Why it matters: As leaders, knowing what to quit, and who should be celebrated for quitting can change the tolerance for risk on your team for the better. As individuals, we can similarly celebrate the learning that comes from knowing when to stop.
Here’s a non-inclusive list of things I’ve quit throughout my life:
Gymnastics- I hated how the bar cut into my stomach
Oil Painting- Where did it even go? I liked that one
Boutique motel- I almost bought a motel… That’s a story for another day.
Sewing upcycled clothing- I used to be deeply into this. Like making my own patterns or thrifting things to be up cycled.
Piano lessons- I’m actually in the market for getting back into this one
Felt animal pen toppers- I was in phase, okay?
No less than 20 jobs- with my record being 1 day of work at a particular chain store (all jobs spanning retail, photography, a bakery, corporate, government, hospitality... and so many more)
Skiing- I didn’t even make it down half of the mountain. I picked up my skis, and walked back up the mountain to enjoy a hot chocolate with my non-skiing friends.
Welcome to the Motel that I almost bought.
Last week, I quit another thing- my paid newsletter subscription. It was still in its infancy, only one month old. But I pulled the plug and immediately knew it was right.
There was so much pressure on my writing, to be meaningful, to be interesting, to be “worth it.” And ultimately, it wasn’t helping me to the things that really mattered. The distraction of procrastinating on something that I felt like I must be doing was wasting 4 times the amount of time it would take to just do the thing.
So I quit.
I talked about my culling era last fall, and I thought I had finished. That I had done a good job and put myself on the right track. But now I’m back to it, quitting more things.
This time though, I have big thoughts- When does stopping become quitting? When has something been testing instead of doing? When do we consider something a phase, or a moment, instead of a “quit”.
But at what point is quitting the smart move? For example, many kids dream of being in the major leagues (for whatever sport), and at some point they quit playing the sport, having realized that they won’t become a famous athlete. Is that quitting? Or is that maturing out of an idea, and into something else?
Quitting comes with a bad rap, I think. Sometimes it’s really good to quit. You quit bad habits, you can quit allowing others to demean you, you can quit perspectives, behaviors, ideas, and patterns.
There’s also a fine line between “quitting” and “stopping,” and they both hold wildly different connotations. Some might say I just simply stopped oil painting. Maybe I got curious about something else, maybe it just ran it’s course. But how do you delineate quitting from stopping?
Similarly, we say “I quit my job.” Does this mean a) that you have another job lined up and therefore need to leave, b) couldn’t handle the unrealistic expectations put on you and therefore left for your own health and happiness, or c) you couldn’t handle the pressure and up and left in the middle of everything? It means any of these. It can also mean the job just ran its course. Your phase was complete. Your journey ended.
But that’s not the social definition that accompanies the word. Quitting, by social context, is usually negative. We see it as a failure.
Yet there can be so much joy in quitting. Here are other things I’ve had to learn to quit:
Striving for other people’s expectations
Making goals that made me feel bad about myself
Expecting myself to be perfect
Building a life that was the norm, simply for the sake of making others comfortable
This is where I started to think about quitting as so similar to failure.
Carol Dweck talks about intelligent failure vs wasted failure, and I think we should start considering intelligent vs wasted quitting as well.
Wasteful failure is when you do not achieve your goal, and that failure could have been prevented by allowing someone else previously learned experience (whether found through research or conversation) keep you from the repeated action. Intelligent failure is when you have not succeeded in achieving your goal, yet you learn something valuable in the process.
I think if I were to define these terms myself, I would say that wasted quitting is one where you do not allow yourself the time to honestly asses if this is something that brings a new, useful, or joy-filled experience into your life. Intelligent quitting is having expelled enough energy and self reflection to determine that an activity isn’t aligned with your values or needs.
This makes me very happy to be a quitter under these circumstances, because I can confidently say that I’m mostly an intelligent quitter.
One thing is for sure though, as January wrapped up with the first month of the Novelty Experiment, I am as happy as ever to have been exploring this part of life. I can confidently say that while the paid subscription has been added as one more thing on my intelligent quitting list, this experiment is one that will see a lived, and learned end.
Did you have a novel experience in January that you want to tell me about? I would love to hear about it!! Email me back and tell me what you did, and what you thought.
Talk soon,
Rachel
Leadership trainer, novelty junkie, and human being
Dig a little deeper: Take a moment to consider: What did you learn from the things you walked away from? Which "quits" still carry shame, and which ones do you now see as intelligent choices?
What’s next: February’s Novelty Experiment theme is out! Check out what you can do in the next 30-days to bring novelty into your life.
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I'm doing 100 novel experiences this year to learn what it means to be human-centric at work and at home.
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Thanks for joining me on my search for novelty and one human-centric leaders's journey towards a more balanced life.
