Are you quitting or just running away

Welcome back to how to twenty-something where today i’ll be talking to on the subject of quitting vs running away and how you can learn to tell the them apart

Because on the surface they look the same: you’ve decided to stop something and not see it through to the end, the difference lies beneath the surface

You see, there are going to be times in your life where you want to quit something

A relationship

A job

School

Some kind of long term commitment 

That when it starts to become a challenge or isn’t as easy as you thought or hoped it was going to be, you get the itch to quit

And sometimes, some circumstances call for you to do just that… quit, leave, full stop

Where it is healthier for you to leave.. But other times you’re actually better off in the long term by sticking it out and that this form of quitting is actually you running away 

I already made a whole episode on why quitters sometimes win, it was episode 102 if you want to go back and relisten to that one after you’re done with this one 

But this episode is different, in that episode 102 helps you reframe quitting as a good thing 

This one is about something harder: figuring out which kind of quitting you’re doing. Because there are two kinds. There’s quitting that’s empowering— and there’s running away. 

Like I said, from the outside, they look identical. You’re leaving. You’re done.

So the difference isn’t the act of quitting, it’s why. 

It’s tricky because they feel exactly the same. 

Both give you immediate relief. Both feel like the right call. Both consist of being done with something. So how do you know which one you’re actually doing?

At the end of the day the choice to give up or not, in the form of running away, boils down to choosing your hard

It’s either suffer now and reap the reward later, or give up now and suffer later from this decision

Now, I am in no way saying that you have to struggle through every hardship you ever encounter otherwise you’ll definitely suffer later

Because there are for sure circumstances that will come up where giving up is the better choice for you

Which is why i say telling the difference between quitting and running away is tricky

It’s the long term consequences that determine if you’re quitting for your benefit or simply choosing to run from life’s difficulties

It’s learning to put yourself in future you’s shoes

How will this decision impact the future version of you?

Not the tomorrow you, because that version will still feel the relief

It’s the version of you six months to several years down the line

The relief you feel doesn’t necessarily mean you made the right decision, that relief in the moment is solely because the hard thing stopped

The friction is gone

The real indicator comes from what’s next.. Does life open up for you? Or is the same problem going to show up in a different fashion

For example, I have a client who is in college and isn’t great at school and has essentially fed himself a narrative that if the semester isn’t perfect then he has no shot at passing his classes

So when he had a rough start to his semester he decided this imperfection of unforeseen circumstances has determined his fate for the rest of this semester

We had a lot of good conversations around what was really going on and one of the things I brought up to him was that only 20% of the semester has taken its course meaning he has the remaining 80% to turn it around

I’m not saying it’ll be easy, but I am saying that it is possible, he just has to be willing to put in the work

This is the same client that I spoke about in last week’s episode because all of this is unfolding at the time of me planning these episodes out and they’re inspiring some really good episode topics

He ended up withdrawing from his classes after his mom stepped in and gave him that option

Now, I’m not his mother, I’m his coach so all I can do is push him to what I know he’s capable of and when he doesn’t want to I then shift into okay so what’s the next plan going to be then and help him come up with a strategy so he doesn’t end up regretting this decision

But for the sake of this episode, I do believe he ran away from his problems and future him isn’t going to have these classes completed and is going to feel even further behind in his college career, potentially dissuading him from returning to school at all

Not that you have to go to school for a good future, since we all know that’s not guaranteed… but there’s deeper lessons in running away

He didn’t quit because staying was truly the wrong call. He quit because staying was hard and uncomfortable and uncertain.

Running away doesn’t make the thing disappear. It just delays it

There are going to be times in your life where you don’t want to persevere through, but in those moments it’s best to admit to yourself that you are running away and you’re okay with this decision and any repercussions that could follow

You’re an adult

You have the power of choice for the first time in your life and that’s a lot of power to have and can feel really scary at times because you don’t want to totally fuck over your future

So the best thing you can do is what I help me clients do for themselves: create a plan around this decision

This is in the form of if not this, then what

If not school, then how are you going to advance your career?

If not this job, do you have money saved up to carry you for a year until you land your next one?

If not this relationship, what happens when you have a similar experience with someone new?

If not taking care of yourself with eating right and working out, then do you have someone who can take care of you when your health starts to fail you

I get that a some of these future scenarios feel very far away, I also get that in some circumstances you have the choice to go back, like go back to school, go back to working out and eating healthy, etc

And you’re in your twenties, time is on your side.. But time won’t always be there and running away from your problems gets exhausting because you’re not actually dealing with the root difficulty

Which means it’ll just keep resurfacing

A tactic I like to use when it comes to the decision to quit something and not in the form of running away is by asking myself this question: did I try my hardest to fix what was in my control?

And if the answer is yes, then I have myself sit (or go on an unplugged walk) with the decision to leave and let my body feel into the outcomes

What else becomes possible now?

Because right now, your decision to quit is coming from a place of heightened emotion and stress where all you want is for it to go away and stop

But that’s not going to teach you anything

You need to learn how to calm your system down so your logical brain can come back online and you can shift into strategizing mode

The biggest difference to decide if you’re running away or strategically quitting is when you decide to quit with nothing else lined up

When I quit F45 last year, I knew I wasn’t running away because 

1. I stood up to the owners and voiced my needs in a very professional way
2. It was becoming more time consuming and stressful for what was so supposed to be a turn your brain off kind of job
3. I had the plan to fill the space of F45 with business endeavors

The decision to quit didn’t just bring me relief, it brought peace

I know I tried my hardest and did what was in my control and they disrespected me so much it just wasn’t worth the time and effort anymore

A good quit feels grounded even when it’s scary. A run feels frantic even when it feels like relief.

But if the only reason you’re leaving is to stop feeling uncomfortable.. Then I advise you to sit with the discomfort and think of your future self before deciding to pull the trigger

And sitting with it doesn’t mean one hour.. I’m talking a full week at minimum of truly giving something your all so you can confidently say you tried your hardest to make it work and then walk away… not run, walk

I will say the urgency to quit as a form of avoiding the hard stuff comes in two different directions.. There’s the more obvious one that has been the bulk of this episode

Where you’re running away from your problems instead of facing them which means they will present themselves again to you in the future if you don’t learn how to deal with them head on

But then there’s the other side of the conversation where you want to quit as a way to skip a few chapters ahead

I experienced this when I knew I was strategically quitting my full-time job to move to Charlotte and become self-employed in March of 2022

But in November of 2021, I was ready to quit my job and really went back and forth for a while on that decision

The reason I wanted to quit was because I was so excited about starting my own business, having my time be my own, and seeing where this new path would take me

I wanted to skip time and be there already

And this job had no carry over to my next chapter

But there were two reasons as to why I didn’t quit in November: one was my roommate had just quit her job so we would both be home all the time together and I knew that would not go over very well for me

The other reason was I had a financial goal that I hadn’t reached yet and needed those extra 5 months to hit it

Sometimes we think we’re delaying the inevitable from happening by staying somewhere and quote unquote sticking it out, but staying helps you transition into what’s next so much easier

For example, this client of mine, part of why he wants to quit school is because he said he’s delaying the what’s next question by staying

And I challenged him with two different points: the first one is there’s always going to be a what’s next question looming over you for the rest of your life

What’s the next job, who’s the next girlfriend to date, where’s the next city to move to

So yes, by staying in school you are delaying the figuring out what comes after school part.. Which I know people do as a way to avoid the adult world.. But this client was a sophomore so he wasn’t delaying what’s next with more school

Which brought me to my second point of why rush?

You have the rest of your life to be an adult, why are you rushing to jump into a full-time job right now?

You’ve been gifted the opportunity to go away to college and learn a lot about yourself and your interests and you’ll have several decades to answer what’s next

Sometimes we get so antsy about our future that we want to stop what we’re doing right now so we can start on the next chapter

What I’m telling you, is to finish what you started and set yourself up for what’s next

Like how I have another client who has decided traditional college is not for her, but her plan is finish this semester well and start cosmetology school in the fall

She’s quitting college but knows what’s next

That’s quitting in a healthy way and not quitting and running away

Both clients are in college, both are not strong in school, but one gave up without trying and one started planning if not this, then what

So if I were to break down this spectrum for you based off of everything I’ve said so far and the examples I’ve given

You fall under the healthy level of quitting when you’ve strategically planned your exit: you’ve gathered data, weighed the costs, and planned what’s next

You also fall under the healthy level of quitting when staying goes against your values.. Circumstances have changed and what’s happening does not coincide with who you are

You fall under the avoidant side of quitting when things got hard and you took it as a sign to stop

Or when you quit before you can fail from an ego perspective.. You leave on your own terms that protects your abilities 

Like leaving a relationship before it gets too serious because you’d hate for someone to leave after they got to know the real you and decided they no longer liked what they saw

So as I wrap up this episode, I want to finish on one last tip for you to take with you:

The next time you’re itching to leave a situation, honestly ask yourself are you walking away or running 

Because one of those is a decision and the other is a reaction and you need to be able to tell the difference for yourself

The honest, ugly truth about yourself

Your people are going to support you no matter what and it’s always going to feel like the right decision in the moment

But it’s not always going to be the right decision in the long term and only you will live with those consequences if you do not take the time to think this decision all the way through

And of course if you need help figuring your own shit out then that’s what I’m here for, you can always click the let’s chat link in the show notes and i’d be happy to coach you through the challenges you’re currently facing

But this does conclude this episode of how to twenty-something, if you liked what you heard, agree or disagree with what I said, or know someone who runs from their problems then please share this episode, post it on social media, send it to a friend

Just do something to help me help all of the twenty-somethings navigating the most confusing decade of their lives

And as always I can’t wait to be in your headphones again next week with another brand new episode