How to quit like a winner.
And three reasons you don’t quit when you should.
Quitting gets a bad rap.
People who hang up their boots for their own good are called losers.
“Winners do not quit” Scream motivational posters.
Wrong!
Winners quit all the time.
They know when to charge ahead and when to backtrack.
And that’s how they win big!
(Remember when celebrated Olympic Gymnast Simone Biles made a splash recently by declining to participate in the Tokyo Olympics to prioritize her mental well-being? You go, girl! )
Be it your job, relationships, hobbies, goals — knowing when to quit can be challenging.
And quitting itself is difficult.
But why is quitting so hard? After all, giving up should technically be easy!
Why do we do what we do?
Answer: Like everything else we do, it is all in our heads.
- SUNK-COST FALLACY
Are you one of those people (like me) who watched the entire final season of Game of Thrones, all the while cursing the series makers for butchering an epic series and making a mockery of it? (Damn you! David Benioff and D. B. Weiss)
You hated it (I get you!) but, you still watched because you had invested years following the earlier seasons and had waited in agonizing anticipation for the finale.
You knew it was an utter waste of your time, and you still watched it.
This is the sunk cost fallacy.
Sunk cost is the irrecoverable resource (time, money, emotions, etc.) that you have already invested in something.
When shit hits the roof, it is wise to cut your losses. And find greener pastures.
But, We often do not act smart and give up.
Because we have invested so heavily in it, we cling to it with our dear lives.
If I quit watching GOT now, all those hours spent watching earlier seasons would go down the drain, you probably thought.
So instead of saving the precious hours that we are NEVER getting back, we waste more of it (and it wasn’t even fun!)
Why would a rational person behave this way?
It is because, inherently, we hate losing.
How would you feel if you got 100 bucks for free? (Happy? Elated? Woo hoo!)
Now, how would you feel if you lost 100 bucks?
It would definitely be way more painful than the joy 100 bucks bring.
And we would do anything to avoid feeling the pain of loss.
This is called Loss aversion.
2. THE BOILING FROG
If you drop a frog into boiling hot water, it will jump out of it and leap for its life.
But, if you dropped it into comfortably warm water and gradually cranked the heat up, it would not realize it was in danger.
It will not know when to jump out.
It might even enjoy the heat a bit (if it were a masochistic frog)
When it finally gets too hot, it would be too exhausting to make a move.
This is what happens when toxic relationships rot slowly -when your career gradually goes downhill.
It happens subtly and slowly that you do not realize you are getting cooked.
We regularly experience microaggressions in relationships, jobs, and other aspects of our lives. And, we put up with them- because
we don’t realize it’s toxic;
that’s what’s expected of us;
we don’t want to overreact;
we believe things will change, etc.
The longer we stay in hot water, the more difficult it is to not become frog soup.
3.COMMITTMENT BIAS
Say you have just quit your lousy job and have taken up a new one. Initially, the new job seemed terrific, and you couldn’t thank your stars enough for it.
As time passes, you realize that this job is just as shitty as the old one. DAMN!
Now, if you had raved about your new job to friends and family earlier, you would be reluctant to tell people that the new job sucks.
And you would think twice before quitting this one.
You might be afraid that people will think you are fickle and you just cannot make up your mind.
Nobody wants to come off as inconsistent or flaky. And often stick to things we had committed to earlier, just to keep up appearances.
This is commitment bias.
What could be worse than not quitting?
Yes, you guessed it — Doubling down on your wasted efforts.
Who in the right mind would do that? You might ask.
Turns out, we are all prone to becoming those idiots.
This is called Escalation of commitment.
Originally, In business terms, it referred to the continued and increased investment of resources in a project even when there is clear evidence that the project is failing.
It is not uncommon for us to behave this way in everyday scenarios — especially when we have publicly committed to doing something.
So, How can we become smart quitters?
Here is a piece of advice from long-term investing that applies to other walks of life.
Build a solid exit strategy:
“Always start at the end before you begin. Professional investors always have an exit strategy before they invest. Knowing your exit strategy is an important investment fundamental.”
–Robert Kiyosaki, ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’, 1997.
It might seem counterintuitive to think of quitting even before you begin something.
Why is this a good strategy? Isn’t it pessimistic?
No, it is being realistic.
It is best to come up with your list of absolute deal-breakers before you commit to something.
Because this is when you are not clouded by emotions. You make the best decisions when you have nothing to lose.
After a string of failed attempts at relationships and several wasted years, I came up with my list of deal-breakers.
The things I would not put up with at any cost.
I used it to weed out relationships that I knew were doomed to fail from my experience.
This saved me a lot of time, heartbreaks, and I am in a stable relationship for the first time in my 35 year existence.
This, of course, will need careful introspection, thinking, and tweaking as you go along.
You should understand what matters to you in life and your standards for yourself and others.
What do you expect out of things when you commit to something?
How do you want to be treated?
What does a successful relationship mean to you?
What does a fulfilling career look like to you?
Use your experience. Borrow brilliant ideas and from others. (You don’t want to be making all the mistakes yourself)
Once you answer all these questions, it should be pretty easy to define what shit you won’t tolerate.
If you are already on sinking ship, abandon it and discount the sunk cost.
“Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.” — Warren Buffet.
Beware the biases that can blind you from making the right decisions.
You are free to change your mind and do it without the burden of guilt, loss, and a sense of failure.
Do it knowing that:
Winners quit
Knowing when to quit defines winners.
Quit like a winner!
