The art of quitting

Leaders need the ability to quit things they’ve previously committed to. This is a struggle for me, even when the stakes are low. But I’ve noticed that some of the best decisions I’ve ever made were ones when I mustered the courage to just stop—deciding to abandon my major in Chinese language halfway through college opened up entirely new academic horizons for me.

As Annie Duke writes in her book Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away, “Quitting is the tool that allows us to react to new information that is revealed after we make a decision.” Good quitting takes practice, starting with the small stuff and beginning to develop the conviction and the confidence, while shedding the stigma, to know that not every started endeavor needs to be completed.