Is Quitting Good or Bad?
Is Quitting Good or Bad?
By chris danilo on Jul 23, 2018 05:00 am
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I was just standing in line today.
It was taking forever.
I started counting the people ahead of me and estimating the minutes until it was my turn.
Then, when I was finally about 3 people away from the front, the guy in front me threw up his arms and left the line.
We’d both been waiting for over 25 minutes but my estimate was that we only had 5 minutes left to go.
It was so obvious:
No one quits a marathon at mile 2 when everyone is cheering you on, they quit at mile 22 when it feels like they’ll never make it.
Of course, this is the worst time to quit!
Of he’d stayed in line another 5 minutes, he’d have gotten all the benefits of waiting.
There was a sunk cost, sure he’s never getting that time back, but the cost of leaving the building and finding another line to stand in was so high compared to what was left.
It would have cost him far less time to stay put than to switch
Just a little quick math and he could have estimated the time he had left. He chose to react in frustration, instead.
There are two lessons here: sticking it out and responding with a cool, calculated head. Either might have saved this guy.
2 Minute Action:
What’s something that’s really pressing on your patience right now?
Is it a sunk cost? Should you bail?
Or can you “do the math” to figure out if patience might be worth the price?
If you’re going to quit, quit early. Somewhere, somehow, quitting got a bad name. It’s not bad, it’s useful—it’s just that most people don’t know when to quit.
Tip: It’s almost always wasteful to quit late in the marathon, at mile 22.
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