Why Quitting is Hard - Emerging Nurse Leader

By Rose O. Sherman, EdD, RN, FAAN

“The American version goes like this – a quitter never wins and a winner never quits…….when done right however, there is a huge upside the quitting.” Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner

I have a nurse leader colleague who finds no joy in her work. For the past four years, her environment has become increasing more toxic. Her depression about her situation is evident to all of us who know her well. She and I have had a number of conversations about why she stays in a job that is clearly no longer the right one for her. She tells me that she is risk adverse and the prospect of something new is stressful. To quit, she believes, would indicate that she has given up. My colleague is not alone in her thinking. Quitting is hard. In their new bestselling book, Think like a Freak, authors Levitt and Dubner discuss three forces that work against us in making a decision when to quit. They also contend that there is a huge upside to quitting that people don’t consider.

Three Forces that Work Against Quitting

1. A lifetime of being told that quitting is a sign of failure.

Many of us have been brought up believing that quitting is a sign of failure. Failure is often demonized and represented as a temporary setback. If we stick it out just a little longer, better things will happen. This may be true in some situations but Levitt and Dubner argue that it is not a universal truth and most situations are not life or death.

2. The notion of sunk costs

Often we feel that we have so much invested in situations that it would be counterproductive to leave. This concept is known as sunk costs or “throwing good money after bad” instead of simply walking away. The problem with this logic is that we continue to invest ourselves, our emotions and our resources even when it is clear that something is not working.

3. A failure to consider the opportunity costs

When we consider whether or not to quit, we often think in only in terms of what we are investing in the situation. Staying in one situation means that you are potentially giving up some great opportunities to contribute and be productive if you did make a change. My friend as an example could make a substantive leadership contribution in a situation that was not toxic for her. With her current thinking, she fails to consider this nor does she realize that risk taking is part of personal growth.

As part of their work, Levitt and Dubner conducted an intriguing experiment to help people who were stuck with making a decision about whether to quit. They set up a website called Freakonomics Experiments to help people make the decision with a digital coin toss. More than 40,000 people took them up on their offer to make decisions in categories ranging from leaving a job to going back to school. 60% followed through with the decision made by the coin toss. So far, nothing in their data suggests that when the decision was to quit that it led to misery, in fact quite the contrary. Letting go of our biases about quitting can be quite liberating. The authors suggest that there are no magic bullets but quitting should be an option always on the table and might be the right one in many circumstances.

Reference

Dubner, S. & Levitt, S. (2014). Think like a freak. New York: William Morrow.