5 toxic forces that prevent you from quitting when you should

Laetitia@Work #56

Hi everyone,

My previous newsletter was about goals and the necessity to make them more flexible. This one is about the ability to quit when you should. Our culture values persistence and grit and sees quitting as something inherently bad. Yet the ability to quit something useless or toxic is exactly as important as the ability to continue something worthwhile. Our time and energy are limited so these two things are profoundly related. They are two sides of the same coin.  

But the symmetry ends there. The ability to quit is significantly less valued. And it’s hard: there are many forces (including cognitive biases) that prevent us from understanding that we should let go of something and move on to something else. Having grit for grit’s sake (i.e. being stubborn) is as much a flaw (when in pursuit of a bad thing) as a quality (if the pursuit is worth it).

I’ve discovered that my quitting pattern over the years (decades) is not the weakness of character I thought it was. For years, until I created my company, I quit all the jobs I held, sometimes after just a few months. Could it be a strength after all?

Everyone should learn to be a better quitter! First it requires overcoming the strong forces that make quitting so hard. Here’s a list of these forces inspired by Annie Duke’s book Quit: The Power of Knowing When To Walk Away 📚👇💡

Quitting in time will improve your life

One of the biggest clues to the way that the language favors grit over quitting is that one of the synonyms for grittiness is heroism. Others include bravery, courage, and fearlessness. When we think of perseverance, particularly in the face of danger, we picture the hero, who gets to the edge of death, faces down the abyss, and perseveres when other people would give up. Meanwhile, people who quit are cowards… (Annie Duke)

Quitting in time will improve your life enormously. In some cases it can literally save it. (See the example I mentioned in my previous newsletter of those Everest climbers who couldn’t quit in time and therefore died summiting). Rather than being stuck in a suboptimal situation, you seek to change it. Rather than wasting time doing something you can never get really good at and enjoy (it’s okay to spend time doing something you’re not good at if it’s fun), you can choose to explore other paths and find something else to spend your energy on.

👉 Also read Why I'm tired of goals. Laetitia@Work #55.

A poker table, it turns out, is a very good place to learn about the upside of quitting. Optimal quitting might be the most important skill separating great players from amateurs. In fact, without the option to abandon a hand, poker would be much more like baccarat, a game of no skill because there are no new decisions you get to make once the cards are dealt. Top poker players are better at quitting than amateurs in a variety of ways. (Annie Duke)

I don’t play poker but Annie Duke does. After reading her book, I understood that quitting the game is particularly important for professional poker players who rely on their winnings to make a living. Losing can be frustrating and lead to a state of emotional instability that’ll induce a player to make irrational decisions. By quitting the game when you are feeling frustrated or emotional, you can avoid making costly mistakes that can further damage your bankroll. It is critical for self-discipline and managing your time effectively, which are two of the things that make a poker player great.

We should all learn to think in terms of expected value. Is the option I’m considering good for me in the long run? How does it compare with the other possible options?

To get the stick-or-quit decision right, you need to make an educated guess at the probability that things will go your way and the probability that things will go against you, in order to figure out if the good stuff will occur enough of the time to warrant continuing on your path. (Annie Duke)

The 5 forces that make it so hard for you to quit

• Sunk cost fallacy

We all fall prey to sunk cost fallacy once in a while. If you’ve already invested a lot of time and money into something you want to avoid seeing this investment “wasted” so you continue to invest more time and money into it even after it should have become clear to you that it’s not worth it. The problem with this way of thinking is that it can lead to huge losses in the future.

One classic example involves finishing a bad book: you start reading a book and realise that you don't really like it. But you’ll continue reading it to the end because you've already invested time into it and don't want to feel like you've wasted it. (I’m proud to say that it doesn’t happen to me anymore: I’ll gladly quit a book I don’t like, even after 50 pages read). 

More dramatic examples of sunk cost fallacy involve continuing to invest in a failing business or pursuing a career you don’t enjoy just because you’ve already invested so much time and money into it. You might be better off cutting your losses and starting a new business/career. But admitting that you made a mistake and accepting the losses are emotionally challenging things.

• The endowment effect

It’s a bias that causes people to value something they own more than something they don't own, even if the two things have the same objective value. Say for example that you are given a mug as a gift. (This is a classic example I confess I haven’t invented). You might value that mug more than if you had just seen it in a store because it's now "yours." If someone offered to buy the mug from you for the same price that you could buy it in a store, you might not want to sell it because you feel like you own it and it has sentimental value to you.

The endowment effect can also work in reverse. If you were to try to purchase a mug from a stranger, you might not be willing to pay as much for it as you would if you already owned it. It also works with intangible things: you own your ideas and your career, which makes it harder to quit them when you should.

• The IKEA effect

Now you understand the picture I chose to illustrate this newsletter! The IKEA effect is an interesting variation of the previous effect. It refers to our all-too-human tendency to place a disproportionately high value on things we have built or contributed to, regardless of their actual value or quality. It’s named after the Swedish furniture company so famous for its self-assembly furniture because IKEA provides so many examples of that effect. 

Who hasn’t felt enormous pride after assembling an IKEA bed or cabinet for hours? Even if the final product is not that good, you will value it more highly because you put so much effort into building it. It also works with home-cooked meals. Marketing people have exploited that effect for decades: making sure people actively contribute to the thing they buy so they’ll like it even more. 

It’s a good thing we feel a sense of accomplishment when making something with our own hands. (Remember the baking craze during the pandemic?) It’s great for self-esteem. But it can also make it impossible to quit something you should quit. Annie Duke gives the examples of several business people who couldn’t quit a company they “made” and couldn’t see it had become a failing, money-losing endeavour that would sink them and their families.

• Laziness: “Better the devil you know” 

The  phrase "better the devil you know" is a saying that suggests it is safer or less risky to stick with what you already know, even if it's not perfect, rather than taking a chance on something new that might be worse. It’s supposed to be wise.

Imagine you are considering leaving your current job for a new one because you are not entirely happy in your current job. But you might feel hesitant to take the risk of starting a new job and potentially facing new challenges and unknown problems. Your current job, aka “the devil you know”, is familiar and predictable. A different job could be worse.

The problem with this behaviour is that it leads us to stick even to familiar things that are 100% sure to be bad. This is irrational behaviour that can be very harmful. Something unknown that has some likelihood of being somewhat better has a higher expected value than something that is 100% sure to be bad!

• Our sense of identity

Annie Duke asks: Why do people who are in doomsday cults continue to be a part of their cult even after the crazy prophecies they believed in proved to be wrong? It’s all due to cognitive dissonance, which occurs when a person holds two or more conflicting beliefs or values, and experiences tension as a result. In the case of doomsday cult members, they may hold the belief that the world is going to end and that they are part of a select group who will be saved. But when the predicted doomsday date passes and the world does not end, their belief conflicts with the reality they experience.

To reduce the cognitive dissonance and the discomfort it causes, cult members may rationalise the failed prophecy, make new predictions, or blame themselves for not being pure enough to be saved. Paradoxically, it can lead to a reinforcement of their belief system and a deeper commitment to the cult, as they want to justify their continued involvement and maintain a sense of coherence and meaning in their lives. In fact, the more fringe the belief, the more it contributes to their very sense of identity. Moderate beliefs do not provide as strong a sense of identity as radical ones.

Also, members fear losing their social support network and being ostracised from the group that provides their sense of identity. Thus they may double down on crazy ideas and behaviours in spite of mounting evidence of their fallaciousness. If you believe your identity depends on it, you will do crazy things to protect it…

In short those 5 forces will make you fall prey to status quo bias, the tendency of people to prefer things to stay the same by default. They cause a resistance to change and a reluctance to try new things, even when the potential benefits clearly outweigh the costs.

🎤 I've been a guest on some great podcasts (in French) 🎧 :

• Puissance Care by Pauline Trequesser

• Lundi au Soleil by Tim Le Vert

• Ma juste valeur by Insaff El Hassini

💡Check out the last articles I wrote for Welcome to the Jungle:

• Are French strikers lazy, unreasonable, or heroic? Here’s what the outside world says (in English)

• Why “bring me solutions, not problems” is a terrible corporate phrase (in English) (and also in French)

• Sommes-nous tous arrivés à notre « seuil d’incompétence » au travail ? (in French)

• Managers : 6 erreurs qui poussent vos salariés à la démission (in French)

• EBOOK with other Lab experts (in French): FUTUR DU TRAVAIL : Les 10 tendances RH qui feront 2023

📺 All “Café Freelance” shows (with Freelance.com) can be replayed on this Youtube channel 🇫🇷 Freelance, augmente ta visibilité en ligne (w. Shubham Sharma & Caroline Mignaux), Générer plus d’argent en freelance (w. Flavie Prévot & Rémi Rivas), Retraite freelance et investissement (w. Maeva & Marie Janoviez), Évitez les erreurs avec vos clients (w. Alexis Minchella & Lilas Louise Maréchaud)…

🎙️ The new season of Nouveau Départ is already full of gems. 🎧 L’ambition n’a pas d’âge (w. Frédérique Cintrat), Aux thunes, citoyennes ! Partie 1 (w. Héloïse Bolle & Insaff El Hassini), La place des femmes dans l’art (w. Céline Alix & Sandra Fillaudeau), Web3 & futur du travail (w. Flavie Prévot)… Subscribe to receive our future podcasts directly in your inbox! (in 🇫🇷)

Miscellaneous

😓 Why are so many senior women leaders considering resigning?, Cloey Callahan, Worklife, February 2023: “It’s not that women don’t want to work or hold these roles, it’s that they’re not getting the support they need from employers, to be successful and avoid burnout. Women have long been at a disadvantage in the workplace, between the gender pay gap and lack of affordable child care, and much of that was exacerbated by the challenging work conditions prompted by the coronavirus pandemic. ”

🪵 Approaching the wood. How — and why — I'm trying to understand not-knowing, Vaughn Tan, The Uncertainty Mindset (Substack newsletter), February 2023: “The alternative approach to wood actively considers the raw material (including any irregularities and imperfections) and designs in a way that profits from what is there, irregularities and all. The design is provisional, continually evolving in response to learning more about the material.”

♂️ Are Men the Overlooked Reason for the Fertility Decline?, The New York Times, Jessica Grose, February 2023: “Policies that strengthen opportunities for younger men in the labor and housing markets might be more important in increasing fertility rates than “a one-time cash incentive”…

Is there something you should quit to improve your life? If there is, I hope this newsletter can help you understand the forces that make it hard for you to do so, and overcome them. 🤗