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Quit Already: 7 Ways To Know When It's Time To Cut Your Losses
Changed priorities
Things change and you should change with them.
Follow your instincts. You know what’s best for you so don’t let the circumstances dictate your life.
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Key Ideas
Why you are afraid of quitting
The sunk cost fallacy is one of the primary reasons you are so afraid to quit anything. It occurs when you tell yourself that you can’t quit because of all the time or money you have already spent. The idea of all of that going to waste is what is keeping you at bay, paralyzed at the idea of quitting.
Overcome the fear of quitting
Sunk cost is about the past. Opportunity cost is about the future.
If you are scared to quit (which is absolutely natural), always think of the opportunity cost. Think of the brighter future, not the scary past, and often times that is enough to give you that extra push to make the right decision.
Long-term cost outweighs short-term benefits
When you finally succeed, but you don’t have the health or someone to share the success with, the project might prove not be be worth it.
Take 5 minutes at the end of the week and reflect on what you have achieved versus what you had to give up to achieve it so you don’t end up giving up too much without even realizing it. Make this a habit.
When there is no future
Entrepreneurs are especially guilty of this one. You work and you work and fail to take the time and validate your idea first and see if it truly has a potential. Or maybe you are climbing the corporate ladder, but you’ve reached an impasse.
It helps to take a step back to view the big picture. Talk to someone outside of your usual social circle who can give you an honest opinion about how realistic you are being about the future.
Changed priorities
Things change and you should change with them.
Follow your instincts. You know what’s best for you so don’t let the circumstances dictate your life.
When it is not fun
Either the process is enjoyable, or you feel accomplished when you are finally done or you have reached a milestone.
On the flip side, there are situations or projects that you dread starting, you hate the process, and when you are finally done, you wish you never did it. If there is no benefit of doing it and you hate everything about it, doing more of it won’t help. 5 times 0 is still 0.
Extra effort without extra results
Once you have reached a certain point in a project, in life, or in any activity for that matter, doing more does not necessarily bring your better results.
If you want to boil some water, you need to heat it up to exactly 100° C. Anything past that won’t make the water “more boiled”, it is just a waste of time, heat and energy.
Going it for the wrong reasons
Everything that you do should have a reason that matters and makes sense to you and you should always be in synch with it.
The moment the reason is no longer there, or is no longer valid, it is time to move on.
Immune to the red flags
If your body is aching, if you friends and family are begging you to stop or at least to slow down, if the results are not there, the fun is not there, but you keep on going, it could be because you’ve become immune to the red flags. You’ve learned to tune out the pain and the negative and concentrate on the end goal.
Take a step back and examine the red flags.SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
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Key Ideas
Quit When...
- You're consistently experiencing more frustration than reward.
- You can't envision a possible solution or continuing this way.
- Spending time on this keeps you from more rewardin...
Before You Call It Quits
- Make sure you've identified the real causes of your unhappiness. Keep a diary of events and problems.
- Give it a chance. Many things, like diets, require time to work out.
- Try many other solutions.
- Have a backup plan. Know what you're going to do if you quit and what you need to do to prepare for that.
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Key Ideas
The Commitment Muscle
Sticking through things longer builds resilience. But sticking through on a bad idea, project or effort can lose you years of your life.
The goal is to increase your ability to susta...
Quitting Points
They are pre-specified periods of time, effort or stress that you decide you’re willing to endure before you step back and re-evaluate.
Pick Your Quitting Point
- Set shorter lengths of projects: set projects that are short enough that committing to them all the way is easy enough to do or break into chunks th bigger ones.
- Set re-evaluation points for ongoing habits and goals.
- Based on impact to other areas of your life. You can choose metrics like: time and how those things impact your life.
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Key Ideas
Your brain is the biggest obstacle.
What’s hard for human beings is letting go...
The most common biases
- You’re focused on the time and energy you’ve already invested, or the sunk cost fallacy.
- Your eyes are trained on positive cues -being overly optimistic and loss averse. Always trying harder and for longer.
- When we realize we’re likely to fail at a job or other endeavor, we begin to see that goal as even more valuable than it was initially.
- FOMO—and the fear of making a mistake.
Do this if you want to quit
- Get a bead on your emotions. Don’t set yourself up for a “straw-that-broke-the-camel’s back” moment.
Motivate yourself. Quitting isn’t an end in and of itself; it’s a pathway to a new destination.
Make a plan that not only sets your new goal but anticipates possible setbacks and pitfalls along the way.
Prepare for the stress of transition. The best defence is knowing ahead of time how you’re likely to react.