When a strategy isn’t working, loyalty to it is just stubbornness with a clipboard.

Sticking with a plan is a virtue until the plan stops producing anything, and then it is just a habit you are proud of. The tricky part is that persistence and stubbornness look the same from outside and feel the same from inside. The difference is evidence. One of them is getting results you can point to and the other is getting explanations.

Set a date and a number before you start anything long: what you expect to see by when. If the date arrives and the number has not, change something real instead of trying harder. Deciding the checkpoint in advance keeps the decision out of your pride.