Have you ever thought about giving up on a goal, but guilt over the idea of “quitting” made you stick with it?
Do you have a nagging little voice in your head telling you that “winners never quit and quitters never win?”
Yeah, me too. 😬
But here’s what I’ve realized:
Winners do quit, and “winning” isn’t everything, anyway.
Especially not when we’re talking about “winning” the game of Hustle Culture.
And in reality, sometimes that guilt keeps us holding onto goals that we really should stop pursuing.
So we end up sticking with things that drain our energy and motivation, just because we’ve been taught to disproportionately value things like discipline and “grit.”
After catching myself do this too many times, I’ve started trying to look at it differently, in a more values-neutral way.
Deciding not to pursue a goal anymore isn’t “quitting” or “giving up,” it’s just changing directions or priorities based on what’s working for you right now.
That’s nothing to feel guilt or shame over.
In fact, it’s the smart thing to do!
So let’s talk about when it might be the best choice, but why we tend to resist it anyway.
Why we hate quitting
Quitting can feel uncomfortable for a few key reasons:
- Hustle culture has taught us that grit and perseverance are just as (or maybe even more) important than actual results and effectiveness, making it feel like failing when we stop “persevering” around a goal.
- The sunk cost fallacy can make us fixate on all the time, energy, and other resources we’ve already invested, and not want it to “go to waste” by letting go of the goal.
- Quitting means accepting reality over our ideal vision (probably the most uncomfortable reason). It means accepting that you’re not the person you thought you were, or wanted to be, when you set that original goal and thought it could happen.
But continuing to invest energy in something that’s not right for you only wastes more of your precious time and energy. Time and energy that you could have saved, or used on something that actually made your life brighter.
Why quitting is good, actually
Despite how uncomfortable it might feel to “quit” a goal, there are some really good reasons to do it anyway:
First, it frees up your most valuable resources: time, energy, and focus.
And not just the resources you spend pursuing the goal itself, you were also probably spending a fair deal of energy managing your negative emotions around it as well.
For example, if it takes you 30 minutes of guilting yourself into going for a run, and then have to spend the whole thing convincing yourself to keep going, that’s a fair amount of emotional energy “spent” in addition to any physical energy spent on the workout.
Instead, you can redirect those resources towards a goal that doesn’t take so much self-regulation to make progress towards.
Second, it helps you keep your goals in line with your current lifestyle, not an idealized or outdated version of it. Our lives are constantly changing, and what worked for us a year ago (or even a month ago) might not work now.
And that’s okay!
Finally, letting go of goals that aren’t working helps you let go of the associated guilt and shame. Instead of constantly thinking about this thing you’re “failing” at or not seeing progress with, you can focus on celebrating the progress you’re making in other areas.
6 signs it’s time to give up on a goal
Here are some perfectly valid reasons to let go of a goal you’ve been pursuing, without any guilt or shame:
- The goal no longer aligns with your current lifestyle, values, or priorities. As we evolve and change, our priorities naturally shift. What aligned perfectly with your identity, interests, and capacity a year ago might no longer make sense for who you are today.
- You just don’t have the energy for it right now. Sometimes as much as a goal interests us, we just don’t have the energy or capacity for it at the moment. Letting go of it for now doesn’t need to mean letting go of it forever. If it still interests you when there’s more space for it to fit into your life, you can always pick it back up.
- It’s actively interfering with other goals that are more important to you. When you find yourself having to choose between two goals, or you realize that two goals interfere with each other (for example, pursuing the goals to wake up earlier and get more sleep at the same time), it might be time to let go of one, so you can fully commit to the other.
- You realized you were pursuing it for the wrong reasons. Maybe you set the goal to please someone else, or because you thought you “should,” or were based your decision off of incorrect or incomplete information. Once you recognize this, it’s okay to redirect your energy elsewhere.
- You’ve already gotten what you needed from pursuing the goal. Often, the journey itself teaches us the lessons we needed to learn, making the original destination less important.
- You discovered a better path to the same outcome. If you’ve found a more efficient or enjoyable way to achieve what you wanted, there’s no shame in pivoting to that approach instead.
A reminder for next time you give up
You don’t need to decide anything right now. You can—and should!—take time to think or reflect a little before deciding to drop a goal.
And be nice to yourself during the process – there’s no universal rulebook for goal-setting, only what works best for you.
You deserve to pursue goals that genuinely excite you, so don’t waste energy on ones that don’t.
This article was written by Brittany Berger and originally published on workbrighter.co.