Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away

by Annie Duke

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

Those worries we’ve projected onto others are just head trash we’re carrying around.

The lesson here is that we shouldn’t wait to be forced to find a Plan B. We should always be doing some exploration, especially because sometimes Plan B can turn out to be better than the thing you’re already pursuing.

But just because there are a lot of benefits to setting goals doesn’t mean that there isn’t a downside to them as well. As you might already suspect, clearly defined finish lines should come with a warning: Danger, you may experience escalation of commitment.

They point to numerous negative consequences of goal setting, several of which interfere with rational quitting behavior. In particular, they note the pass-fail nature of goals, their inflexibility, and how pursuing them leads to ignoring other opportunities that might be available.