Sometimes Quitting Is The Only Way to Win
It’s not true that “quitters never win and winners never quit.”
In fact, some of my biggest “wins” were a direct result of quitting. Here’s one example.
In the fall of 1999 I started a Master’s degree program in French Literature. I had a full-time job already, but the Master’s degree was free (thanks to a generous scholarship) and the classes were at night, so I thought I could do both. It didn’t take long to figure out that this was a huge mistake.
While I was capable of doing both, I wasn’t happy doing both. I had no free time, I was constantly stressed out, and (this is the kicker) I was starting to realize that I didn’t even want a Master’s degree in French Literature. What was I going to do with it? I didn’t want to teach French, I didn’t want to write books in French, and the classes were boring me to tears.
At the same time, I felt like I couldn’t quit. I wasn’t a quitter. I had committed to this program and I was going to finish it.
And then one day I had to make a choice. I had a major work crisis on the night before a big paper was due. There was no way to deal with both things. I chose my job, and the following day I quit the Master’s program. My professors were disappointed in me, I felt horrible for letting them down, and I feared that I had made a horrible mistake.
Quitting that program turned out to be one of the smartest decisions of my life.
I ended up getting promoted at work, and then I took some time to figure out whether I wanted to go back to school. I researched the options, I sat in on a bunch of different classes, and decided to apply to law school. To my surprise, I got into Harvard Law School, and I started there in the fall of 2001.
Although I’m no longer practicing law, I have no regrets about going to law school. I thoroughly enjoyed my experience there, I learned things I couldn’t have learned anywhere else, and I made some amazing connections that led to my first opportunity to work from home.
The funny thing is, as much as I’ve never wanted to think of myself as “a quitter,” I’ve quit a lot of things – and each time it was for the best:
- I quit the basketball team in high school. Smart move. I’m terrible at basketball. I ended up becoming the statistician for the team and I loved it.
- I quit my full-time job 6 months before starting law school so I could be a bartender for the summer. I had never bartended a day in my life, but I’d always wanted to, and I knew that once I started law school I would have to “get serious.” So I took a class in bartending and got my first bartending job. The result? I had an amazing summer and I met my future husband (he was working at the same bar).
- I quit practicing law in the spring of 2007. Everyone thought I was crazy. I was working at one of the top law firms in the country, doing interesting work, and making a lot of money. But I wanted to work from home, so I quit my law firm job and I’ve been working from home every since. Thank goodness for that – my daughter was born in March 2008, and if I had stayed at the law firm I would have had to go back to work after a 12 week maternity leave.
I’m not saying that quitting is always the right move, only that things happen. Priorities change. You change. Sometimes you have to reassess what you’re doing and make adjustments.
Don’t quit out of fear or laziness. Don’t quit just because it’s easier. But when you find yourself sprinting down the wrong path, running faster isn’t going to get you where you need to go. It’s no use winning the wrong race.
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photo credit: fuzzcat
