One of my acquaintances invested a decent amount of money in a start up that, after a while, turned unprofitable. He could not make peace with losing the money already invested, so he invested more, hoping for a turnaround.
A friend joined a university course to enhance her leadership skills. She did not like the teaching method and slowly the course became unbearable. She ended up hating it, but she continued to follow it. Not because she paid a lot of money on the course, but because she was too embarrassed to quit.
What would you have done?
Anything can go wrong. Your decisions can be good or bad, but you never know in advance so you need to review their outcome from time to time and decide if you want to continue, if you need to adjust or if you simply need to stop.
One essential skill for success is to know when to quit. Your resources are limited, so you constantly have to decide where to invest your time, your energy and your attention. If you don’t do this exercise, then you will end up asking yourself where the time has gone, why are results not showing up and worse, you will start blaming others for your failures. It takes practice to detach yourself and look at what you do objectively, but it is essential if you want to get the results you’re expecting.
Make time for reflection and review everything regularly. Ask yourself often: “Is it working?” Because if it isn’t, there is a second question that will definitely help you decide what to do next: “Do I still enjoy it?”. If it is not working but you still enjoy it, then consider other ways to make it work. Think of creative ways to reinvent what you are doing, adjust and give it another chance. But if it is not working and you no longer enjoy it, then you need to seriously consider quitting.
Word of caution here: you cannot quit everything just because you’ve responded with “no” to the questions above. You need an exit plan for what you decide to quit, especially if that is something essential to your survival. For example, you cannot simply quit your only source of income without having a backup plan, whatever the backup plan you are comfortable with is.
By quitting, you make time and space in your life for something new, something better, something different.
Do yourself a favor: assess everything that you do and quit when it's not working and you're no longer enjoying it. Free yourself up for something even greater!
