Do you know when to push forward or walk away?

Climbers heading up Everest are meant to observe a strict turnaround time; if they’re not going to make it to the summit before a certain agreed-upon time, they must turn around to avoid descending the deadly South Ridge in darkness. The problem is, most people are so set on reaching the summit (and have paid guides more than ￡40,000 to get there), turning around is seen as a failure. On May 11, 1996, Rob Hall a famous New Zealand mountaineer ignored the 2:00 pm turnaround time he had set. If you watch the documentary Everest, you’ll know that he is painted as the hero of the story. Nobody remembers the names of the three climbers who adhered to the turnaround time and survived — Lou Kasischke, John Taske, and Stuart Hutchinson. Were they quitters — or great decision-makers?

2019 London Marathon of Siobhan O’Keefe. She starts to experience pretty bad pain somewhere around mile three. On mile eight, her fibula snaps. She literally breaks her leg. She kept running all the way to the finish line in excruciating pain, obviously putting at risk the chances that she runs another marathon in her life.

Annie Duke former champion poker player knows a lot about quitting. A behavioural decision scientist, she studies people who succeed by quitting, particularly during times of uncertainty. Her own success she puts down to quitting fast, quitting often, and quitting without guilt. She says ‘the biggest winners are also the most strategic quitters’

The ability to quit when it’s the right time is bedevilled by the “sunk cost fallacy.” When we’ve invested time, energy, or money in something, it’s incredibly hard to leave it behind. The greater our past investments, the harder it is to quit. We resist quitting, even when we know it’s the right time to do so because we fear giving up a part of our identity. What will I be if I leave this thing behind? “If I quit now, I’ll have wasted my time.” That’s a sunk-cost fallacy problem. A cognitive bias. The time that you’ve already spent is gone—what matters is if you’re wasting more time by continuing with the project. “If I quit now, I’ll have wasted my time.” That’s a sunk-cost fallacy problem. The time that you’ve already spent is gone—what matters is if you’re wasting more time by continuing with the project.

Then there is the old hindsight issue: ‘if I’d only known 'X' I would have made a different decision’ – that’s hidden information revealing itself. This is where quitting becomes so incredibly valuable: the option to quit is what makes it so that we can react to new information. Even further, it also is what allows us to make decisions under uncertainty in the first place, because when we learn that new information, we have the option to quit.

A good way to build in strategic quitting is to set your goals with ‘unlesses’. I will continue to work towards 'X' unless 'Y' happens.

The Latin root for quit is quietus which means “free,” or “to put to rest, be quiet.”

I love the idea of quitting being a release from something. There is a cost to moving on and a cost to not moving on – as Warren Buffet said;“The most important thing to do if you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging.