I’m a Quitter and You Should Be Too
“If you take her home you’re encouraging her to be a quitter.” This is what the running camp owner said to my dad when he arrived to pick me up less than 3 days after I had arrived for a two week running camp. My father told the man, “I know my daughter and if she says she needs to leave then I trust her.”
I’m eternally grateful for that moment and for having parents that didn’t stand in my way whenever I went to quit something. In this case, I had what I can only describe as a nervous breakdown and called home crying asking to be picked up. This was not a common occurrence as I was a competitive runner and not one to cry growing up. So when I called my parents and told them I hadn’t been able to stop crying for two days and didn’t know why, we knew something was wrong. I listened to my body and my intuition to know being at that camp was not right for me and there was no “pushing through”. And I was lucky that my parents trusted my intuition as well. I recognize that is a privilege.
That day the owner of the running camp tried to label me as a “quitter”. He tried to scare my dad into thinking that leaving this camp early would be a defining moment of my life. And it was actually a defining moment, but not in the way he imagined. It allowed me to continue to give myself permission throughout my life to change the things that no longer served me. It helped me understand that there’s a difference between giving up because something is hard and giving up because something no longer serves you. The challenge is to be able to identify for yourself which moment you are in.
Quit and Take Your Experiences With You
I finally quit running for good my senior year of high school. The choice to quit wasn’t about giving up on something I wasn’t good at or was too hard. On the contrary, I was Co-Captain of the cross country team and ran varsity winter and spring track for 3 years. At the time I quit, I was one season short of earning a prestigious award that went to individuals who had earned 7+ Varsity letters. And yet, I left all of that behind and traded that time to secure a small part in the school play. Why? I had nothing left to prove in running, nothing left to gain, and more importantly the costs of leaving weren’t as high as we often think.
What I realized early on was that even if I left, my accomplishments would never go away. I ran 6 seasons of track and cross country at a Varsity level, I was Co-Captain of the cross country team as a sophomore, and I ran a 5:21 mile, which was a personal best for me. But here’s the thing. Even though I haven’t run in 20 years, I can still say I ran a 5:21 mile. I was still Co-Captain of my cross-country team. Realizing that leaving didn’t diminish or take away what I had already accomplished made it easier to walk away when I had nothing left to gain from an experience.
We often mistakenly frame leaving as leaving something behind. On the contrary, when we leave we take all our experiences with us. It’s like moving to a new home. I guess you could sell all your furniture and leave it, but more often, you pack it up and bring it to the next home. No one can take your accomplishments, experiences, and learnings from you, so don’t frame a quitting decision as if you will.
Quitting Makes Space for Something New
This mentality of knowing when to quit has served me quite well over the years. I’ve earned a wealth of experiences and continued to grow and learn new things because I had the space for them. This is an important benefit of quitting that is overlooked. By quitting one choice you are creating the space and opportunity for you to pursue something else.
In her book “Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away”, Annie Duke recounts the story of Stewart Butterfield, the founder of Slack. Prior to founding Slack, he had founded another venture. However, he realized at one point that the endeavor was unlikely to succeed and so he chose to quit, much to the surprise of his partners and investors. Quitting that venture allowed him to pursue a new idea, which is what became Slack. Time is a precious resource and so we often have to leave behind one activity in order to pursue another.
In college I quit Student Council so I could become President of my sorority. My senior year of college I quit working in finance to work in the consulting field post-graduation. I then quit consulting after 2 years to work internally at an international corporation. I then quit that to work in startups. And then I quit working in startups to go back to school and find a new career.
Every time I quit it enabled me to make space for something new. I couldn’t run track and be in the school play because they occurred concurrently and practice was at the same time. I couldn’t be my sorority President and continue my commitment in Student Council because there wasn’t enough time. And I obviously couldn’t work two full time jobs in different industries so I had to choose between a finance and consulting job. We have to make choices as to where we want to spend our time. As a result, wanting to engage in a new activity often requires us to let go of an old one.
Grit vs. Quit - Explore the Costs of Staying
The argument against quitting is often about sticking things out and embracing grit. I’m a huge proponent of deploying grit in your life. However, every time I quit it wasn’t because it was too hard. Rather, it was because I had nothing left to gain and more to lose. There is a time to use grit and a time to quit. We often think about the costs of quitting, but I am always focused on the costs of staying.
As a child I had the privilege of being enrolled in a lot of different activities such as dance classes, gymnastics, and soccer. However, I quickly gave up dance and gymnastics when I realized that my lack of flexibility put me at a huge disadvantage in those worlds. I realized that the amount of effort needed to overcome that disadvantage was not worth it to me. As a result, I dropped those activities to focus more on soccer where I had more natural abilities and interest. Even early on, I was considering both what was enjoyable to me and what would be worth my time and effort.
However, the longer you spend on one path, the more pressure you can feel to stay. Particularly as we get older, our choices seem to have more serious consequences. Once I got to high school, quitting activities seemed to have greater perceived consequences. At that point, I was told that quitting soccer or running would seemingly affect my college applications.
However, even back then I sensed that the consequences of not quitting would affect something even more important, my mental health. I could feel the toll these activities were taking on me when they no longer served me. More importantly, I could feel them preventing me from finding my way out of that dark abyss towards something more enjoyable. Life is all about choices and because our time is fixed, one choice often prevents us from making another.
The costs of staying in a job that doesn’t enable us to meet our own needs often means risking our physical and mental health. I’ve had some clients whose jobs were making them physically ill. I also suffered physically for 15 years as a result of burnout and stress. Quitting is the better option when the costs of staying are too high as compared to the alternatives. Being a martyr in your life serves no one, especially not you.
This also applies at the organizational level as well. How many companies have continued down the same path, afraid of quitting? Well we know the answer because it's all the companies that are no longer with us. RIP Blackberry, Blockbuster, Polaroid, Toys R Us, etc. Shifting course is an essential part of running a successful business. The term “sunk cost” is often employed to encourage a company to quit a venture and stop focusing on how much time and money they have already invested because it doesn’t matter. If it no longer serves you, it has no future benefits, and there are better alternatives, then it's time to quit.
Quitting Allows You to Embrace Change
Lastly, it is important to remember that there are few decisions we make that are unchangeable. And that’s a good thing because it’s silly to think that our needs don’t change as we grow and evolve. We outgrow clothes and shoes, old boyfriends, our homes, etc. So who is to say we have to stay in one job or career our whole lives? For many of us, our needs in our early 20s are different from our needs in our 30s or 40s. As a result, it's reasonable to believe that we may need to switch jobs, evaluate our job options differently, or even switch careers entirely. But often in order to make space for something new, we have to be able to say goodbye to something else. Quitting is an important skill set that is needed to enable you to make these changes.
Going forward, instead of looking at the act of quitting as a negative quality, recognize it as a strength. Quitting enables you to adapt to your changing needs and the changing world around us. Know your truth, listen to your intuition, and always find something to “run towards” rather than just running away. We only have one life we get to live, so what do you need to quit to make the most of this life?
