Betsy Schow didn't want to be a contender: She wanted to be the best.
Instead, she ended up being bogged down by increasing weight gain, plummeting self-esteem and a paralyzing perfectionism that kept her from finishing anything.
After she lost 75 pounds and ran a marathon (which she chronicled in her book, "Finished Being Fat"), Schow realized that her perseverance helped her as much as diet and exercise.
In her new book, "The Quitter's Guide to Finishing," Schow gently instructs the quitter in all of us to set personal goals and power through to the finish line.
Q: Is quitting really that big of a problem?
A: Everyone has been a quitter at one time or another, on one project or another. And that's OK. But when you quit a lot, it starts to mangle your self-worth. That's when it becomes a problem. Quitting builds a wall of failures and it can be tough to get over that wall.
Q: What's your definition of a quitter?
A: A quitter is someone who gets all excited about starting a project — any project — but never finishes it. Instead, they move on to the next and the next.