April 10, 2023

Quitting: How to know when to hold and when to fold

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In this weeks episode, Clinical Psychologist, Cass Dunn breaks down everything 'quitting'. And answers the question: how do we know when to hold, or fold?We hear, and are often sold, the idea that the only thing stopping us from success is that we give up too easily or early. But what if that isn't the case? What if some things just are never going to work and we are wasting our time hanging on - like the 90s poster of the cat clinging to dear life from the edge of the cliff.
Cass shares the 'sunk cost fallacy' and gives us a very practical criteria to help us reassess our goals and dreams, so we know when and why we should quit.
You can check out the book Cass references, 'Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away' by Annie Duke, here.
Connect with Cass:www.crappytohappypod.comhello@crappytohappypod.com
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Join the free 7-day Happiness Challenge:www.cassdunn.com/happiness

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Transcript

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A listener production. Hello, and welcome to another episode of

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Crappy to Happy. This week, I want to talk to

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you about when you need to quit. I alluded to

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this in the last solo episode that I did around

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the topic of procrastination and how sometimes maybe the reason

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that we're not making progress on something is because we're

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just not that interested in it anymore, and because we

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see quitting as such a negative thing, we continue to

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push and persevere even when something is no longer of

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interest to us or has any real value. So I

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thought I would dive deeper into that topic today. It's

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something that I've been really thinking about a lot lately,

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particularly I think in the space that I'm in in

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online business, I've seen a lot of people rise to

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great levels of success. They're making a lot of money,

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they're sort of the leaders in the field in the industry,

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and then I'm seeing many of them just all the

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plug and walk away from these outwardly, you know, very

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successful profitable businesses because their heart just is not in

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it anymore. What I'm also seeing is the feedback coming

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through that people are really appreciative of them being open

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about that and almost giving permission for other people to

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also walk away from something. So let's talk about this

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issue of quitting. A few years ago, obviously, I work

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as a life coach. I also I am a clinical psychologist,

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but I was a coaching psychologist first, and a few

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years ago I was working with a client and it

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became really clear that the goal that she was working

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towards was just not relevant to her anymore. And you know,

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the background story was that she had started to pursue

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a university degree and establish a new career because she

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had walked away from a family business and that was

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a decision that they had made in their family, with

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her and her partner. And then circumstances changed and they

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found themselves going back to the family business, which meant

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that this degree was she was pursuing was not necessary anymore.

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It was going to be really challenging for her to

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continue with that. She had a whole lot of other

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things that she was juggling, but she really resisted this

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idea of walking away without finishing it. And I think

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we can all relate to that, especially when you've worked

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hard to appoint To walk away without finishing what you

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start just doesn't feel good. It doesn't feel like it's

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a sensible thing to do, and there's a lot of

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reasons for that. And so it was the first time

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I really found myself coaching someone around letting go of

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a goal and helping her to be okay with the

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decision to actually drop that and put her attention and

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her energy and her resources in to something else that

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was going to be more relevant and more worthwhile. And

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then again recently, I've been working with a client and

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again we're working together towards a goal that she has set,

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an important goal, and something happened and the parameters changed,

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the goalposts changed, and I said to her, well, at

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this point, let's reassess, let's reevaluate, is this still something

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that is worth pursuing to you? Is this still something

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that's meaningful? Is it still what you want? Given these

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changed parameters, I guess different requirements, different time frame, different

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level of input and required. She was able to conclude that, yes,

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it is something that she wants to continue to pursue.

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But it was a really important conversation to have because

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mostly what we're told is well, you just you get

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up and you keep going, you persist, you see things

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through to the end. Winners never quit as never win,

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never ever ever give up. These are the slogans that

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we see all the time. Our world just worships these

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qualities that we associate with persistence and with seeing things through.

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It's heroic and it's courageous, and tenacity and perseverance and commitment.

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These are the things that we love to see and

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the stories that we love to hear. Whereas walking away

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from something we associate with failing or being flaky or

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weak willed, no persistence, no commitment, And nobody wants to

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be associated with words like that. Nobody wants to feel

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like that, and nobody wants to think other people are

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going to perceive them as a quitter. Sometimes, though, the

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best thing that you can do is to walk away

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from a goal. So let's talk about why we struggle

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Apart from the obvious which I just mentioned. Let's talk

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about why we struggle so much to walk away from

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a goal, Apart from that perceived negative connotation that quitting

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has within ourselves. And also, as I said, what we

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think other people think of us is this cognitive bias

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called the sunk cost effect. It's a sunk cost bias,

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and what that means is that the more you have

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put in. The more you've sunk resources into a project

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or a goal, the more you have invested your time,

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your energy, your money, even your identity. You know, like

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when you are pursuing something and people know that that's

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what you're pursuing, that that's what you want to do,

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then we are reluctant to walk away because we will

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have lost It's like it's a waste of all of

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that energy and time we've put into something. To walk away,

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you would be walking away and basically cutting your losses,

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and we don't want to lose, so we continue to

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put more resources into something, sometimes long after it is sensible,

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sometimes when we really would be better to cut our

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losses and walk away. So the sunk cost bias is

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that we basically continue to invest in something because we're

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afraid to lose what we have already put into it.

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We consider that to have been a waste. We don't

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like how that feels. Another thing is that we as

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humans don't love uncertainty. When you are at a decision

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point and you're deciding whether to continue with a goal

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or to walk away from it, you don't actually know

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how it's going to turn out. You don't actually know

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if this thing's going to be a winner, if you're

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going to succeed. And this could be a business, it

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could be a UNI course, it could be training for

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a marathon, it could be any number of things. But

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you don't know how it's going to turn out until

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you get to the end. And if you stop, if

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you decide I'm not going to pursue this anymore, I'm

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going to cut my losses and water away, then you're

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always left with the what if, Like what if I

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had stuck it out, What if I had seen it through?

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What if things would have turned around and maybe I

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would have finally had that windfall. Maybe I would have

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finally got this business off the ground. Maybe I would

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have finally started turning a profit. Maybe I would have

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finally got that promotion in that industry where I've been

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kind of stagnating. Something might happen and change and turn

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things around so that there would be a positive outcome.

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And if you walk away, you will never know if

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that might have happened. Because we humans don't like uncertainty,

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then we are much more likely to stick and to

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see something through, because it is only by seeing it

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through to the end that we actually know if things

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would have turned around. And sometimes that again, it's just

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I was going to say good money after about it,

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but it's not even money, it's time, energy, resources. It's

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like we continue to invest in something that is never

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going to give us what we think it's going to

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because we are so averse to loss. Walking away is

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sure loss. We are surely going to lose everything that

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we have invested to this point. We tend to be

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much more emotionally impacted by the fear of loss than

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the prospect of gain. This is why, actually the only

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time that we quitting is seen as a good thing

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and that people do tend to be happy quitting is

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when they literally quit while they're ahead. And interestingly enough,

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oftentimes our loss aversion, our fear of loss, will actually

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cause us to quit sooner than we should have. When

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we are ahead. If we continued on a winning path,

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we may continue to make gains, but we tend to

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walk away because we are afraid that if we keep

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on going then at some point our luck will turn,

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and so we take our win and we walk away.

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When we're losing, we tend to keep on going because

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we keep on hoping that we will turn this thing

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around and sometimes again to our own detriment, when we

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really would be better to pull the pin, to make

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a decision, to cut our losses and to walk away

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and put our energy into something else. Now, our identities

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are very much entwined in what we do in our goals,

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and not just like in our job or our career

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or our you know, the business, but our beliefs and

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our value systems. Let's say you're vegan. I used to

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be vegan. Let's say you're vegan, and everybody knows that

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about you. Look, there's a whole lot of your identity

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tied up with that. There's a whole lot of values

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and beliefs tied up with that decision. And if you

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change that, if you walk away from that kind of lifestyle,

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then again it's almost like we don't like to walk

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away from a part of what we see as a

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part of our identity. That's very much the case for

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career as well, whether you are into sports, you're in

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a band. I don't know. I'm trying to think of

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examples where you do something and it sort of becomes

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a part of who you are, it's what you're known for,

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and to walk away from that can feel really frightening,

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can feel really scary, And again there's this whole lot

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of wrapped up in this is a whole lot of

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like what will people think? I think we need to

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be really honest about that part. I think so much

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of our aversion, our avoidance, and our sticktuitiveness, like sticking

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with something even after maybe deep down we know that

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there's a better way is because we are so worried

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about what other people think. So we'll talk about that

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in a minute, and then we just were we prefer

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our status quo. In my book Crapy to Happy, Love

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what You Do my blue book, which is about how

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to find more satisfaction in your work, I talked about

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everything being a decision. Even if you're in a job

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that you don't find satisfying, if you were choosing to

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stay in that job, then that in itself is a choice.

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You might tell yourself you don't have a choice, but

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actually what you're doing is you're choosing the status quo.

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And many times when we say we can't we don't

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know yet. I can't decide yet what I want to do.

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I can't decide if I want to stick with this

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or I want to leave and do something different. What

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we're actually doing is we're choosing the status quo, and

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there's a whole lot of better the devil, you know,

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kind of wrapped up in that too, Like even if

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this is bad, even if this is not that comfortable,

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even if this is not that satisfying, even this is

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not that important to me anymore. It doesn't give me

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the satisfaction or the joy, or the financial reward or

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the challenge or the stimulation or whatever it is that

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I thought it did or that it used to. Again,

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it's our intolerance of uncertainty, our discomfort with ambiguity, with

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the not knowing. It's that whole better the devil, you

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know thing that causes to stick with things even if

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they're not that comfortable, rather than walk away and take

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a risk in the pursuit of something different when we

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don't know what that outcome is going to be. So,

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if you are pursuing something, if you're pursuing a goal,

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if you're pursuing a career, if you've spent years at

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university studying, if you've been trying to get your own

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business off the ground, and maybe you have, and maybe

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it's even a successful business, but maybe it doesn't give

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you what you thought it was going to. I can

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really relate to this. I've been self employed for longer

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than I was ever actually employed. I'm in a lot

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of business circles with other self employed people, and I

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see a lot of people who are just pushing and

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pushing and pushing year in, year out, trying to make

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this thing a success. I had a great conversation on

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this podcast with Victoria Devine from She's on the Money,

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where we talked about this like worshiping entrepreneurship and how

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everybody wants the laptop lifestyle, and everybody wants the freedom,

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and everybody wants the flexibility, and so you see all

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of these people going out on their own and launching

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their own thing, which I get, obviously I'm right there.

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But sometimes actually there's a lot to be said for

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having a job. There's a lot to be said for

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having stable income, somebody paying into your superannuation, paid holiday leave,

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paid sick leave, long service leave, all of those benefits,

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not to mention things like the social connection and the

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structure and all of the things the opportunities and the

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challenges that can come from working in an organization, depending

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on where you work. But if you are starting your

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own business, or if you are in your own business

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and you make the decision to go back to a job,

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it can feel like quitting, Like you can feel like

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you've failed if you make the decision to pack it

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all up and go back to the nine to five,

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especially in this world which tells you that you know

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it's all about you can make a million dollars, and

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you can live where you want and do what you want,

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and you know it's all smoke and mirrors most of it.

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To be perfectly honest with you, which is why I

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think in my world where all of these people are

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publicly walking away from their business, even when they are

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financially successful, I think a lot of these people who

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have been slogging away for years trying to make a

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success of something, feel so relieved that they feel like

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they've almost been given permission, like I said, to be

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able to do the same, to make the decision to

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go back to something that's more stable. So how do

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you know when to quit and whether you should quit

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or whether you should stick to a goal. I've been

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reading a book called Quit, The Power of Knowing When

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to walk Away. So if this is a topic that's

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of interested, then I would recommend that you go and

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grab it because I haven't finished reading it, but it's

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a really interesting read. And there's a few little tips

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in that book that I thought that I would share

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with you. And one is, when you set out on

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a particular path or project, or you start to pursue

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a goal, can you build in kill criteria at the

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outset instead of this is what I'm going to do,

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this is what I'm going to achieve, and I'm just

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going to slog away until I get there, and that

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is success and anything else is failure. I'm going to

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do this thing unless, so building in an unless unless what? Unless?

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What changes? Unless what would need to happen to make

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you rethink this goal or this project. And one of

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the suggestions is that for your kill criteria is to

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use states and dates. So if you are, for example,

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launching your own business, let's use that example, since I've

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used that a couple of times. Let's say you're in

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your own business and you are focused on a particular revenue,

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a certain level of profit that you want to generate

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from this business. When you look around at what other

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people are doing in this space, whether it is your

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own business or whether it's in your particular career. How

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long does it normally take for somebody to get to

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certain milestones. You can use this for even things like

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examples that she gives in the book of things like

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professional athletes, like for the most successful in the field,

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how fast were they running when they were fifteen, eighteen,

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twenty two. You know, if you are in you want

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to be a concert pianist, like how successful were people

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at certain points in their career? If you are in

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academia and you want to get a professor'ship, like on average,

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how long does it take for people to get certain

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milestones in their career and build those in? So this

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is what I want. But if I haven't achieved this state,

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if I haven't achieved this milestone by this date, well

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then I will quit that state day that. If I

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haven't done X by why will be different depending on

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what your goal is. But having at the outset some

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expectation of what where you should be by certain milestones

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and being very comfortable to walk away at that point

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if you haven't achieved that, or at least being willing

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to review where you're at and what changes you might

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need to make in order to make it worthwhile to

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continue pursuing. I think that is so important, the kill criteria.

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I think the other thing is just being willing to

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continually ask yourself, is this still important to me? Are

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the reasons that I started this thing still valid? Does

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this still give me joy, meaning fulfillment, satisfaction, whatever the

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reasons were, whatever the analysis was, when you chose to

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pursue this particular project or goal pursuit, then is it

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still relevant? Is that still true? Because if it's not,

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then just sticking to it for the sake of sticking

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to it is honestly potentially just a waste of your

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time and energy and resources. I was just thinking, how

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many times have we been forced out, forced to quit something,

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and then this world of opportunities opens up and we

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hear so many stories about you know, let's say your

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partner leaves you, not your choice, maybe somebody left you.

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But what the outcome of that was when you were

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forced out of that relationship was that something new appeared,

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something much more fulfilling, When actually you could have probably

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made the decision to leave that relationship yourself years before,

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but you were sticking with it. But then when the

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decision was forced on you, the world opens up, same

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as if you get redundant at your job. If you

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are forced out of something illness, injury, something changes in

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your life and you are forced to abandon your project

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or the thing that you thought was important to you,

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that you were pursuing, but then something else appears. You

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would never know what that something else was. You would

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never have given yourself the opportunity to see what else

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was out there that might be better and more fulfilling

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and more meaningful had you not been forced to quit.

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But why so often do we wait to be forced out?

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We're so reluctant to make that decision ourselves for all

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of the reasons that I've just explained. The other thing

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is to remember that goals are not necessarily pass or fail.

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I think that keeps us really trapped. We either succeed,

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we win, we achieve, we do the thing, or we quit,

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we walk away, and that is failure, that is everything

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was wasted if you choose to walk away. I think

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it's really important to start rethinking what goals are about,

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because there are so many lessons to be learned along

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the way. If you get halfway to doing something and

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then you decide that this is not the thing and

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that you want to walk away from this. What experiences

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did you have? What lessons did you learn? How has

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this set you up before knowing what the next thing

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might be? What do you gain back by walking away?

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What do you then kind of shure up in terms

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of time, energy, resources that you are putting into this

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thing that you now can devote and divert to something else.

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We have to stop thinking about this past fail binary

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kind of nature of goals, because that is not what

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they are about. We're all making progress and learning lessons

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along the way. We need to also just remember that

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people don't think about us like we think they think

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about us. There is so much if you're honest with yourself,

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there is so much. What will people think if I

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quit this, if I change course, if I decide this

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is not what I want anymore? People for the most

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part really don't care. They are not judging you as

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harshly as you are judging yourself. If they are, they're

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not your people. But mostly what we think other people

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will think is really not what other people will think.

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So we really have to let go of that. We

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honestly have to let go of what we think other

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people are going to think of us. Like I said

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in my industry, like people are being praised Lord and

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for quitting their businesses, very successful businesses, and that is

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being seen as a sign of courage and bravery and authenticity.

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And I really love that, Like I love that people

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are being valued for their being honest about the fact

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that this is just not making them happy like it

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used to. They're not pretending that anymore that this is

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like some amazing thing when it's not, even when it

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is very financially successful. And one other really interesting tip

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that I read in this book is this idea of

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monkeys and pedestals. So this comes from the CEO of

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a company called x which is a subsidiary of Alphabet

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which obviously Google, so big company, right, And this is

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about like assessing ideas for you know, tech ideas and

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like big kind of leading edge money making ventures. Imagine

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that you want to train a monkey to juggle flamethrowers

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on a pedestal in the park. If you can do that,

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you are onto a winner. There are two components to

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that to making that happen. One is training the monkey

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and the other is building the pedestal, and many of

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us will focus on building the pedestal. So, for example,

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if you want to launch a business, If you want

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to start a business, then we will focus on choosing

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the business name, registering the domain, deciding the colors, on

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the logo, getting a web designer. All of these things

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are building the pedestal. We haven't yet trained the monkey.

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We don't yet know if what we've got is a

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really viable proposition. So in deciding whether to continue to

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pursue this path, focus first on training the monkey. Work

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out what is going to be the most challenging thing

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about this venture, and tackle that first. And if that

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is not going to succeed, if that is not a winner,

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