Nobody trains us to quit properly. School rewards persistence. Work celebrates grit. But successful people are skilled quitters. They drop failing projects fast. They exit draining relationships quickly. They abandon unproductive habits immediately. Your ability to reallocate resources from what isn't working to what might work determines your... See more

realized I was a ways down the road toward a destination I no longer wanted to get to, and rather than keep driving, I took an exit. This was indispensable in getting me to a place where I actually wanted to be.

In her book Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away, Annie Duke says, "When your identity is what you do, then what you do becomes hard to abandon, because it means quitting who you are."

Knowing when to walk away from relationships, careers, and creative endeavors that are going nowhere prevents unnecessary suffering.