Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away

by Annie Duke

The same grit that helped Ali become such a great champion—admired and revered almost without equal—became his undoing when it drove him to ignore signs that were obvious to anyone on the outside looking in that he should quit. That’s the funny thing about grit. While grit can get you to stick to hard things that are worthwhile, grit can also get you to stick to hard things that are no longer worthwhile. The trick is in figuring out the difference.

Success does not lie in sticking to things. It lies in picking the right thing to stick to and quitting the rest.

The second is that making a plan for when to quit should be done long before you are facing the quitting decision. It recognizes, as Daniel Kahneman has pointed out, that the worst time to make a decision is when you’re “in it.”

The desire for certainty is the siren song calling us to persevere, because perseverance is the only path to knowing for sure how things will turn out if you stay the course. If you choose to quit, you will always be left to wonder, “What if?” Just as the Sirens of mythology lured sailors toward their song, we are lured to persevering because we want to know. It’s the only way to avoid those “what ifs.” The problem, of course, is that sometimes, the siren song lures you toward a rocky shoal that breaks your ship apart. Or it leads you to your death at the top of Everest.

Quitting On Time Usually Feels Like Quitting Too Early

There is a well-known heuristic in management consulting that the right time to fire someone is the first time it crosses your mind. This heuristic is meant to get businesses to the decision sooner, because most managers are reluctant to terminate personnel, hanging on to them too long.

people were much happier when they quit what they considered a close decision, that shows that people are generally quitting too late.

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Don’t think that, just because you’ve read up to this point in the book or understand the sunk cost fallacy, this knowledge alone is going to help you overcome it. If Rubin was unable to quit, that should open our eyes to how hard it is for the rest of us. Knowing is not the same as doing.

.c1 Jeffrey rubin

A lot of people who know about the sunk cost fallacy tell me they’ve come up with a solution. Essentially, regardless of the history they have with the decision, they ask themselves, “If I were approaching this decision fresh, would I want to enter into this course of action?”

.c2 in reality this doesnt help. People still can't ignore the sunken cost.

training a monkey to juggle flaming torches. The point of this mental model is to remind you that there is no point building the pedestal if you can’t train the monkey. In other words, you ought to tackle the hardest part of the problem first.

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Ask yourself, “What are the signs that, if I see them in the future, will cause me to exit the road I’m on? What could I learn about the state of the world or the state of myself that would change my commitment to this decision?” That list offers you a set of kill criteria, literally criteria for killing a project or changing your mind or cutting your losses.