When Quitting is a Good Thing

My basic careers guidance is this:

“There. Is. No. Harm. In. Quitting”.

In fact sometimes quitting is the very best thing that you can do. Often it is the best thing for yourself. It can also be the best thing for those that you believed that you were serving. Quitting is not just ‘giving up’ because you haven’t got the drive, motivation or will power to be bothered to continue. Quitting is not about failing.Quitting is making an active decision to stop doing the thing that no longer serves you. Quitting in such a manner provides freedom and the potential for better things to grow in that space. What is it they say?

“You have to close one door for another to open”

Don’t get me wrong, as with most entrepreneurs, I have the tenacity of a lunatic, and, the best thing I have learned is when to quit…. whilst I have tendrils of entanglement with the past then I can never truly engage with the future.

Quitting is great: Quitting jobs that don’t suit me anymore. Quitting professional environments that constrain me. Surrendering business ideas that don’t work. Walking away from relationships that don’t support the person that I am becoming……

So why would we not play to our strengths…?

Mainly, remaining in situ is connected to fear. Fear of what next…? Will there be anything…? Fear of what others will think…..? More devastating is that they may not be thinking of us at all! Fear of doing what we want instead of what we ‘should’… We have a whole heap of conditioning that will have us caged forever if we don’t challenge that. Fear of being selfish and letting others down…. change is always a risk, but, the risks to those who depend upon us of our being depressed and immobilised by fear, are far greater in the long run than the reality of a pay cut or even a month or two of financial insecurity. It is far easier to work with financial practicalities than with embedded resentment of responsibilities.

So, quitting is great. Quitting can lead to a ‘You’ that is greater than you ever imagined. Quitting IS a realistic choice. In my experience, following this careers guidance brings enormous rewards.

You can find Rebecca here at the Daemon Career Coach