Trying So Hard I Quit

 

The day I resigned, my fiancé, Zach, (now husband) was working with an out-of-town consultant at our home office. The consultant had brought his 8 year old son, Alex.

As Zach and the consultant settled in, Alex sat on the living room couch reading a book and I rushed around feeling a bit anxious about the conversations I was heading into work to have. I printed my two-week notice as Zach, the consultant, and I reviewed my game plan, reassessed my delivery, and I took a few, much needed, deep breaths. 

This was certainly not a decision I was making lightly. It had been about a year and a half of deliberating and perseverating. My goal had been to truly determine if I was (or was not) in the right environment and intentionally try to make it work for both myself and my team. 

I rushed out the door feeling off balance yet committed and confident.

When I arrived home after work, Zach and I spent a moment together before he went to wrap up his day with the consultant. I asked Alex if he wanted to go for a walk with our puppy (Ruby) and me. On our walk Alex looked up at me and asked, "Miss Danielle, did you quit your job today?" 

Realizing he was not included in the morning conversation, but rather a fly on the wall listening to “grown-up stuff," Alex was attempting to synthesize the information he had received. 

"Yes, actually I did."

"Do you think you tried hard enough?" He asked. My eyes darted down to his eyes, my thoughts already turning defensive. But his curiosity was genuine. His eyes begged to understand and his head, tilted to the side, was of concern. In that moment all I could think about is what we tell children when they don't like something: "You haven't given it a chance." "You don't want to be a quitter." "Try harder." I realized Alex had probably told his parents he wanted to quit something - soccer, art class, trying to make friends, etc. - and was told that he hadn't been trying hard enough and he couldn't quit yet. His question was completely innocent and incrediblyimportant. 

And that's when it hit me. I didn't quit my job today. Today was the culmination of me trying really hard. 

I took a deep breath and smiled. "Actually, Alex, although I told them I quit today, I didn't decideto quit today. I worked really hard, for over a year, to try to stay and only then did I give myself permission to leave." 

I shared with him some (age relevant) stories and talked about why this decision was important. 

Alex thought through what I had said and responded, “A year is a long time to try." 

And then he saw two squirrels chasing each other up a tree, Ruby started pulling the leash towards them, and our attention shifted to lighter, funnier topics like how he got to level 8 on the coolest video game ever. 

But in my mind I was reviewing our interaction and the lessons Alex had triggered for me:

-The importance of language. 
It is important to consider the words we choose, for they carry a heavy meaning. In The Giver, Lois Lowry created a seemingly ideal world that equates a lack of language precision to a lie:

“[Jonas] had been trained since his earliest learning of language, never to lie. It was an integral part of the learning of precise speech. Once, when he had been [four], he had said, just prior to [lunch] at school, “I’m starving.” Immediately he had been taken aside for a brief private lesson in language precision. He was not starving, it was pointed out. He was hungry. […] To say ‘starving’ was to speak a lie. An unintentional lie, of course. But the reason for precision of language was to ensure that unintentional lies were never uttered.” 

The word "quit" is heavy and might not always mean what we are trying to say. Quit is defined as, “released from obligation, charge, or penalty.” Which in most cases, only tells the end of the story. The meaning in the story often comes far before the word “quit” is stated. To share the spoiler without describing the quest to reach that ending eliminates understanding, learning, empathy, and compassion.

-The importance of asking ourselves the hard questions (ones an 8-year old had no issue asking). 
I recall wanting to change jobs a year into my first job out of college. The role wasn’t what I had expected. I thought I was walking into a community based environment and instead, I spent my days mostly alone in a very messy office. The one lady who spent any time at her desk took a smoke break every hour and the messy office quickly became a messy and smelly office. Her attitude was negative and her ambition was nonexistent. I was fighting a system that wasn’t interested in progress. They were comfortable with the status quo, and I had my first grown-up, heartbreaking realization - maybe I couldn’t change the world.

My parents convinced me it would be better for my resume, and therefore my future if I stayed for at least two years. We run into this dilemma all the time - how long is long enough? The goal, of course, is to find the healthy balance between Nietzsche’s realization, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how,” and finding a how that is healthy for you that still satisfies your why.

And there is research out there that backs the idea of follow through. Angela Duckworth reminds us that long term commitment (2 years or more) develops our capacity for grit (passion and perseverance for long term goals). We know sticking with something, and the lessons we learn through those experiences strengthen us. Yet there is another layer to consider when decide to continue investing your time to a specific activity. Zvolensky, Bernstein, and Vujanovic synthesized the existing research on Distress Tolerance in their book, Distress Tolerance, Theory, Research, and Clinical Applications. They define Distress Tolerance as “the perceived or actual behavioral capacity to withstand exposure to aversive or threatening stimuli.” What they discovered is there is value in persevering through aversive or threatening stimuli… if you have the distress awareness to determine your personal distress boundaries. They use a marathon runner as an example: “A successful marathon runner must discriminate between situations in which physical pain should be tolerated and those in which it should be attended to as a sign of potential injury.” Although their example is specific to the physical, the same can be applied for other forms of distress. 

When asking yourself, “Did I try hard enough?," we have to balance our answer with the answer to, “How does this and how will this impact me mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually?” 

Interested in challenging yourself around the choice to quit? Download our “Am I Really Trying” question sheet.