Do not judge a ten-year pursuit by a difficult month.

A month is roughly one percent of a decade. Whatever happened in it, good or bad, has almost no bearing on how the whole thing turns out, and yet a difficult month feels like sufficient evidence to abandon everything. That is a failure of proportion rather than of judgement.

When a hard stretch has you questioning the whole pursuit, set a rule about when you are allowed to decide. Not now, and not while it is bad. Wait for level ground.