Do Yourself a Favour: Give Up

When you’re little and even when you’re not so little, you’re told that winners never quit. There are countless quotes and inspirational wall posters about winning, about persistence, about never giving up and about trying over and over again until ultimately you end up the victor.

But there are some times where quitting is the kindest thing you can do for yourself and the people around you. Not every decision that has led you to where you are right now was the right one to make in the first place and other times the circumstances around you make staying in the same place and the same situation, untenable. You change, other people change and the things we once thought we wanted become things we no longer believe in. I’ve spent a large portion of my life giving up on things. Some things I walked away from were heartbreaking, whilst others I walked away from as a weight lifted from my shoulders but until recently, giving up has made me feel like like a failure. Like most people, I’ve learned over the years, that quitting is not something that successful people do. Well today, I’m calling bullshit on that premise.

Knowing when to let go of something that no longer works for you is one of the most important skills I’ve learned about the last few years. My life is better now than it ever has been before and part of the reason for this is the hard truth that it’s better to give up when the fight is already lost than to continue fighting a battle that can never truly be won. Sometimes there is no ‘wInning’, no ‘losing’, sometimes there is just ‘What I wanted before’ and ‘What I want now.’ It’s okay to change your mind, to change your life path and to decide that something that once meant everything to you is no longer worth fighting for.

Some things I have given up on were difficult choices that took years to finally make and others hit me like a lightening bolt. Every decision to quit has changed my life forever and, ultimately, although some memories of ‘What I wanted before’ still make me sad, I have no regrets about the final choice that I made. I’ve quit each of the things below and I’m a better person because of them.

1. Give up on a job that you hate

Last year, after 6 years as a Secondary School English Teacher, I quit. I left my high paying teaching position and returned to a job I was doing 15 years ago, before I spent four years at Uni, living back with my parents working my butt off towards becoming a teacher. I left university after graduating at the top of my class with a High DIstinction average and the world at my feet. I was scooped up by a private school and began what I thought would be the last career of my life time, but after a few short years, I was drained. When I first started, I was bullied by colleague who took an immediate dislike to me, for reasons that I still do not understand and she took it upon herself to ensure that every idea I had, every suggestion I made and every method I tried was shot down in flames in front of the rest of my department.

My head teacher meant well but she was a sad and lonely women who life had not been kind to and her resounding pessimism and negativity permeated the entire department. A lifetime of smoking eventually caught up with her, and she unfortunately lost a very short battle with cancer at the end of my fifth year of teaching. I entered the teaching profession ready to make a difference but my experiences were more about school politics, overbearing parents and endless paperwork than of spending time with kids and helping them become better humans. I’ve been back in the corporate world for almost a year now; It’s stress free, I’m valued, I work with people who genuinely like me and I no longer have to play a role that isn’t what I imagined it to be.

2. Give up a long-held dream that you've outgrown

I was a single mum for ten years before I met my husband. And when I say single, I mean, there was never anyone but me in the picture. It was hard but in some ways it made single parenting easier in that I was the one who made all of the decisions. There wasn’t any bickering or disagreement between warring exes about the best way to parent, because there was no one else to disagree with. But just because there was no one to argue with, doesn’t mean that I didn’t wish there was someone else to make the decisions with me. So I had always planned to have another child, only this time I was going to do it ‘right’. I’d meet my dream man, get married have two more babies and live happily ever after.

After a few years of trying, fertility treatment, IVF cycles and a devastating miscarriage at 13 weeks, I’ve decided to quit that aspect of my future. The reality is, I’m already parenting with my husband. I’m already ‘Doing it right’. We make a perfect family of three and I don’t need to keep struggling towards a goal that has brought me more unhappiness than joy. I’ve officially retired from the baby-making game and it has been such a relief to now view the future in a whole new light and realise the endless possibilities that wait us.

3. Leave the past version of yourself in the past where it belongs

People change. It’s the opposite of what you hear most of the time, but I know for a fact that it’s true because when I think about who I was twenty years ago, I barely recognise myself. The essential elements are the same, of course, but the way that I look at the world and my place in it is completely different to the way I viewed things back then. I was a bit selfish, took people for granted, made decisions based on what I wanted and needed rather than thinking so much about other people. I also used to find it hard to say things out loud if I thought I might be judged by others. I found it difficult to admit that I was wrong, had made a bad choice or acted out of self-interest. I guess I viewed myself through a rose coloured lens and didn’t take much responsibility for the consequences of my actions.

There were plenty of great parts too, I just recognise now that our time here is limited and our impact on the world around us is more important than our own self-interest. I know I have changed over the past two decades, but I no longer feel regret or guilt about my past mistakes or the person that I used to be. Life is way too short to worry about old baggage.

4. Choose to disconnect from a friend who no longer has your back.

A few years ago, I faced a particularly heartbreaking end to a friendship that I truly thought would last forever, but in the space between then and now, I recognised that the problem was not about me. The end of our friendship came down to a single night that left my trust in her broken. Her insecurity led to a false assumption that totally destroyed my faith in her. I had relied on her and trusted her through seventeen years of a slow-growing but joyful mutual respect until an explosion of instability destroyed everything we had built. We tried to repair the trust but it didn’t take long before I pulled away from her, knowing that what we had would never be the same again.

I was devastated that it had ended but after trying my hardest to fix it and getting no where, I eventually realised that I didn’t want it anymore and I told her so. I had already drifted on and the relationship no longer brought me joy or any benefit, it just made me sad. I regret that the friendship ended but I do not regret my decision to end it. She no longer had my trust and I no longer had time and energy to spend on someone who did not respect me.

In circumstances like these, giving up can be the best way for you to move on to alternate possibilities, a new path, a better future and a healthier state of mind.