be the ideal frustration to keep you engaged in a goal. Below 4 and you would not be able to engage with the task fully. Above 8 and its a signal that either your expectations about the outcome are completely wrong or your approach is completely wrong, and you need to step back.
Playing your little brother in Street Fighter will never make you better at it, until he starts beating you and making you annoyed that you are losing, forcing you to concentrate and pay attention to the more subtle details of the game.
[+] [-] faeyanpiraat|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] hobs|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] pier25|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] zywoo|4 months ago|reply
It’s obviously true that some people chase almost “fantasy-level” ambitions. But for most of us, the reason we keep going is that, somewhere in the background, we still believe our goals are possible, possible enough to justify the time, effort, and even psychological pain. If some external standard comes along and declares “this is impossible, you should give up,” that can reduce stress in the short term, but it may also plant a long-term regret that keeps growing with age.
Looking back on my own life, the goals I abandoned for internal reasons (“this no longer fits who I am / I don’t want to pay this price anymore”) are the ones I can live with. I learned from those failures and even feel a bit stronger because of them. The painful ones are the goals I dropped mainly because someone else convinced me they were impossible. Those still feel like open loops.
So maybe the more useful takeaway isn’t “giving up is good,” but: keep reassessing your goals realistically as you grow. If, after a sober look at your skills and constraints, you still feel a goal is worth the cost, then commit and try. At least when you’re old and sitting in a chair somewhere, you’ll be less haunted by “I never even gave it a shot.”
[+] [-] armada651|4 months ago|reply
This is ultimately what the article is talking about. It's not about giving up on your ultimate goal, it's about giving up on your current approach and finding other ways to progress towards your goal.
[+] [-] mk89|4 months ago|reply
On the other hand, sometimes without pushing, you won't be able to fully enjoy something "later".
Stupid example: learning piano or guitar. Which metrics would you use?
In addition, here the issue is also about children, not just grownups: when to stop paying for their "xyz" course? And how do you teach them when to stop/change?
If we're able to guess that right, I guess we can educate children better to have better grownups.
[+] [-] germandiago|4 months ago|reply
For one, it avoids the psychological traps of frustration if you keep it realistic.
The other good thing is you will not sit down complaining andnyou will put your time on something that is worth.
You can fail or succeed, but with that mindset I think things go, at least, psychologically better.
I am not convinced at all that becoming just comfy and a conformist in itself is more healthy.
[+] [-] jimbokun|4 months ago|reply
If something isn't working, you can keep ramming into the same wall harder or you can try a different approach.
[+] [-] bhawks|4 months ago|reply
The paper's finding focuses on goal adjustment/flexibility being a functional response when encountering difficulty meeting a goal. Disengagement had correlations with impairment. Which probably tracks most people's life experience.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02312-4
| This interpretation aligns with our finding that dispositional flex- ibility, rather than more proximal disengagement or reengagement, more strongly predicts functioning. Notably, we observed a positive association between disengagement and impairment. Although this could reflect a ‘dark side’ of disengagement—where letting go of goals offers short-term relief but risks longer-term purposelessness and dysfunction11—this pattern was not evident in longitudinal or experi- mental studies. An alternative explanation is that the association is bidirectional, with impairment potentially prompting disengagement as a reactive strategy. Given these complexities, we advice caution in interpreting this finding and highlight the need for further research.
[+] [-] ge96|4 months ago|reply
I'd feel the same when between employment like in 2023 the tech industry tanked so I could not get hired for a year (there were 6mo contracts which I did not accept). Before I decided to eat it and work at a factory, I was just watching TV/enjoying a couple months off (I had to sell all my possessions at a loss to get by). Eventually at the end of 2024 I did accept a 6mo contract that is now going beyond a year.
The thing I didn't realize is the 6mo contract while short pays double a factory wage so it's like being employed for a year.
[+] [-] subpixel|4 months ago|reply
That’s not to knock ambition, but to frame it in the most practical terms. How will success actually and specifically benefit you?
[+] [-] lisper|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] jebarker|4 months ago|reply
I wonder if the whole idea of goals and ambition being able to deliver happiness is wrong. Certainly whenever I’ve set a goal and achieve it nothing much changes in how I feel about life because I was hoping for too much and so must just find a new goal.
[+] [-] bondarchuk|4 months ago|reply
https://www.templeton.org/grant/nautilus-magazine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Templeton_Foundation
[+] [-] Surac|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] MikeNotThePope|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] sointeresting|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] alsetmusic|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] gwbas1c|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] mock-possum|4 months ago|reply
Must be nice to have quitting money.
I’ve never once been able to afford being able to quit a job, and I’m like, closing in on 40 now.
[+] [-] unknown|4 months ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] iberator|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] begueradj|4 months ago|reply
That is also what people who persist on the path of their goal do. And that's not giving up, as the title claims.
[+] [-] pelagicAustral|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] hat_monger|4 months ago|reply
And then you will be lectured on how prosperous a country it is and how big the GDP is, probably by a foreigner lol.
[+] [-] kakacik|4 months ago|reply
And commute is unacceptable, for some even 20 mins according to same topic being discussed also here ad nausea.
Btw having a house is a luxury basically anywhere in the world, not sure why the baseline expectation is that its some UN-enforced basic human right. I for example lived, live and will live in apartments only which cost less than 50% of similarly-sized house and derive life satisfaction other things than gardening and constant upkeep of property. Really not getting this want-luxury-as-baseline mindset.
[+] [-] zkmon|4 months ago|reply
We trained our mind to ignore and forget all animal instincts, body signals and wisdom acquired through ages.
Of course, ancient battle wisdom from the East tells you how to approach issues - saama, daana, bhedha, danda - that is - make friends, negotiate, divide and rule, use force. At any point, if things look infeasible, retreat and avoid. Pure common sense.
[+] [-] mk89|4 months ago|reply
That's probably something you learn in India. In the West that'd be Machiavelli (and countless Roman/Greek philopsophers/generals, etc), for whoever went to school.
Anyway, all this is somehow unrelated to the article.
The main issue is that people nowadays have somehow internalized a weird "alpha male, never give up, don't cry, just shut up an resist, impossible is nothing" mindset. The issue is that many parents don't want to create "weak" grownups, with the side effects of creating potentially sick ones, who will grow and will have kids and "won't repeat the same mistakes as my parents".
In my experience the smartest and possibly most successful (not rich, but successful in terms of satisfied/happy/in a good state financially) people are the ones that know when to change course. Finding the sweet spot (the "when") is just pure talent. This is extremely difficult for a parent to understand: when to jump in and tell your kids "it's OK, do something else" without shame.
[+] [-] tzs|4 months ago|reply
I don't understand what you mean by "rain, rain go away" in the context of modern upbringing of children. I know of the nursery rhyme with that line, but that's at least 350 years old.
[+] [-] zwnow|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] shevy-java|4 months ago|reply
> adjusting our goals in response to stress or challenges, rather than grinding on, is often “a more appropriate and beneficial response.”
It depends a lot on the goals. I give up often and quickly. One reason is ... lack of time. (And also lack of discipline, but lack of time is really one key reason I toss away many things these days. You live only once, at the least most of us.)
There is, however had, one interesting study from psychology. I forgot the name, but they showed tests with kids as to "if you eat this now, you won't get an additional reward, but if you won't eat it for an hour, you get more lateron". Now this was not the setup, I am just quoting this from memory. The adults left the room so only the kid was there and some sweets on the table.
It was quite convincingly shown that the kids with more discipline and will-power, aka who refused the sweets in order to get more reward lateron, were also more successful on average lateron. Or, at the least, avoided some problems such as drug addiction and what not. So I think the "benefits of giving up" has to be put in context. It depends on what and how you give up. I may not give up on A, but then I may not be able to do B, because of lack of time, lack of resources and so forth. So these are just trade-offs, but discipline and will-power are just about almost always really excellent traits to have or train for.
[+] [-] samdung|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] dyauspitr|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] zkmon|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] sys_64738|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] mcmoor|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] sayamqazi|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] lkuty|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] stevenwoo|4 months ago|reply
The nautilus story uses one meta study and the New Scientist has many individual citations with some quotes from scientists.
[+] [-] bob1029|4 months ago|reply
For example, if you find yourself in strong disagreement with the current leadership at your company, instead of having cataclysmic battles every day on Teams, you could simply hand in your resignation letter and walk away while the boat is still afloat. Keep your chin up and firmly depart with grace.
Short term, this looks exactly like giving up. Long term, it can surface the foundation of your arguments and force those higher up the chain (investors) to potentially come back to you and your arguments in the future (assuming you were actually right).
I'm living this one right now. It's surreal watching people who attempted to game of thrones me ~every day get perp walked. I wouldn't say I enjoy this because it would have been better if we had figured out a way to work together. It definitely wasn't a skill problem on anyone's part.
It is often best to use your opponent's momentum and energy against them. If the problem you are dealing with is other people, giving up is a reasonable default. If the problem is some challenging machine learning algorithm or other personal project I think you should be more cautious about walking away. This can turn into a bad habit.
The fewer chefs you have in the kitchen, the easier it is to assign blame and figure out what the real issues are. You can become part of that refining process if you have the contingencies to endure this job market.
[+] [-] isolli|4 months ago|reply
It was said speaking of art, but it could also apply to software projects :)
[+] [-] siva7|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] Kiboneu|4 months ago|reply
If I forget a word mid conversation, I spend a lot of time trying to remember it. I can google or ask the chat bot, but emotionally I want to get there it on my own.
I think that I’m addicted to the feeling I get when I find these things or solve a very difficult problem. After reading an earlier article about “aha” moments, I wonder if it’s the same circuit. Maybe there is also a natural predisposition for hunting in my brain, which is why food seems to help me get past these … moments.
[+] [-] puppycodes|4 months ago|reply
[+] [-] constantcrying|4 months ago|reply
It is of course obvious that any hard goal requires effort and effort is linked with a lot of "bad things". The whole article can be reduced to this. Trying requires effort and effort is hard.