The Surprising Wisdom of Quitting

Quitting isn’t for losers.

“Quitting is not giving up, it’s choosing to focus your attention on something more important. Quitting is not losing confidence, it’s realizing that there are more valuable ways you can spend your time.” -Osayi Osar-Emokpae

How many times have you heard “Quitting is for losers. Winners never quit.”? Or maybe you’ve heard Michael Jordan’s famous quote, “If you quit once, it becomes a habit. Never quit!!!”?

I’m here to tell you that not only do winners quit all the time — except they call it ‘pivot’ — quitting is actually smart and strategic.

After all, quitting is just another word for letting go — letting go of the old, of what doesn’t work or serve you anymore, of people who drain or even hurt you.

Quitting isn’t giving up

Let’s face it, we quit every single day without realising it. We just don’t call it quitting — Quitting a dumb idea. Quitting a thankless task. Quitting a bad habit. Quitting a toxic relationship. Quitting a dead-end job.

Get the picture?

However, when it comes to a goal or dream, then all of a sudden quitting becomes a dirty word.

Why? What’s wrong with stopping and leaving things half-finished when we realise that our goal isn’t realistic or truly desirable, or is actually somebody else’s dream?

Why all the harsh moral judgment about a person who doesn’t finish what he or she started? They are invariably given such labels as selfish, lazy, irresponsible, flaky, unreliable or untrustworthy.

I think there are two answers to this question. One is benign and the other is a little more cynical.

Why we don’t quit

First, many of us are optimists by nature. We tend to see the best in things and put a positive spin on situations. It follows that if at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.

It’s an admirable trait and it helps us survive the curveballs that life inevitably throws our way. And we’ve had plenty of them so far this year.

However, it’s actually unproductive and unhealthy to hang in there at all costs, and to persist no matter what. At some point, you need to stop and ask yourself, “Is it all worth it?”

Unfortunately, we are often dissuaded from doing so from all the moral judgment that we have internalised over time. This is where the second factor comes in: social and cultural conditioning.

Our society conditions us to be achievement-oriented and result-driven. We are encouraged from childhood to achieve, to strive, to push, and we are rewarded based on our results.

Hence, we want to see results and we believe that only results matter. Indeed, sometimes we are so fixated on our outcomes that we don’t even care how we achieve them. As they say, the means justify the ends.

In a culture that celebrates grit, determination, persistence and other similar virtues, it’s no wonder that we rarely stop to think about why it’s such a great thing to finish something.

It’s also no wonder that people who bulk at those virtues are judged harshly for their moral ‘failings’.

A joyless journey

Indeed, why can’t we just start tasks, projects or manuscripts without finishing them? After all, we are creative beings by nature and we are always generating new ideas. It follows that we can — and should — explore some of those ideas just for the fun of it.

And who’s to say that we can’t derive so much joy from the process of doing, planning and creating that the outcome doesn’t matter at the end of day?

Perhaps this is why we end up being so joyless.

Instead of being like a kid and having lots of ideas for no other reason than to be playful and creative, we worry about whether these ideas are ‘smart’ or ‘practical’ and we try to make something concrete out of them.

And instead of enjoying where we are and what we are doing, we keep looking forward to see how far we’ve got to go until we achieve our outcome, all the while feeling incomplete and dissatisfied.

The wisdom of quitting

“The ability to quit fully is a valuable a tool to living well as is persistence.” -Alan B Bernstein

For most of my life, I believed that only losers quit. Since I wasn’t a loser, I tried my best to finish what I started. And when I didn’t, I beat myself up like I was my own worst enemy.

I was also afraid of being judged by ‘everyone’ as lazy or irresponsible. So I sacrificed my happiness and stayed in soul-sucking commitments, dead-end jobs and toxic relationships for far too long, until I got so sick and tired of being miserable that I decided to become a ‘quitter’.

Since then, I found out that most people are quitters, even the most successful among us!

However, there’s a difference between ‘good’ quitting and ‘bad’ quitting.

When quitting is done right, it can be an act of courage, of making smart choices that are aligned with your authentic self and your core values, rather than out of a sense of obligation or misguided loyalty.

It will also open you up to brand new possibilities that you wouldn’t otherwise have had you persisted and not ‘given up’.

Indeed, according to research, the most satisfied people know both how to persist and how to quit.They are flexible and adaptive to change. They know when to let go and move on, and they can do so decisively and without regrets.

Don’t take things to the bitter end

“Sometimes it’s not the times you decide to fight, but the times you decide to surrender — those are the decisions that can make all the difference. Those are the ones that can shape your story in history.” -Courtney Praski

As you can see, quitting isn’t giving up. It’s letting go of things or people that no longer serve us, instead of persisting with them to the detriment of our own happiness and, yes, sanity.

And the good news is everybody quits! Don’t let anyone tells you otherwise. Even the most successful among us quit all the time to realign with reality and make room for new possibilities.

However, our society has conditioned you to believe that results— rather than process — is what really matters. You are told to persist at all costs to finish what you started.

You need to fight against this conditioning so you don’t risk become joyless as you get stuck in dead-end commitments, jobs or relationships.

By learning how to persist and how to quit, you too can make smart choices instead of being a slave to limiting beliefs and social conditioning.

Get your copy of the Quick Guide to Silencing Your Inner Critic

— including what to say when it shows up! Get the guide and discover how to stop being your worst enemy when you sign up for weekly tips here.

Annie is an ICF-certified life coach and the author of Brave Again.