Tweet

Business Success -- When it's okay to quit

Written by: Michele Pariza Wacek

Article Overview: When is it okay to quit and when should you muscle through it? How do you know if this is the time you should throw in the towel or is this just more of your demons popping up to torture you? Here's a little system you can follow to help you know the difference.

Business Success -- When it's okay to quit

The other day when I was running/walking a 10K race, my knee started hurting. It had been troubling me off and on for about a month but I thought I had it under control. My initial reaction was to grit my teeth and walk through the pain. That's what I normally do, and it's what I do when I walk marathons. But then I reconsidered. I had just passed the 4K marker when it really started hurting so I had more than half the race ahead of me. And then I started thinking, why am I doing this? Clearly I had an issue with my knee. And I could force the issue and hurt it worse. Or I could quit and work on healing it. I opted to quit and live to walk another day (sooner rather than later). So that got me thinking, when is it okay to quit and when should you muscle through it? How do you know if this is the time you should throw in the towel or is this just more of your demons popping up to torture you? Here's a little system you can follow to help you know the difference: 1. How important is this? Are you talking about the life of your business (i.e. quitting it all and getting a job) or are you talking about dumping a product that isn't selling well (and to be honest, you never liked much anyway)? If it's the product, then yeah -- quitting might be the smart thing to do. If it's your business, then it's probably your demons doing a jig in your brain. In my case, doing a 10K isn't that big of a deal. I'll do a 10K on a weekend. So to cut this race short wasn't an issue. Not tearing my knee up was far more important than finishing the race. Which leads me to my next point: 2. How important is it for you to quit? Or what is the cost if you don't quit? Is there someone you work with (like a customer or a vendor) who is toxic to you? (For example, they're costing you tons of time and/or money and you're getting very little in return. Or, worse yet, they're involved in something unethical that could hurt your reputation, or worse, something illegal.) Depending on the severity of the issues, you probably want to dump that relationship. Or are you just feeling uncomfortable or discouraged or stuck with your business? Nope, not a good reason to quit your business. In my case, not being able to walk for a month was way too high of a trade off then quitting the race early. So, here's how this works. When you're faced with something you're thinking about quitting, ask yourself both questions, then compare the answers. If the answer to number 1 is high, and the question to number 2 is low, then you shouldn't be quitting. If the answer to number 1 is low and the question to number 2 is high, then you should be quitting. Where it gets a little tough is if the answer to both questions is the same. Then, you need to dig a little deeper. One is got to be stronger than the other (for instance, if you're looking at something that's really important to you, is the cost not to quit as high as you're really saying or are you just scared right now?) My other rule of thumb is answer to the first question is probably the way you should go. If what you're looking at is very important, then you probably shouldn't be quitting. If what you're looking at isn't all that important then you probably should be quitting. (After all, why are you wasting your time with it if it isn't that important?)

Related Articles
  Are You On The Verge Of Quitting
  Dads Working From Home presents question #10: When should I give up?
  Should you quit?
  Hey Online Business Upline -- I Quit!
  Develop your talents even if bored

Article Tags: 10k race, brain, demons, getting a job, grit, initial reaction, jig, marathons, marker, money, reputation, severity, teeth, tons of time



Related Forum Posts
Re: Beating a bad economy -- from home - Heheheh, since I quit my job in September to go at my home-business full time, my profits have nearly doubled. I speculate that I would have been laid off by now if I hadn't quit...
My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
Re: Books for the Entrepreneur - Here's one of my most recent books The 100 Absolutely Unbreakable Laws of Business Success By Brian Tracy
Re: Beating a bad economy -- from home - [quote="Tom":34rn5voi]Heheheh, since I quit my job in September to go at my home-business full time, my profits have nearly doubled. I speculate that I would have been laid off by now if I hadn't quit...[/quote:34rn5voi] You've done a great switch! Retiring from job and starting to let business work for you is what I'm talking about that's why more and more entrepreneurs have been outsourcing their tasks to make money from it without spending a lot of hours during the week. That way, you'll actually be spending whole spare hours to implement more plans to develop your business.
Landmark Forum Education - I was at an Introduction to the Landmark Forum meeting yesterday and I heard from a lot of people that own businesses there state that the Landmark Education was a key ingredient in their Business Success. Has anyone on the this Forum been to the Landmark Forum 3 day Course? If yes, how has it impacted your business? Thank you for sharing.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

What is an Adaptive Organization

Executive Blind Spots

Tips to Take Control of Credit Card Debt

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.