SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
When we think about success, we usually assume it takes hard work and tenacity. But journalist Lindsay Crouse says all that pushing, pushing, pushing can actually be counterproductive. She's out with a new book called "The Case For Quitting: The Surprising Benefits Of Opting Out."
LINDSAY CROUSE: We think of the quitter as a failure whereas that marathon runner who finishes despite the injury, that person is inherently noble. And what I'm trying to do with this book is show that quitting and perseverance are actually complimentary actions.
PFEIFFER: Crouse writes from personal experience. She was a distance runner who tried to power through an injury, and it didn't go well. In her book, she interviews people who found success and satisfaction from giving up. She told me that sometimes involves destigmatizing what it means to be a quitter.
CROUSE: If we treat quitting as the enemy of success, we lose. It's often the courageous first step to something better. It's a pivot. It's a break. So I'm not saying that that marathon runner who is pushing through and finishing is doing something wrong. But what I'm trying to do with this book is propose to the person who thinks of perseverance as the only option and quitting as absolute failure, I want them to see stopping as an option as well so that they can focus on efforts and paths where they truly do want to persevere.
PFEIFFER: Although, for some people, quitting may actually not be an option, whether it's the reliance on a paycheck, the need for health insurance, a lousy job market. So what about - I mean, is there an argument that, in some sense, being able to quit is a privilege?
CROUSE: There is, absolutely. And I don't want to dispel that. I am not with this book trying to tell everyone out there to go and quit their job. What I am trying to get people to focus on is to look at where they actually do have options and to think of continuing as a choice as well. But I think just that actual question that we might ask ourselves of why am I still doing this, sometimes the answer is for a lot more passive of a reason than we might think. Sometimes it's because I've been on this path for forever, because when I was 16, I started studying math and just kept doing that. When I was in college, I was pre-law and just went to law school, and I'm still doing that.
PFEIFFER: And by the way, it's not just jobs you're talking about. It's relationships. You write about what you call the cost of staying. What are examples of the cost of staying outweighing the costs of leaving?
CROUSE: Sure. So in the book, I talk to a guy who met a woman, and it starts being, you know, are we hanging out this weekend? But what time? And then you move in together, and then what choice is there but to get married. After a while, he started to realize, I want more. And so for him, the cost of staying wound up being almost sleepwalking through his life. And so in quitting - well, of course, he first tried to talk to his wife about his reservations, but part of what made their relationship so appealing in the first place was the comfort, was this sort of stasis, was this sort of, like, avoidance of bigger questions. And I think that's the cost of staying. It's choosing comfort over possibility. And quitting can help you reframe that and seize the possibility that you want from your life.
PFEIFFER: But quitting obviously can be extremely frightening. You don't know that things are going to work out better. Will you find a new relationship? Will you find a new job? So how much sympathy do you have for people who say, I'm just not comfortable with that level of uncertainty?
CROUSE: So when we contemplate quitting, we are easily paralyzed by fear. I mean, this is our brain protecting us. We naturally hate uncertainty. But usually, our fear around quitting involves judgment. There's this idea called the spotlight effect. It's a bias that observes that we often think of ourselves as going around our lives under an imaginary spotlight, where we assume other people are paying a lot more attention to us than they actually are. In reality, often, no one cares, especially the people who matter most. And so that's really important to keep in mind. The same people that supported you when you went down whatever you want to quit now, are going to support you when you want to walk away.
PFEIFFER: This is a certain type of person, but I'm thinking back to when Simone Biles, the famous gymnast, was criticized because she withdrew from a bunch of her Olympic events a few years ago. She said she was focusing on her mental health. She got a lot of negative backlash. Now, again, she's essentially a celebrity. But I - you know, people sometimes do react very poorly to watching people bail out of things.
CROUSE: Absolutely. And those are the people whose voices do not matter. Those are the people that do not care about us. If you listen to Simone Biles talk about what her teammates thought, what actual gymnasts thought, what her family thought, they supported her wholeheartedly - what she thought. I mean, obviously, in that she's the judge that matters most of all. She went on to absolutely annihilate the competition at the next Olympics when she returned and became, like, the perfect case study for why we should not listen to that peanut gallery of armchair critics who don't actually know what they're talking about but are going to hold this idea of quitting against us when we instinctively - we are the experts in our own lives. We know the right choice, and sometimes that's walking away.
PFEIFFER: You also write that quitting does not have to be cold turkey. You suggest a testing the waters approach or micro quitting.
CROUSE: Testing the waters usually beats a cannon ball when we're thinking about quitting, especially when it comes to huge macro decisions. Instead of diving into a new life, you can wade in slowly. There's studies where would-be entrepreneurs who maintain their employment at a steady job while they build a runway to their next step, they're actually more likely to succeed there than people who quit outright because you can be paralyzed by the terror of kind of not knowing what's next. You know, also, while you're still in whatever it is that you want to leave, you know, say it's a job, you can be asking yourself, like, what numbers do I need in order to leave, in order to...
PFEIFFER: Dollar numbers - dollars
CROUSE: Yeah, exactly. Like, what is my budget while I am looking for what's next? You can actually be making the changes proactively to make those bigger changes that you need.
PFEIFFER: I want to ask another real-life question about how difficult it can be to walk away, and I'll use my industry as an example, journalism. This is an industry in very difficult condition. A lot of very talented journalists have nowhere to work and deploy their skills. What is a person like that supposed to do if they feel like they want to quit their job and there's just very few options out there?
CROUSE: Yeah, yeah. So I think that's a really good question. And the first thing that I would do there is even just asking that question, what made you a good journalist? Is it your ability to ask questions? Is it your ability to meet deadlines? Is it your responsiveness, your ability to connect with people? These are traits and qualities that are inherent to you and - you know, really, really important qualities that you can translate to other arenas if you want to or if you try. I mean, again, maybe you try and fail.
PFEIFFER: So think of - your basic advice is think of another job that requires those same skills and see if it exists for you.
CROUSE: Yeah, another arena to apply those skills. So what I would do if I was not really sure if I was going to quit or not is you could ask yourself, like, what do you want your life to look like in five years, or in 10? Is it charging down the path that you're on right now? Because you often know what that's going to look like. Does it make you happy or does it terrify you? And if you think - if it does terrify you, perhaps it's better to stop and maybe change.
PFEIFFER: That's Lindsay Crouse. She's the author of "The Case For Quitting: The Surprising Benefits Of Opting Out." Lindsay, thank you.
CROUSE: Thank you so much. This was lovely.
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