Admit it, You Are a Quitter
Guest blog post by Shannon Triplett
We value perseverance as a society. We tell people never give up, keep going, you got this, stick with it…the list goes on.
If perseverance is something we strive for and commend, the opposite – quitting – has a negative connotation. It’s true! Quitting is this shameful pastime no one wants to admit to. It can be an embarrassment, and it can even make us feel like a failure.
Here’s the thing I get a kick out of about those truths. Everyone reading this blog post right now? I bet every single one of you is a quitter. Every. Single. One.
Because while we value perseverance, the honest truth is quitting is something we all do. It’s a part of life. We quit a job, we quit a relationship, we quit a bad habit, we quit a hobby or a sport.
So how did you know when to quit? How did you know the difference between something being hard, but worthy of carrying on? Or the opposite - how did you know something wasn’t the right fit for you and it was time to quit?
While the answers to those questions are personal to our own experiences, the point is this: maybe quitting should be something acknowledged and taught as much as perseverance.
So instead of sweeping my past quitting under a rug, here are 5 valuable things I learned about quitting while my mom and I
were writing our children’s book I QUIT!
1. Quitting Frees Up Time to Try New Things
Meet my Mom, Quitter Extraordinaire.
I might be biased, but my mom is incredible. She’s smart, she’s sassy, she’s wonderful with children, and yes, she is a Quitter Extraordinaire.
She’s turned down promotions and quit when jobs weren’t the right fit for her anymore. She has quit musical instruments, various sports, etc. Everything. She’s a proud quitter.
Was she embarrassed to tell people she quit? Nope. Was she glad she quit things? Yep.
Because you know what? By quitting, she was freeing up time in her life to try new things. She quit swimming so she could start pickleball. She quit pickleball so
she could start Orange Theory workouts. You get the idea.
The thing she is currently doing? Running a 5k in every state in the United States. When she started people were so dismissive, thinking she would quit because of her age or difficulty of the ambition. But when you find an activity you love, you won’t want to quit it. Now in her early 60s, my mom has run a 5k in 37 states. I have no doubt she’s going to stick with it until she hits all 50 states.
While quitting and trying new things has led my mom to finding activities she loves, research shows this is true for professionals, as well. Researchers found, "As the worker samples more occupations and accumulates knowledge about her occupational fit, the probability of finding her true calling rises.” (Gervais, M., et al, 2014).
2. We accumulate valuable experiences from things we quit, which help us in future endeavors
When I was 4 years old, I started dance lessons. I quit dance to start gymnastics. I quit gymnastics to start swimming. When I was 14, I quit swimming to start cross-country running.
Want to know something interesting? When I started gymnastics, I was incredible at balance beam because I already learned balance in dance lessons. During kickboard exercises on the swim team, I could kick faster than everyone else – boys and girls – because my legs were so strong from gymnastics. When I was on the cross-country team, I had better endurance than many on my team because my lungs were strong from swimming.
I brought forward skills from my past activities to my future endeavors. Quitting never was a setback: mastering skillsets came easier with each new sport I tried.
You might be thinking that’s great for hobbies, but this would never work for your career – aren’t we all thinking you won’t earn as much if you keep switching jobs? Research shows the opposite. Henry Siu, a Vancouver School of Economics professor found, “People who switch jobs more frequently early in their careers… actually correlated with higher incomes, because people have found better matches—their true calling.” (as cited in Thompson, 2019).
It literally pays to be a quitter!
3. We Don’t Teach Kids How to Quit, But We Should
My mom has worked with children for 35 years - as a mother, a daycare provider, and as a kindergarten teacher – and when she said she wanted to write a children’s book, she wanted to write about one thing: quitting.
I wanted to write a book with her, but was I particularly interested in writing a children’s book on quitting? Um, no. Not at first. But I trusted my mom – I trusted that this was something in her 35 years of working with children she saw was missing in childhood education. Over the course of writing the book together, I learned what my mom already knew: we need to teach children how to quit.
Clinical psychologist Cindy T. Graham spoke on this topic, “Forcing kids to stay in sports, or any activity for that matter, when the sport is aversive for the child can lead to a child putting the wishes of others ahead of their own well-being, needs, wants or preferences” (as cited in Borresen, 2022).
We found a dozen or so articles with psychologists, school counselors, etc. all hinting at this same thing: we need to teach children that sometimes quitting is the right decision.
If we want children to do well, let’s teach them quitting is as important as perseverance in striving for success and happiness in life.
4. Quitting Leads to Better Things
A close friend of mine had a great job out of college. It was high pressure, high reward, and he made way more money than most 20-something-year-olds. And then he quit. He was miserable, but it was his first job out of college and he stayed with it way longer than he should have. He went and got his master’s degree in international relations, got a job making a difference in the world where he also met his future wife.
For my friend, quitting was a positive turning point in his life. Quitting led to better things.
He’s not alone: research by the Federal Reserve showed people who quit their jobs were happier if they were interested in their new work even if it meant taking a 20% pay cut (Lim, K., et al, 2024).
5. There is a Difference Between Quitting and Giving Up
A kind librarian posted about our book I QUIT! on her social media and asked, “have you ever quit something?” The answers were various, but I noticed a theme: a lot of what people were talking about was giving up, not quitting. They gave up crochet because it was too hard, they stopped before they ever finished things.
Bear with me, but I feel there’s a difference between the two. Giving up implies wanting to do something, but it was too hard and that’s why you stopped. Quitting is an active choice to leave something behind.
In our children’s book, my mom was adamant our main character, Sophie, never quits before she fully learns an activity – she didn’t want Sophie to ever give up. Language is important.
3 Quitter Questions
Listen, parents struggle with knowing when it’s right to let their children quit something or when to encourage them to stick with it. Heck, even my own mom, Quitter Extraordinaire, struggled with this when after 5 years of being obsessed with astronomy and dedicating my studies to it I suddenly said: I want to quit to become a writer.
How do we know when to push kids through tough times to achieve goals? And how do we distinguish those moments from times when we should support kids to quit something?
Here are 3 questions we can ask in the quitting decision making process:
1. Will it make you happier if you quit?
As Marie Kondo asks in her approach to decluttering, “Will this item bring you joy?” sometimes asking the simple question of will you be happier with or without this activity/habit/relationship/job in your life can reveal whether quitting is the right move.
2. Is there anything that would make it better?
Amy Mortin, LCSW (2021) recommends asking more specific questions like this one than simply, ‘why do you want to quit’? as it can help children express their thoughts to discover whether they genuinely want to quit or it’s a solvable difficulty to overcome.
3. Is there anything you do like about it?
Another suggested question from Amy Mortin (2021), but this is also something we focused on in our children’s book. The main character analyzes what she likes and doesn’t like about each activity before she quits it. We can increase our chances of picking a better job/hobby/sport for ourselves in the future if we can learn what we like even from things we quit.
In Conclusion, Let’s All Become Quitter Extraordinaires
Let’s encourage the future generations to find their passion. Let’s allow them to try things, and quit things when as Sophie in our children’s book says, “I like it a bit, but it isn’t a perfect fit.”
So please join me, Quitters Around the World, let’s embrace quitting. Let’s teach quitting. Let’s encourage it as much as perseverance.
It’s time to become Quitter Extraordinaires.
About the Author
Shannon Triplett as a child frequently got caught hiding flashlights under her pillow to read past bedtime, which was one the first signs of her lifelong obsession with reading and writing. Inspired by her mom Jean Herring to quit anything that she only liked but didn’t love, she’s now very happy to be doing the thing she loves…working as a screenwriter in Los Angeles under the Hollywood sign. Her most recent work includes DESERT ROAD (premiered at SXSW 2024), which she wrote and directed.
You can connect with their Instagram or at www.herringtriplett.com
References
Borresen, K. (2022). Your Kid Isn’t Loving Sports. When Is It OK To Let Them Quit? HuffPost. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/when-to-let-kid-quit-sports_l_61f18840e4b04f9a12b7cd84
Gervais, M., Jaimovich, N., Siu, H.E. & Yedid-Levi, Y. (2014). What Should I Be When I Grow Up? Occupations and Unemployment Over The Life Cycle. National Bureau of Economic Research. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w20628/w20628.pdf.
Kondo, Marie. (N.D.). Rule 6: Ask Yourself If It Sparks Joy. KonMari Philosophy. https://konmari.com/marie-kondo-rules-of-tidying-sparks-joy/
Lim, K., and Zabek, M. (2024). What makes a job better? Survey evidence from job changers. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/what-makes-a-job-better-survey-evidence-from-job-changers.htm
Morin, A., LCSW. (2021). Should I Allow My Child to Quit a Sports Team? Very Well Family. https://www.verywellfamily.com/should-i-allow-my-child-to-quit-a-sports-team-1094861
Thompson, Derek. (2014). Quit Your Job. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/11/quit-your-job/382402/