Ever experienced a Moment of Truth? Odds are you have. These are times when you’re faced with the difficult, life-changing decision of quitting the pursuit of something. They happen in matters of the heart — love, work — because those require the biggest time commitments and emotional investments from us. If you’ve ever risked great pain for great gain, you’ve had a Moment of Truth.

Not experiencing one right now? Let me refresh your memory. They happen before you’re even aware of it: one second everything’s okay, and the next second shit hits the fan. Reality sets in and you start to panic, wondering whether you’re on the right track, whether you’ve made good decisions, whether you’ve got the chops, whether all of this is even worth the risk. Your mind races back and forth, whittling down your confidence little by little until you’re intimidated and exhausted by the sheer number of arguments against you… until finally you see your out. You can give up. It’s so temptingly easy, like going back to sleep under your warm blanket instead of climbing out into the cold discomfort of your room. You can quit, right now, and all your stresses and pains will vanish into thin air. Instant relief.

Sometimes the right thing to do is quit. What’s tough is when you’re convinced you shouldn’t quit just yet, despite the uncertainty of whether you’ll ever get what you want, and despite the suffering. (If you’re experiencing a Moment of Truth, to some degree you are suffering.) It’s hard — at times soul-crushingly hard — to give up on something that has potential.

Now, let me be clear. This isn’t about how to decide whether to quit; I’m assuming you’ve considered all the pros and cons and ruled it out. And it’s not about figuring out if you’re doing anything wrong and how to fix those things; I’m assuming that you’ve spent time reflecting, you’ve figured out what mistakes you’re making, and you’ve taken the necessary steps to correct them. This is about knowing that you shouldn’t quit yet, so you have to keep on keeping on, even though the situation still sucks, and how to deal with the countless Moments of Truth that you’re going to have every single day thereafter.

Somehow, you have to become comfortable with things not yet being how you want them to be. Easier said than done, but one thing has worked for me: thinking about “the big picture.” We’re all familiar with that phrase, but don’t be quick to dismiss it. Like most good advice this is deceptively simple but supremely difficult. It’s easy to be engrossed in your experience and forget the bigger picture, especially if you’re as present-minded as I am, and especially if you’re truly suffering. It’s easy to feel sorry for ourselves, to turn our lives into sob stories where we, the deserving protagonists, are victims of unfair circumstances. And it’s easy to do nothing to help ourselves cope with our situations, merely hoping that better days come sooner than later.

The alternative isn’t easy: you’ll have to constantly remind yourself to put things in perspective. It’s hard to admit that there are people in the world with worse problems. (This was my perspective-of-choice for many years, until I realized that you don’t have to trivialize all of your problems. Your problems are significant, just not that significant, usually.) It’s hard to remember that you’ve endured hopeless hardships before and came out better for it. (It may even take you some time to remember specific examples from your past. One day your current situation will also become a memory that’s filed away, something you’ll recall, rarely and randomly, with scientific objectivity or optimistic nostalgia.) And it’s hard to accept suffering as a necessary part of life — a harsh reminder that you’re alive. But as I’ve said before, the hard choices are usually the right ones.

So what are you striving for? And why are you suffering for it? Because if it’s not worth quitting, there has to be a worthy goal. Keeping that goal in mind can help you persist through the suffering and uncertainty… until your next insight. See, there’s a second type of Moment of Truth. These are the insights you will inevitably discover, which will either make your suffering more tolerable or convince you to quit. You just need something to get you from insight to insight. The time between them will seem wider than it will be, the end will seem further than it will be, and your suffering will feel longer than it will be, but these insights will happen, and one of them will bring you to a resolution. It’ll happen before you’re even aware of it: one second everything’s shitty, and the next second everything’s okay. Reality sets in and all your stresses and pains vanish into thin air. Instant relief.