Counterculture Health

Jen: 00:00

Welcome to the Counter Culture Health podcast. I'm doctor Jen McWaters. And I'm coach Kaitlyn Reed. We're here to help high achieving women overcome mental blocks, find freedom from anxiety, create an abundant life, and build the body and life that they deserve and desire. In this weekly podcast, we'll uncover the raw truth about mental health, nutrition, fitness, and beyond.

Jen: 00:22

Let's get to it.

Kaitlin: 00:25

Hello, friends. Thanks for joining us again this week. We have a fun little topic to cover about when when we should quit. And I think this goes against a lot of, you know, like, what we think or what we're taught or, like, societal trends, things like that of just keep going, just keep pushing, just get through it, just, you know, all those things that we hear. But we're going to kinda spin it this week and talk about when it is okay to quit.

Kaitlin: 01:04

And so Jen is going to take us through that today and kinda maybe get you thinking in a a different way or maybe thinking about some scenarios or relationships or jobs or, you know, things in your life that maybe need this and and present this in a a different way for you to think about. So Let's do it. Yes.

Jen: 01:33

So first, I wanna make sure I give credit where credit is due. So this episode is inspired by a book that I've been reading, and it's called The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away Quits by Annie Duke. She is a bestselling author who wrote Thinking and Bets. Some of you might be familiar with that. This is her newer book put out in 2022.

Jen: 01:54

I recently came across it, and it really spoke to me and thought it'd be really helpful for our audience because Caitlin and know that a lot of our audience members are midlife women, often very high performing, high achieving, have accomplished a lot in their life. And to Caitlin's point, we often hear the messaging or always focus on not giving up. Right? A lot of us have mantras around not giving up, which is all great and wonderful. However, there's also a skill in saying no and a skill in quitting and knowing when to quit.

Jen: 02:25

So I have pulled a few points from Annie Duke's work, but we're gonna infuse some of our own experiences into this too. So we're gonna make it our own, but we're gonna use that as a framework to explore this topic. So I'm gonna go through five different points and also create space for reflection. So you may want to listen to this episode and go back through later when you have a chance to grab some paper or pen and be able to do some reflection because I think especially if you have something in your life that you have been wrestling with, not knowing if you should let it go or not or quit or stay, this is the episode for you. So just wanna encourage you, come back to it when you have a chance if you're driving right now and take some time to reflect on the things we're gonna talk about, and we'll have some questions for you at the end that you can walk away with and do some personal work.

Jen: 03:14

So number one, let's start with the concept that quitting isn't failing, it's strategic. So here's a quote from Annie Duke. It says, winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt. So often we have this belief, right, that quitting is equitable to failure. Quitting equals failure.

Jen: 03:33

But really quitting is a skill that we learn of when to strategically walk away from something often because we know that we look at the future and see that the cons outweigh the pros essentially. Right? That the potential for a positive outcome is being outweighed by the potential for a negative outcome. And so we can be strategic when it comes to investments, relationships, businesses. She has a lot of those examples in the book of when people are good about being able to forecast forward and really know what they value and know when it was time to quit.

Jen: 04:09

And she talks about how often quitting on time feels like you're quitting early, which I think is really powerful to think about. Because oftentimes we hold on too long, and then we quit when we're in crisis rather than quitting when we should quit, which often doesn't feel like it's the right time because it feels early to us or to people around us. So some things for us women to think about in our stage of life, you know, midlife, so let's think about thirties through sixties especially, we've often been conditioned to stay the course, Whether that's in our jobs, relationships, or obligations, we often feel like we have to. And let me just be clear too. I'm not gonna talk about marriage.

Jen: 04:50

That's a different level of commitment. So I'm not asking you to question your marriage relationship. That's that's a whole another topic. Maybe talk with a therapist about that if that's coming up for you. Right?

Jen: 05:00

But think about people who are dating, people in jobs, people who are starting businesses, other obligations we have, commitments we've made. We often are conditioned to feel like if we quit this thing, we're failing. But what if quitting isn't a weakness, but actually wisdom? So that is point number one. If quitting isn't failing, it can be strategic.

Kaitlin: 05:21

There I'm I'm thinking of, like, how do we know the difference between if we are how do I wanna frame this? If we are actually giving up and quitting too early and knowing if we are being strategic about it. Because I will it's it's hard to because we know that there's also, you know, some sometimes people, like, have a pattern of quitting or maybe giving giving too early and not pushing pushing through when maybe that is what they need to do. So kind of knowing differentiating or knowing, like, what is the difference between, okay, I have this tendency to quit things early or quit when I should keep going or pushing through that discomfort between, like, this is a strategic I am being strategic and and really thinking about this.

Jen: 06:28

Mhmm. It's a good question. I think there's lots of things that go into that because it's a very individual choice. One thing that makes me think about is what is driving the desire to quit? Is it fear?

Jen: 06:42

You know, oftentimes, people quit because they're afraid of failing and they quit too early, like you're saying. Right? Maybe there's the really good things that could happen if they continued, but they get in their head about it. They're afraid, so they quit early. But if we were to look long term at that decision, we could say the probability of great things coming from sticking with it are greater than the cost, then that might be a quit too early situation Versus if we are not quitting because we are feeling guilty or we see that it's not aligning with our values to continue on this path, perhaps that's when quitting might be something you should consider.

Jen: 07:26

I don't know if that helps any for what you're thinking, but I think about that. Right? Like, what is the driving force behind this desire to pull away? Is it your values are pulling you away and saying this is not aligned for me? Or is it I I'm just afraid, and that's why I just wanna duck out before things get hard.

Jen: 07:41

That's a very different scenario.

Kaitlin: 07:43

Yes. That's exactly, yeah, kind of what I was fishing for and going for and to get people to think about too of, like, is this my tendency and kind of what I've always done? Or, you know, am I being thoughtful and strategic about this? And, you know, I think it always a a lot of things comes back down to our values too. Yes.

Jen: 08:08

So let's go number two. This is one of my favorite ones because it's talking about the sunk cost fallacy, and it's talking about how this common way of thinking keeps us stuck. Is that we often when we invest a lot of time, energy, money, emotion into something, it clouds our judgment about whether or not that thing is something we should walk away from. Right? So just because you've been in a job for ten years or relationship for fifteen years, that doesn't mean that it's still right for you.

Jen: 08:37

But the more that we've sunk cost or sunk our investment into something, the harder it is for us as humans to walk away from it. And so we often will tell ourselves, I've come this far. I might as well see it through. Right? Or I've often heard this from my young adult female single clients or dating clients, but I've dated him or I've been living with him for eight, ten years, fifteen years.

Jen: 09:00

If I give up this relationship even though it's probably not the right one and they acknowledge that, I have to start over. I've already invested so much. I hear that all the time. So that's the sunk cost fallacy in action is it clouds our judgment and makes it harder to walk away from something that's actually harming us, but we have a hard time walking away from something we've invested so much in.

Kaitlin: 09:22

Mhmm. Yeah. I can look back at my life and think of a few things that I've done that

Jen: 09:29

I've done that with. I think especially dating and jobs. Probably for most us. Right? We've done one or both of those for sure.

Jen: 09:36

Yeah. Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. And jobs are like that a lot.

Jen: 09:40

I think I when I with midlife, I have that a lot with clients, especially as they tend to want to reevaluate their career around between 35, 45. Right? There is something to be said about in the midlife crisis of really taking a big screenshot approach of looking at your life and figuring out, does this still serve me? Do I actually enjoy what I'm doing? But often the the other counterargument is, but I've been doing it for so long, or I've spent all this money on this degree, or I've invested so much time into this training, or took me so long to get to this thing, becoming a doctor, becoming a nurse, you know, starting this business.

Jen: 10:16

Even though they're feeling pulled to walk away or quit, It's just so scary to do something new after they've invested so much in the other thing.

Kaitlin: 10:24

Yep. Yeah. I've seen this a lot with people, especially, like, when it's starting to have health health impacts, you know, like, impacting their health, but they're still staying in it because I've been doing it for so long or I'm too old to start something new or but I'm like, but look at how it's destroying you physically and mentally. Like, is that is that worth it? And I see this so often with women.

Jen: 10:56

Same. So something to ask yourself if you're relating to this is, if you think about your current, let's say, job situation, if you're incredibly miserable, it's not aligned with your values, it's impacting your health, maybe your relationships, your family life. If you look forward, let's say, five years from now, do you envision or see anything changing? And if you're saying a 100%, there's no chance that's gonna change as far as it's not gonna improve, it's gonna stay the same or worse, then that's a good reason to consider an alternative option. Because while you can't know the future with that option, because you don't know, you know there's a chance it will be better.

Jen: 11:35

Right? So you have, like, a 100% chance of it not being better with the current option. You have a potential chance of it being better with the other option. So it would not be justified to consider an alternative option if you wanna really live in accordance with what you value and do something to change your life.

Kaitlin: 11:51

Yep. Yep. Not letting the fear of the unknown keep you stuck in a miserable situation. Right. Exactly.

Kaitlin: 12:02

Just because it's familiar and comfortable doesn't mean that it's right.

Jen: 12:07

Mhmm. So what are some ways that we can know when something isn't right? So number three, our concept number three is using kill criteria to make quitting clearer. So kill criteria are basically objective indicators that is gonna tell us that it's time to walk away before we're emotionally entangled. So if we decide this thing coming into a situation, let's say a dating relationship or a job opportunity, we can have already objectively decided beforehand before we're emotionally involved and have all the sunk cost.

Jen: 12:39

This is gonna be my red flags or my criteria that's gonna tell me it's time to walk away. So whether that could be in a work situation, maybe if you feel like you're not getting promoted, maybe it's if you are noticing that you are dreading going to work every day. You know, think about what are your red flags that would tell you that this isn't the right fit and you need to really consider putting quitting on as an option. Relationships too, always encourage. So she I mostly work with women, like my female clients to think about before they're going on the day, before they start getting involved.

Jen: 13:12

What are the red flag criteria based off of your prior relationships and experiences and your values that are gonna be your signs to walk away? No matter how you feel about the person, no matter how attractive they are, no matter how desperately you wanna be in a relationship because maybe you're in your mid thirties already or you're almost 40, what's gonna be the kill criteria? I think that is a very helpful, objective way to go into a situation that you expect might get you emotionally entangled and you might have a hard time walking away from it.

Kaitlin: 13:42

Yep. Love this one. I call it my nonnegotiable list. There you go. Yes.

Kaitlin: 13:47

Yeah. And and and having that. Because if you don't, then you'll just flow with anything. And then that's when you get caught in these situations, and then it becomes years, and now you're so far in. And but if we have these nonnegotiables from the start and don't even go there in the first place, it can keep us from, you know, going down a road or years of of whatever in the first place too.

Kaitlin: 14:14

So I

Jen: 14:14

think, yeah, that's super important. I love that one. That's right. So number four is identity can keep us in the wrong place. Okay?

Jen: 14:23

So here's a quote. The things we stick with the longest are often the things we should have quit the soonest. Okay? So oftentimes, we tie our identities to roles and these become a part of how we define ourselves. And again, often on, I'm thinking about this more in like a work context and career context with the people that I work with.

Jen: 14:44

But these identities, the ways we we tie ourselves to these roles, they lock us into obligations even past when those obligation those that situation has really expired. So, again, like I talked about, I have clients who will say, like, well, I already invested so much in this career, and now this is my identity. I am a nurse. I am a teacher, whatever it is. So they have a hard time even considering walking away because they have such they have put so much of their identity into their job and career.

Jen: 15:16

And part of what I like to do is to help people redefine who they are apart from these roles in their life. Not that these roles are all bad or wrong. Let me be clear about that. But if you define yourself by your role, if that role goes away or if you want to leave that role, it's gonna really rock your world because your identity is all wrapped up in that specific role. And that's often why too we have a difficult time when our kids leave the home eventually.

Jen: 15:47

Right? That's pretty commonly known as empty nest experience or syndrome, that's a big role that's now shifted. It's gone away, the role of parenting. And so when we have put so much of our identity into that role, it's hard enough as it is. Right?

Jen: 16:02

But some people put all of their identity into that role. So when that responsibility obligation is gone, they really struggle with figuring out what to do in life and find meaning mind find meaning again. So that is an example of that. So reflection could be for listeners today is are you holding on to something because it defines you or because it still fulfills you? And so, again, thinking about that from a career job perspective, you know, other projects you have going on.

Jen: 16:32

And I think for, again, like dating relationships as well, are you defining yourself by this dating relationship even though it might be unhealthy and there's red flags and all these other things are going on and your little feelers are going up that something's not right, but maybe you've put so much of identity into this relationship or this role that you're playing. Love that one. K. So next one. Number five is quitting creates space for something better.

Jen: 17:02

So here's a quote for us from Annie Duke. Success doesn't come from sticking to things. It comes from sticking to the right things. Mhmm. And you and I often talk about this.

Jen: 17:14

Like, we need to learn how to say no to the wrong things so we can say yes to the right things. So we want to really think about quitting as not so much as giving up, but it's about making room for something else and something greater and something more. So rather than seeing as you're walking away from something, could you re envision it as you're walking towards something better and something better that's making more room for joy in your life, purpose and meaning, alignment with your values, deepening in your relationships, those kinds of things. So I think that's a beautiful reframe for us to think about this whole topic today is it can be so emotionally difficult and guilt filled to quit something that you've invested your time, your energy, your emotion, your effort into. You've sunk in cost into it.

Jen: 18:08

Your identity might be wrapped up into it. All those things make it so hard. But I think if we can acknowledge that's gonna be so hard, but also look at the future of what are we gonna be gaining when we say no to this thing that's wrong for us, What are all the amazing things in life that we get to say yes to now that we have space for it?

Kaitlin: 18:27

Mhmm.

Jen: 18:28

So I'm gonna leave you guys with three questions for your reflection today, I encourage you again to come back to this and fast forward to the end of this podcast when you have a pen and paper. Here are three questions to journal on. One, what have I stayed with out of guilt, fear, or identity? Two, what's one thing I could let go of to free up my time, my peace, or my purpose? And then three, what might become possible if I let this thing go?

Jen: 19:00

What would I have more space for? So there are some great reflective self coaching questions you guys can do today. If you are feeling this internal struggle around something in your life that you are considering sticking with or quitting, these questions will help hopefully move you closer to your answer.

Kaitlin: 19:23

Love that. There's just a couple of things that come up for me with those questions too and kind of a theme that I have seen with working with people is that, one, most people focus on the things that they're going to that they think they're going to miss out on, focusing on, like, what they think they're going to lose rather than what they're going to gain. Their mind is so focused on the thing that they're they're going to lose rather than the other side of things on what they can gain. And, also, most people are thinking about what other people are going to think of them Yes. If they make this decision rather than thinking about what is best for themselves.

Kaitlin: 20:08

So those are two very common themes that I see working with people that come up frequently and that I think really keeps them stuck in these situations too.

Jen: 20:18

For sure. I think quitting is harder to do in those scenarios, particularly when you are on stage. Right? If you have if you are a public figure, you have a business, you have a lot of people that are knowing what's going on, it's harder to quit because you have to deal with those potential judgments or what you think people might think about you or what people might actually say or do or how it impacts other people. Right?

Jen: 20:41

Like when you, let's say, decide to exit the business, which is a big deal, that impacts a lot of other people's lives, not just your own. So those are big things you have to weigh as you're considering walking away. But oftentimes, as business owners, we have to make those hard decisions for the betterment of everyone down the road. But in the moment, it may not make sense to everyone else. But, hopefully, you know, you as a business owner having, you know, just more insight into your business and wisdom can foresee a little bit more forward than other people can and be able to know when, you know, this is the right time to exit this or sell this business or walk away or do something new.

Jen: 21:17

And her book talks about those examples. And she also, like you said, talks about the other piece too where we just tend to, as humans, we naturally are very risk adverse, so we have a hard time we know we're gonna be losing out on something that we've already, you know, have in our hand. It's hard for us to gamble with what we already have. So she talks about all those. So, again, the book is called The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away.

Jen: 21:40

It's called Quit by Annie Duke. It's a great book. Find out at my local library. Library is amazing. So lots of great resources there, but I always encourage you guys to be learning and growing.

Jen: 21:50

And these are kind of things that help with your self growth and are gonna be so much of a value add for your life. So hopefully this episode was helpful for you guys today and hopefully helps move you closer to your answer. But as I know Caitlin's gonna wrap this up, but if you are feeling stuck, feel feeling stirred up with this, if you do the reflection and you're still like, I really don't know, that's when a coach can be super helpful. So I reach out to myself or to Caitlin. We do this all day long with people depending on what the struggle is.

Jen: 22:21

You know? We either of us can help you with that to help you get unstuck and help you make decisions that are more aligned with your values and the life that you wanna create for yourself.

Kaitlin: 22:30

Yeah. I don't know. I don't have anything else to add to that. But all that I can say, you know, when you're trying to do when you're trying to work through something that on on your own like this, a lot of times it just gets stuck in our head and, you know, on on repeat and replay over and over and over again. So to finally sit down and and say these things out loud and talk it through with somebody else too is so super helpful.

Kaitlin: 23:02

And, you know, also looking at, like, data and facts and and things too and not just, like, always feelings and emotions and having someone else present those things to you too is makes such a difference. So if this is something that you are struggling with or, you know, have been really battling in your own life, reach out. Jen and I both help help guide you through those things in our coaching practices. So reach out, and hopefully, this spin on quitting was insightful, helpful. You know, it's not always a failure.

Kaitlin: 23:41

It's not always giving up, and seeing the other side of things too was helpful. So reach out. Happy to help. Thanks for joining us again on another week of Counter Culture Health, and we will see you guys again next week.

Jen: 23:58

Thanks for joining us on the Counterculture Health podcast. To support this show, please rate, review, and share with your friends and family. If you wanna be reminded of new episodes, click the subscribe button on your preferred podcast player. You can find me, Jen, at awaken.holistic.health and at awakeningholistichealth.com.

Jen: 24:19

And me, Caitlin, at Caitlin Reed Wellness and caitlinreedwellness.com. The content of the show is for educational and purposes only. As always, talk to your doctor and health team. See you next time.