This round of pet peeves is focused on quitting. Yep, new year, new pet peeves!
Now, the definition of quitting per Merriam-Webster includes the one most think of… to give up, to depart from. But there is another definition included…to set free.
- Associating quitting with only a negative connotation. I did it. I can’t leave this company it’s only been a year. Regardless if the position wasn’t what we agreed to, or that I couldn’t stand my upper management. I believed quitting equaled failing. So I was going to stay in a miserable situation. Luckily, someone challenged me and this association by highlighting my workplace purpose and if I could let that go too. Suddenly, I didn’t want to stay, I wanted to be set free to do what I needed to do. Best decision I ever made and yet I almost didn’t because of a stupid assumption.
- Quitting means failure. As I noted above, part of the reason the association was easy to fall prey to was that if I quit, it meant I couldn’t make it work. And then I think about how arrogant that is by itself. Like I have all the power and ability to make anything successful…absolutely not. I fully know my successes have been collaborative. So why would I put quitting on my shoulders only? I had to stop thinking this and start thinking that quitting is acknowledging the system (bigger picture) of what is needed right now. I often say timing is everything but will forget that when it comes to quitting.
- Quitting means starting over, something worse, etc. “But if I leave this, I might not get something better.”, “But I can’t leave this unless I’m moving up the career ladder.”. When someone says things like this to me, I always remind them of: How have you gotten to where you are today? They say something like…”hard work and quality results”. Can you do that when you are in this state of mind? See, that’s the annoying trap. The more you tell yourself you can’t leave (for whatever reason), the worse the situation gets, then the worse your results are. Now you are not doing well and you start telling yourself that you are no good. Now you are stuck. I argue you did quit…yourself.
As much as these are pet peeves, they are mine, and as a leader that doesn’t mean, I get to simply judge others. Plus, I struggle with this on a regular basis. Instead, these serve as opportunities for others and for me to grow. If this stuff was easy, I wouldn’t be sharing.
What are your quitting pet peeves?
