Strategic Quitting: Knowing When to Quit and When to Stick
How to Win Your Inner Demotivations For Success
I feel like giving up. Almost every day. But how do I know quitting is the right thing to do and it’s not my emotions playing games on me?
Chances are you have this question too sometimes—perhaps in your career, relationship, investment, or business. You want to know whether you should stick or you should quit. You don’t want to be the proverbial fool who stepped away two feet from gold.
It was Vincent Lombardi who said: “Winners never quit. And quitters never win.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. Winners quit all the time. They just quit the wrong stuff.
This allows them to refocus their limited resources so they can zoom in on the right things that bring massive rewards in the end.
Steve Jobs had to drop out of some irrelevant college classes and enrol in calligraphy. Organizations have multiple ideas and projects to work on but always choose to do something at the expense of something else. The million-dollar question is knowing what to quit and what to stick with.
Quitting boils down to a basic rule of economics: Resources are limited and scarce. Your time on earth, for example, is finite, and by focusing on something, you are invariably leaving something else. Thus the way economists view cost; thus opportunity cost — what you leave to pursue what you have.
I digress.
But back to this: When do you quit and when do you stick? Why should you stick at all?
Why You Should Dare to Stick
In every field of human endeavour, there is a valley of death that sifts out the weak to reward those who stick. Everyone gets the initial dopamine of wanting to do something new, but when the road tests them (and it always does), most drop that to jump on the next big thing. If you are part of those who make it to the other side, you earn a brand: the best at this.
Sticking is how you win.
In simple terms, sticking at a thing makes you part of the few who graduate to be the best in that thing.
Why Being the Best Matters
While we are on the subject, here’s why you should aim to be the best.
Take a moment to reflect on some of the brands/people you would categorize as being the best — Apple for phones, Microsoft for office-related tasks, etc. These brands own a disproportionate control of the market and enjoy crazy rewards. The chart below gives an idea:
From this, we can deduce:
1. The rewards for being the best are disproportionately high
2. Faced with an infinite number of options today, people panic and simply opt for the best based on existing mass approval
3. It’s hard to catch up with the best as they innovate and win. Being the best creates a “valley of death” — a dip so long competition can’t catch up.
4. Being the best makes you a market of one…free from red-blood competitions. The Dip — time and pain taken to get down to work to become the best — creates scarcity, and scarcity creates value.
People settle and so do organizations. They settle for less than they are capable of instead of being the best in the world. Don’t join that crowd.
Being the Best is Not as Daunting As You Think
Chances are you have some subtle desire to be the best now. But at the same time, you see an uphill battle that scares you.
I say, pause for a moment!
Being the best today is not as daunting as it seems.
There is a shift in the way people and organizations wish to be served today, an increasing number of smaller markets where you can shine.
People want personalized services, products, and experiences. You only need to pause, reflect, see an area where you can shine, and go all in.
Being the best is shining in a niched segment that your name pops up when we think of people in that area. Find your story, and by all means, live that story.
If you haven’t, keep redefining what you do until this is true.
Finally, Knowing When to Quit
This is the part you've been waiting for, just that the earlier parts were necessary. It is a paradox: for you to quit, you must first know how to win.
Real success goes to those who OBSESS. Superstars command their fair share of income, respect and opportunity because there is a steep dip they overcame to be the best. Something few people can do.
But sometimes you quit and rightly so. How best should you approach this?
- Quit before you start
Decide right now under what circumstance you will quit a journey you want to embark on. Define your terms as clearly as possible. Write it down! Examine the dip (the challenges in it) and the potential benefit. If you see there’s no chance of being the best in your intended pursuits, then there is no point pursuing it. Don’t start at all or waste your time trying to win a lost cause!
2. Ask these three questions before you quit
i. Am I panicking?
Panic can be an indication that quitting right now is dangerous and expensive. Say you working a job without other options and you always feel the urge to quit, chances are you will panic. This is most likely your emotions playing games on you. When the pressure is the greatest, the urge to quit should be at its lowest. Wait until the panic clears before you decide.
ii. Who Am I trying to Influence?
Too often, people quit because they fail to influence something — an individual, an organization, or the mass market in general. It is important to know who you’re trying to influence, how well you’re doing, and if you really have a chance at winning them.
Influencing an individual or an organization differs greatly from influencing a market of people. Changing someone’s mind is often difficult if not impossible.
But changing a market’s mind is different. Most of the people in your market have probably not heard of you. The market doesn’t have one mind and different people want different things.
Influencing one person is like scaling a wall where the wall gets higher with each failed attempt. But influencing a market is like a hill where each progressive step brings you closer and the climb gets easier.
Google lunged on based on the belief that people will eventually try it and tomorrow will be better. They saw the delay in market acceptance as a chance to improve and impress people before they tried their platform.
So ask yourself: who am I trying to influence and how am I doing?
iii. What sort of measurable progress am I making?
You’ve got to make some progress no matter how small else you should have no reason to persist.
And when you quit, know that the opposite of quitting isn’t waiting around, it is rededication — a new strategy to break the problem apart.
Quitting is a short-term thing. Amplify the long-term benefits of not quitting to get the motivation you need and remind yourself what life looks like on the other side. Then go at it again.
Success comes from weathering a dip and being one of the scarce few who make it to the other side. But when you quit, quit strategically!
Most people are waiting for the tested, the authenticated, the proven. Only a tiny fraction of the market is looking for the brand-new thing. The market wants to see you persist. It demands a signal from you that you are serious, powerful, accepted, and safe. — Seth Godin
Credit: This writing is fully based on Seth Godin’s The Dip: A little book that teaches you when to quit and when to stick.
