“A winner never quits and a quitter never wins” is a lie.
Failing and persevering are a stereotype to eventual success and are encouraged by society.
The famous and successful have created a “fail to succeed” stereotype and acknowledge it for their very success, however, this may not always be true.
This has led to failure being widely accepted by society, to the point, that it is now considered an inevitable stepping stone to success.
It’s a common sentiment that we should never quit and that a “winner” never quits.
THE SUNK COST FALLACY
The theory states that our decisions are tainted by emotional investments that we accumulate, therefore, the more we invest into something, the harder it becomes to abandon it.
The sunk cost fallacy comes into play when we can’t accept that the money, time or effort we spent on something is gone for good, and the value we thought we’d get from it cannot no longer be recovered.
For instance,
One may book a flight to a certain location for a vacation, and on the day of the flight get sick and still decide to fly to the location in order to get value from something that has already been lost instead of staying home and recovering.
Part of the reason we humans don’t like to accept these sunk costs is “loss aversion”, which is the tendency to want to avoid loss whenever possible - because we simply don’t like it.
This makes it easy to feel invested in a project and not want to abandon it even though sticking with it is nothing but harmful to us.
There’s not always light at the end of the tunnel, some are simply just dead ends.
STRATEGIC QUITTING
to quit strategically we must :-
become self - aware and understand what you should stick with and what you should quit.
quit completely - let go of it both physically and mentally.
quit regularly.
🔗 The Weekly Link-Up
Links to things I’ve enjoyed this week and think you might enjoy too:
an excerpt from Seth Godin's "The Dip," on the benefit of "strategic quitting"
https://booksongif.substack.com/p/flights-by-olga-tokarczuk - a gif based book review on 'Flights' by Olga Tokarczuk
📖 Must Reads
The Dip by Seth Godin.
💡If you liked this article, you might like this one too: FEEL LIKE A FRAUD?
💬 Let me know your thoughts and if you enjoyed the article, please drop a ❤️!
Should we quit more often?
My mentor Dr Srinivasamurthy, a great Orthopedic surgeon used to tell me that a good surgeon should know when to quit. Good writing. Liked it
Very well scripted, it is true that what we adore and spend on, we fell obligated to keep and not quit even though it might become a liability, very well penned 👏🏼