How to Know When Giving Up May Be the Right Option for Us

There’s no shame if we walk away.

It’s hard for many of us to give up and walk away because it evokes images of weak-willed people with white flags shuffling off to ignominy. It screams that we don’t have the “right stuff.” We feel shame that we can’t find whatever we need to go the distance, that we’re losers. According to research by psychologists Carsten Wrosch and Gregory Miller, “The notion that persistence is essential for success is deeply embedded within American culture.”

This is not just an American phenomenon. Most cultures have heroic sagas that extol the bravery and courage of the lone hero facing seemingly unsurmountable obstacles to succeed in a worthy quest. The heroic spirit is practically part of our DNA, and we see it everywhere from ancient tales of bravery to modern action films. We are presented with a lofty ideal that can either motivate us to go beyond what we think we’re capable of or leave us filled with shame when we reach the breaking point and our quest fails.

We rarely consider that sometimes walking away is plain, old-fashioned common sense. There’s no shame in giving up when it’s the best course of action; in fact, walking away may be our bravest show of courage and the hardest step we will ever take.

“…After multiple, earnest attempts to reach a goal, it may be worth considering whether there’s a different, equally satisfying goal that we could be spending time on. This doesn’t mean lowering our standards. Quite the contrary: It means valuing one’s time and energy enough to invest it wisely.” David B. Feldman Ph.D. Psychology Today

The advice isn’t to abandon the goal itself, but to assess the method by which we are seeking to achieve it. Often stepping back and giving ourselves perspective can help us see a more effective approach or more resourceful plan of action. We also may discover that the goal itself needs to change.

What is Giving Up?

“Strategic quitting is a conscious decision you make based on the choices that are available to you. If you realize you’re at a dead end compared with what you could be investing in, quitting is not only a reasonable choice, it’s a smart one.” — Seth Godin

When it takes a long time to realize a goal, the struggle changes us, and this, in turn, affects how we view the goal. Have you ever achieved a hard-won goal and felt little satisfaction or pleasure in accomplishing it? Instead, did you feel a letdown because it didn’t measure up to what you expected after all that hard work?

I grew up in a family of high-powered executive women, so my goal was to follow their example. My best friend in college once told me, “Patricia, when all the other little girls were dreaming of having kids, you were dreaming of having an executive assistant.” She was right.

One morning, I looked out the window of my corner office just as the morning fog was lifting. The Golden Gate Bridge and green hills of Marin County in Northern California came into view. The years of hard work had paid off; I had reached my goal. In that moment, I had an epiphany. I hated it. I was miserably unhappy and had no idea why.

I spent a lot of time thinking about my situation and discovered that the executive role wasn’t and had never been my true goal. I had thought achieving it would give me everything I wanted; instead, it had trapped me in a stressful job that ate my life, relationships, and satisfaction. For what? I had put my ladder on the wrong wall. This realization led to one of the hardest decisions I have had to make.

I could hang on to the perks, benefits, prestige, and security of my position or leave. I talked to trusted friends and family, researched what it would take, and spent 3 years laying the groundwork for a freelance writing snd consulting business. After building up my freelance credentials and a stable of regular pubs, I walked out of that corner office and never looked back. It was one of the best decisions of my life.

“If you beat your head against the wall, it is your head that breaks and not the wall.”― Antonio Gramsci

There’s Power in Giving Up and Moving On

Several studies have shown that our ability to adjust our goals or even abandon them is associated with mental and physical health.

“Across the three studies, the findings demonstrate that the ability to disengage from unattainable goals is associated with better self-reported health and more normative patterns of diurnal cortisol secretion. Goal reengagement, by contrast, was unrelated to indicators of physical health but buffered some of the adverse effects of difficulty with goal disengagement.”

What if we shift our perspective and reframe the whole idea of “giving up”? We can view it not as being defeated, but as admitting that we are on the wrong track and need to either reset our destination or take an alternate route to achieve it.

It takes courage and maturity to admit that we’re on the wrong path, in the wrong place, or with the wrong person. Walking away is an act of self-care. It’s an assertion that meeting our needs, finding happiness, and upholding our core values are more important than the situation we are in. We’re putting ourselves first. This isn’t selfish; it’s survival. Staying too long when we should leave is running in the same place, hoping to get somewhere else. Instead, we’re digging a deeper and deeper rut. The time comes when we have to make the hard decision to give up, climb out, and walk away.

“There comes a time in your life when you have to choose to turn the page, write another book or simply close it.”― Shannon L. Alder

How to Walk Away

According to research by Gregory Miller, Ph.D., University of British Columbia, there’s value in quitting a goal and starting another. Instead of wasting time and effort on an objective we cannot attain, we can reinvest our resources in a goal with a higher probability of success.

Step 1: Identify your top 5 core values. See this list from James Clear.

Step 2: What parts of the original goal excited and motivated you? Dig deep to discover the real motivation behind the goal and decide if it’s still relevant.

Step 3: Set a new goal that honors your top values and includes the motivators you identified.

Step 4: Decide what you don’t want to have or do to achieve the new goal. Knowing what you don’t want is as important as knowing what you do want.

Step 5: Disengage from the original goal.

It’s hard to say goodbye to a goal in which we have invested effort, but the alternative is to keep struggling with few results and little satisfaction. We may feel grief and loss from moving on, especially if we’ve invested much in the struggle. This is natural, and it’s important that we give ourselves room to decompress and regroup. Sometimes, our identity needs to catch up with the change. When I first left my position and started my writing and consulting business, I felt lost. I was no longer what I had been. It took about 6 months for me to settle into my new identity as an entrepreneur.

Perseverance is extolled in our culture, and it is necessary for achieving unstoppable success and satisfaction in our work and lives. Knowing when to quit and move on is also necessary; otherwise, we fail to make progress and advance. It can be painful but well worth the rewards.

“Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life. What is it you would let go of today?” — Mary Manin Morrissey

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