quitting. Believe it or not, quitting is often a great strategy, a smart way to manage your life and your career.

The Dip is the long stretch between beginner’s luck and real accomplishment.

The next time you catch yourself being average when you feel like quitting, realize that you have only two good choices: Quit or be exceptional. Average is for losers.

The Opposite of Quitting Isn’t “Waiting Around” No, the opposite of quitting is rededication. The opposite of quitting is an invigorated new strategy designed to break the problem apart.

Why sell a billion-dollar division that’s making a profit quite happily while ranking #4 in market share? Easy. Because it distracts management attention. It sucks resources and capital and focus and energy. And most of all, it teaches people in the organization that it’s okay not to be the best in the world.

Is this a Dip, a Cliff, or a Cul-de-Sac?

When the pain gets so bad that you’re ready to quit, you’ve set yourself up as someone with nothing to lose. And someone with nothing to lose has quite a bit of power. You can go for broke. Challenge authority. Attempt unattempted alternatives. Lean into a problem; lean so far that you might just lean right through it.

That’s the goal of any competitor: to create a Dip so long and so deep that the nascent competition can’t catch up.

There’s nothing wrong with optimism. The pain (and the waste) comes when the optimists have to make hard choices when they get stuck in the Dip.