How Being a Quitter Can Make You a Winner
One of my NYU students was facing a dilemma: A few chapters into a highly recommended, award-winning, bestselling business book, she realized that she found it to be an uninteresting waste of her limited and valuable time. Meanwhile, she had a pile of other much more engaging and tempting titles sitting right there on her nightstand calling her name. She was excited about diving into one of them, only to find that when she put the boring book aside to embark on a new reading adventure, she suddenly and inexplicably found herself feeling extremely guilty.
Why?
As she put it, “The culture where I come from is really uptight about winning. People who quit are looked upon as ‘failures.’ And, so, quitting this book translated into a failure on my part. And this feeling of guilt comes on whenever I don’t finish something.”
“Always finish what you start.”
“Don’t be a quitter.”
“No pain, no gain.”
“Never, ever give up.”
“Winners never quit, and quitters never win.”
“Quitters are losers.”
How many of these aphorisms sound familiar from parents, teachers, coaches, motivational speakers, and/or other authority figures, drilling these mantras into our heads? Or maybe you’ve come across some of these quotes:
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” —Thomas Edison
“I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’” —Muhammad Ali
“If you quit once it becomes a habit. Never quit!” —Michael Jordan
No wonder we feel guilty when we decide not to continue with something!
But when is it OK to quit? How do we know when it’s better to cut our losses and move on? What about “sunk costs” that cause us to dig ourselves into an even deeper hole? How do we decide when to drop something…and when to persevere? How do we determine whether to give something (or someone) a second or third or tenth chance vs. when to say, “That’s it…enough is enough”?
And, is there a difference between “quitting” and “being a quitter”?
Confession: I Am a Quitter
I’ve quit jobs that weren’t working out, and I’ve ended relationships that were dysfunctional. I’ve left many books unfinished, and I’ve walked out of many a bad play or movie. I quit piano lessons when I realized that I wasn’t really very good. And I (with much hesitation and withdrawal) quit eating foods loaded with sugar and carbs, and replaced them with nuts, fruits, and vegetables. And I quit reading the New York Times while laying on my couch, and instead now read it every day while walking for thirty minutes on the treadmill.
So you can see where I’m going with this: When it comes to “quitting,” it’s all about context. In short, how you define it will determine how you feel about it. Simply replacing the word “quit” with the word “stop” can completely reframe quitting in a positive way. And, from a leadership perspective, Peter Drucker once said, “We spend a lot of time teaching our leaders what to do. We don’t spend enough time teaching them what to stop.”
In his classic leadership book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, legendary management guru Marshall Goldsmith explores the “20 Workplace Habits You Need to Break.” In other words: there are unproductive and counterproductive behaviors that successful people need to stop (that is, “quit”) doing in order to enable them to become even more successful. Many times, people are not necessarily successful because of how they are, but in spite of how they are. And so to get from “here” to “there” they may need to “quit” doing the behaviors that are, actually, working against them. For example, as Goldsmith mentions, it’s great to be smart, but if you’re always trying to prove that you’re the smartest person in the room, there’s a good chance that this approach could backfire on you one of these days.
So, while it is admirable to keep on keepin’ on, there is no shame in movin’ on if what you’re doing just isn’t working for you anymore. If you are disengaged, if you are unhappy, if you are frustrated, if you have given it your all and see little or no possibility of sunnier skies, then, perhaps, the best choice might just be to make a change.
As you get older (and, hopefully, wiser), you come to realize that life is short: too short to waste on books, or movies, or TV series, or projects, or jobs, or relationships that you no longer find valuable. The key, and the challenge, is that—although you can seek out others’ input, advice, and opinions—when it comes to your life, you are the only one who can make the determination on whether to pass or to play.
It often helps to think about the fact that ending something negative—though leaving a void—creates the time and space for the start of something new. It’s hard to start something new while our cup is full or when we’re tenuously hanging onto the past.
To be clear…I’m not talking about quitting on a person who is relying on you, walking out on someone, leaving a project halfway done, or storming out of the office in a huff. I’m talking about those situations in which you reach a point wherein, after much thoughtful consideration of the respective pros and cons, you’ve made the well-thought-out decision that it’s time to move on.
Why Didn’t You Just Quit?
As mentioned throughout this book, I’ve worked for numerous awful bosses over the course of my long career. When people hear the unfathomable stories about them—after cringing and laughing in both disbelief and horror—they typically ask, “Why didn’t you just quit?” This question can best be answered by this old vaudeville joke:
This guy works at the circus and his only job is to clean up after the elephants. All day long, day after day, his job is, literally, nothing but shoveling shit. And then, after work every night, he would meet up with his friends at the bar and bend their ears for hours complaining about it. Finally, fed up with the endless complaints and unable to hear about it anymore, one of the friends exclaims, “If you hate it so much, then why don’t you just quit???” To which he replies, “What…and leave show business!?”
Playing Quit and Seek: A Few Questions to Consider
• When should you quit your job…and seek a new opportunity?
• When should you quit that bad relationship…and seek a better one?
• When should you quit a bad habit…and replace it with something healthier and more productive?
• When should you quit complaining about problems…and start coming up with solutions?
• When should you quit venting…and start in-venting?
• How do you know if you should quit while you’re ahead?
• How should you quit (if or when the time comes, what’s the right way or the best way to do it)?
• Why are you quitting (is it the right decision, and are you quitting for the right reasons)?
• Who can you rely on and trust for counsel, advice, and support?
• Have you weighed the pros and cons of quitting vs. persevering?
• Have you explored all your alternatives?
• Are you giving up too soon?
• Or have you already stayed too long?
• Have you given it your best shot?
• Is it, simply, that time?
The best distinction I’ve heard between “quitting” and “being a quitter”
Quitting is never easy. It is often an emotionally wrenching and potentially confusing decision, and there are unlimited ways to approach it. And though making the decision to quit something is a tough one, the decision to not make a decision can be equally tough. In fact, as the saying goes, not making a decision is a decision. I’ve found that being stuck in limbo is one of the worst feelings there is. As the psychologist William James wrote, “There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision.”
Perhaps this inspirational quote by author Osayi Emokpae Lasisi will serve to reframe what “quitting” is all about, and help you to decide what road to take, or what move—if any—to make:
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. Quitting is not making excuses, it’s learning to be more productive, efficient, and effective instead. Quitting is letting go of things (or people) that are sucking the life out of you, so you can do more things that will bring you strength.
To sum it all up: perhaps by ridding ourselves of the mind-set that “quitting is for losers,” we will realize that, sometimes, quitting is exactly what you need to do in order to win.
In Review
The Big Lesson: Simply reframing what it means to “quit,” and looking at quitting in a different and more positive light, will free you up and empower you to explore new possibilities.
The Big Question: What is something in your life that, if you made the decision to “quit,” could potentially lead to bigger and better things?
Your Insight:
Your Action: