16. QUITTING: When is it time to let something or someone go?

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Speaker 2 Hi everybody, thanks for coming back to We Can Do Hard Things. This episode is about the power of quitting.

Speaker 2 It's about quitting as self-care and as an act of self-love and as resistance.

Speaker 2 We recorded this episode before Simone Biles stepped away from an Olympic moment in order to protect her own mental, physical, and emotional health. And judging by the world's reaction to her no,

Speaker 2 we think we're onto something with this conversation.

Speaker 2 Because the world loses its damn mind when a woman decides to abandon the world's expectations of her instead of abandoning herself.

Speaker 2 When a woman decides to disappoint the entire world before she disappoints herself. When a woman values her own experience above our experience of her.

Speaker 2 When a woman says, I am more than what you can get from me, I choose me.

Speaker 2 And judging by the response to Megan Markle's no, to Naomi Osaka's no, and to Simone Biles' no, the world especially loses it when the woman who dares to insist upon and protect her own humanity happens to be a black woman.

Speaker 2 Let's get started.

Speaker 2 Thanks for being here.

Speaker 2 Today we're going to talk about

Speaker 2 something that's near and dear to my heart, and that is

Speaker 2 quitting.

Speaker 2 I was raised by a football coach, okay?

Speaker 2 Which was interesting for my

Speaker 2 Enneagram for deeply empathic, sensitive poet soul.

Speaker 2 My sweetfather would say things to me often like,

Speaker 2 Well, if I sat down and said I was tired after school,

Speaker 2 he would say,

Speaker 2 Glennon, you can rest when you're dead.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 I was seven.

Speaker 2 Suck it up, buttercup. It's too far from your heart to hurt.

Speaker 2 All of these sort of things

Speaker 2 were my, I guess, motivational speeches.

Speaker 1 Great for a linebacker, not so great for a toddler.

Speaker 2 Right. Maybe, maybe.

Speaker 2 And then I go out of my home and venture out into the world and learn that this cultural obsession with what we have defined as toughness, resilience, never quitting is freaking everywhere, right?

Speaker 2 I mean, we hear winners never quit. Quitters never win.
That which doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Suck it up.
Never give up.

Speaker 2 All of these messages.

Speaker 1 And I don't buy it.

Speaker 2 Okay. I am here today

Speaker 2 to challenge this resilience at all costs narrative. I am here

Speaker 2 on behalf of quitting

Speaker 2 as the strong, wise thing to do quite often. Okay.
And I'm here to do it with the two toughest non-quitters on earth,

Speaker 2 Abby Wombach and Amanda Doyle. And we are calling this episode, We Can Quit Hard Things.

Speaker 2 Okay. Sister, why don't you start us off, You never, never, never quitter.

Speaker 2 Well, I

Speaker 1 was,

Speaker 1 will have you know that when you told me we were talking about this, of course, I did what I do, which is research things. And

Speaker 1 I was looking for quotes and theories about quitting. And I will let you know that your bride came up at the top of the Googles

Speaker 1 quotes about quitting. Okay, here it is.

Speaker 1 And I'm quoting an Abby voice.

Speaker 1 You must not only have competitiveness, but ability, regardless of the circumstances you face, to never quit. Oh my God.

Speaker 1 That's so funny. Yeah, it's you.
It's you. You're up there.
And then I found this quote from your bride, Abby. When asked by a journalist, how do you not quit? Glennon says, oh, I do quit.

Speaker 1 Quitting is my favorite. Every day I quit, every single day.
I wake up and I care the most amount.

Speaker 1 And then at some point, I put it all away and melt to my people and my couch and food and nothingness. And I care not at all.
Begin and quit every day. It's the only way to survive.

Speaker 2 Men, I would never start hard things if I didn't know that quitting was just on the horizon.

Speaker 2 Yep.

Speaker 1 That was your same care strategy too in the self-care episode, right? Just self-care is just constant spiritual practice of quitting. That's right.

Speaker 2 But, babe, talk to us a little bit about your incorrect statement about quitting

Speaker 2 when you were talking about how important it is to not quit. Why don't you tell us your story?

Speaker 1 Well, listen, we're all different. We all

Speaker 1 grew up in different ways, and I played sports for 30 years, right? So,

Speaker 1 and doing it at a level that quitting wasn't part of your vocabulary. But I think, I think, as it relates to any athletes, quitting, you are taught the opposite of quitting is winning, right?

Speaker 1 Quitting is, in fact, losing. You can't actually win if you quit.
You can't stay in the game. You can't stay in the practice.

Speaker 1 And what I learned over the course of my career is if I just didn't give up, I was allowed to keep playing. And I was good enough that I was allowed to keep playing.

Speaker 1 And that, I mean, I know that some people might completely disagree with me, but I believe that that mindset

Speaker 1 is the reason why I was able to win championships and play at the high level that I did for so many years.

Speaker 2 But it's you still have that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's, yeah, it's still inside of me. I can't completely get rid of it.
Like, for instance, and this is the bane of your existence, Glennon, but I fancy myself like a home fix-it person.

Speaker 2 Oh, sweet Jesus.

Speaker 1 And it's just not true. I know it's not true, but I still fancy myself that way.
i i like to think of myself as some like the lesbian who can fix

Speaker 1 like i like that i like feeling that way about myself so for an example i ordered this new griddle outdoor grill it's the craze my brother told me about it and it's a propane grill that i need now need to convert from propane to natural gas because we have a pipe that comes out of the wall Well, now I have spent

Speaker 1 probably collectively 10 hours building this thing and trying to convert it because what I've done is stripped the thread. Basically, I broke it.

Speaker 1 And I have, I'm now actually considering paying somebody to come fix it.

Speaker 2 Why do you think it is that you cannot quit those things? Like you don't, you look at a grill and it's and it's falling apart.

Speaker 2 And you say that you don't want to give up because then you feel like you've wasted all the time you put into the thing.

Speaker 1 That's a real thing. That is, so there's this

Speaker 1 idea of sunk cost. So sunk cost is basically any unrecoverable cost that you've already incurred.

Speaker 1 So say you're, you know, you're like, I'm buying software for my job and you, it's a 500 bucks and you spend a day training on it. And then you realize, oh, this isn't working.

Speaker 1 This is not going to work. You will actually

Speaker 1 want to continue using it. because you spent the money and the time on it, but it's completely irrational because you're never never going to recover that anyway.

Speaker 1 So a rational thinking is I am only going to count future costs and benefits, but that's not how we operate as people.

Speaker 1 So we will continue because of the sense of regret and feeling like a loss, even though that loss is that loss, you're never going to get it back. You incur future losses.

Speaker 1 You throw good time and good money at the already sunk cost because you will not take that loss, even though you're definitely already taking that loss and we do it in relationships we say like i can't have wasted that six years of my life i can't have but but it's all that kind of

Speaker 1 fallacy of

Speaker 2 there's some way to resurrect that loss if i just keep doing it you know it's that meme that everyone passes around that says something like, don't keep making a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

Speaker 2 I just have a different, I really, really have a very different idea about quitting. And I, I know, babe, that I'm not, I was never an Olympian.

Speaker 2 So there's, this might be one of the reasons that I was never an Olympian.

Speaker 2 But I respect your point of view on quitting. I get it.
I see the beauty that comes from that way of life.

Speaker 2 For me, I've been thinking a lot about why I believe so much in quitting as a really strong thing to do sometimes.

Speaker 2 And I think it's because so much of my life, I came to life because of a big quit, right? I mean, people who

Speaker 2 face a rock bottom in their life, like a major mental health crisis,

Speaker 2 often have this gift. Okay.
This gift comes with major breakdown, which is that you are one of the only humans who are lucky enough to be taught how to be human. It's like so many people

Speaker 2 never have the gift of everything falling apart and saying, oh, I can't do life. Help me.

Speaker 2 People who go into recovery like I did, you know, tend to have programs and groups and therapy that teaches you how to be human, which we don't teach people in school. I was a third-grade teacher.

Speaker 2 I remember, you know, teaching ancient Egypt hieroglyphics for six months, but never being like, here is a feeling, here is a boundary, here is what inevitably will happen when you're being human, right?

Speaker 2 So,

Speaker 2 so, you know, I learned that

Speaker 2 quitting for me meant means and meant, it's like the ultimate responsibility to me.

Speaker 2 It's like the ultimate living responsibly because through almost dying from addiction, I learned nobody's going to handle my shit for me. Like I almost died.
Like

Speaker 2 nobody is going to look at my life and say, that's not working for you. That's not working for you.
Nobody is going to protect me except for me.

Speaker 2 So when something stops working for me, right? When something actually starts to affect my peace, it's my responsibility to stop it and start something else.

Speaker 2 It's like the definition of the word responsible, meaning able to respond, right? Like when something, my job as a sober person is to protect my peace.

Speaker 2 And so when something, whether it's a relationship or a job or a way of life or an idea that threatens that stability for me,

Speaker 2 my job is to respond and get rid of it. So quitting for me feels like a powerful

Speaker 2 thing to do. What about you, sister? Well,

Speaker 1 I just think the quitting is such a fascinating

Speaker 1 word. It's like both over inclusive and under-inclusive.
I mean, we use quitting for

Speaker 1 eliminating from our lives really, really harmful things. You know,

Speaker 1 you quit smoking, you quit drinking, you

Speaker 1 quit binging, all of these things. And then we also use it for,

Speaker 1 you know, for

Speaker 1 jobs and for

Speaker 1 things that are, that are irresponsible. You know, she, she promised to do that for me and then she just quit.

Speaker 1 She probably, so, so it's this kind of word that doesn't make any sense when we apply it to everything.

Speaker 1 I just wish there were different words to use for a positive, you know, congratulations, you let go of that thing that wasn't working for you.

Speaker 1 And then another one that was, you really let yourself or other people down by not

Speaker 1 sitting with your discomfort enough to, to fulfill that for yourself. I mean, it just seems like it's an odd, it's an odd word.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 but, and so

Speaker 1 I was thinking about that and I looked it up and the Latin origin of that, of the word quit is quietus and it actually means to set free.

Speaker 1 So it's to be free and clear of something and it also the other origin of the word is calm and resting.

Speaker 1 So we we took the idea of quitting and then it was only 700 years later where it started having this negative connotation and that

Speaker 1 not to my mind coincidentally was during the Industrial Revolution where

Speaker 1 and it started to be like like quitting time. That means there we go, being free of work, being free, it's your resting time.
It's quitting time from your job.

Speaker 1 And then it started to have this negative connotation at that point. So I feel like since that point, it's been like, what a quitter.
What a, you know, it's bad.

Speaker 2 Quitters are for quitters are losers. That's when that came in because what you're saying is that when we became, when our worth as human beings became tied to productivity,

Speaker 2 it became important for the cultural idea to be never stop. And if you stop, you're a loser.
And if you keep going at all costs to your body, to your relationships, to anything, you're a winner.

Speaker 1 Right, right. If capitalism is the relentless pursuit of productivity, any

Speaker 1 resting or being free from work is a loser's way of doing things.

Speaker 2 Amazing. What is your personal relationship?

Speaker 1 with quitting i think i have a very complicated well i think i have a i mean i see what you're saying because much to the way that you're saying your ultimate responsibility is not accepting if you continue to do this it will work out well i feel like i have kind of i have this um

Speaker 1 i have maybe swallowed that promise of if you show up if you work hard if you push through pain if you can see it all the way through things will work out and that is not necessarily true but i think that i have kind kind of prided myself on that and I've stayed in some shitty situations because of it.

Speaker 1 But I think there's also this very, very gray area, which is,

Speaker 1 for example, when I was working at the law firm and I was so freaking miserable and I

Speaker 1 and I remember I hated it so much.

Speaker 1 And you

Speaker 1 and mom, I feel like once a month would have this kind of like intervention with me and tell me to quit.

Speaker 1 And I remember just being so annoyed and frustrated by that because I, I was like, I am doing a thing here. I know what I'm doing.
I am staying here because I am paying off my loans.

Speaker 1 I am setting myself up to have the future freedom to do what I want to do. I'm taking care of my future self right now, even at the expense of my current self.
And that actually,

Speaker 1 I don't know if that's a story I'm telling myself, but I do believe when I look at my life that

Speaker 1 that did afford future self to freedom to myself. I was setting myself free in the future in a way that had I just quit in that moment,

Speaker 1 I think I would still be tethered in to so many debts and not have the freedom I have right now. So I think it's complicated.

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Speaker 2 Do you feel that that every advantage also becomes a disadvantage for our

Speaker 2 in our lives? Like, do you feel that that theory that you have about your future, your present self's job is to prepare and work for your future self.

Speaker 2 Do you see that to not quit, no matter what your present self is saying to you, what your mind is saying, your feelings, your intuition, your body, your people,

Speaker 2 no matter what they're saying to you,

Speaker 2 you carry on because in some way this will bring great reward to your future self. At what point does your present self ever get to be happy?

Speaker 1 Correct. That is, so this is my

Speaker 1 ultimate, this is my existential fear of my entire existence, which is that

Speaker 1 I love so much building a life that I don't ever live inside of one. So I have this kind of

Speaker 1 horizon

Speaker 1 view of life where I am always thinking,

Speaker 1 what is going to be the next thing? What am I setting myself myself up for? I'm, I am so fixated on that thing and how to get there that I never actually arrive there.

Speaker 1 I, and I never, because then I'm fixated on the next thing and I am, I am not seeing any part of the journey. And I'm not talking about enjoy every moment like Jesus.

Speaker 1 I'm talking about just even experiencing any of the of it.

Speaker 1 or ever having any gratification in any of the episodic arrivals of what I had been pursuing because then it's just the next thing and the next thing and the next thing.

Speaker 2 It reminds me of our great-grandfather, the story about our grandfather who

Speaker 2 never took a day off of work, right? Remember, dad would tell us a story who never ever took a day off of work so that one day he could travel with his wife, right?

Speaker 1 He wanted to retire a couple of years earlier. He was storing them all up so he and

Speaker 1 he and my grandma could travel. Yep.
And then what?

Speaker 1 Oh my god.

Speaker 1 And they never

Speaker 2 traveled.

Speaker 1 That is like the saddest thing.

Speaker 1 And you know what, sister, I think I, before I got sober, I had the opposite problem where I was just trying to live so much in the present that I didn't want to think about anything into the future.

Speaker 1 And like, maybe there is some sort of middle ground here, right? Where we're making days. that are going to positively affect our future somehow.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 I feel like you and I have opposite problems that if we just, if we smush together, we could become a perfect person.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Well, I mean, it's interesting.
It's like that. I think it's Annie Dillard who said,

Speaker 2 how we spend our days is how we spend our life.

Speaker 2 Like, we think about,

Speaker 2 you know, everybody's always saying, how do you avoid deathbed regret? Like, that's what you're saying, sister. It's like, how do you,

Speaker 2 what if one day on my deathbed, I regret never having lived this life that I'm so desperately trying to build constantly and I'm so good at building.

Speaker 2 And the only way that I can think of to avoid deathbed regret is to avoid bedtime regret, right? Which is

Speaker 2 trying to spend part of your days aligned with

Speaker 2 what you love.

Speaker 1 Well, it's true. And it's, so this is something that I just learned today.
And I am, okay, I'm wondering if this is going to freak you out with delight as much as it freaks me out. Probably not.

Speaker 1 But I'm so excited. I was thinking about this horizon thing and like, what the hell is wrong with me? Okay, this is what I learned.

Speaker 1 If, so if quitting is about, if quitting is the opposite of striving. Okay.
So you're continuing to strive for things. We view quitting as this kind of that's going to buy us happiness, right?

Speaker 1 Positing the idea of quitting as if I am having a terrible experience, the quitting of it will release me from that terrible experience. I'm not sure.
That is, first of all, big question mark.

Speaker 1 I mean, like everyone has this fantasy of I'm going to quit my job and I'm going to move to Bali and I'm just going to like

Speaker 1 ride in a canoe or something, whatever the hell your fancy.

Speaker 2 It doesn't work. I've moved everywhere.
That's the destination life. That's like the tragedy of wherever you go, there you are.

Speaker 1 So go ahead to see. Right.

Speaker 1 But that, I feel like that's an important part of the quitting, whatever the fantasy we're holding up is, it assumes that it's going to be good for us, that it's going to get, you know, so hey, maybe not.

Speaker 1 I don't know. But there, okay, so there is, um,

Speaker 1 so there is this concept called hedonic adaptation. Okay, just bear with me for a second.
It's this idea that

Speaker 1 we adapt. So,

Speaker 1 it's the idea that we have this baseline level of happiness, okay, that we return to. Okay, it doesn't matter the awesome or terrible things that happen to us.

Speaker 1 That there is only so 50% of our total happiness is sheer genetics chemical makeup.

Speaker 2 That

Speaker 1 to me is like, that might be like depressing to some people. That is such a freaking relief.
It's like all this idea of that like, I am just one decision and one achievement away from happiness.

Speaker 1 And that that's literally not true, that I'm never going to be, I'm literally just going to be as happy as I am. And only 10% of happiness is due to circumstances.

Speaker 1 So there's this like 40% that's within our control, okay, that we could like change something about our lives.

Speaker 1 But it's that everything that we do, including quitting your job, you have the fantasy of quitting your job, you have the fantasy of not being married to this person, it's going to change your life.

Speaker 1 Okay, maybe, but actually, you just adapt that level of happiness into yourself and you reacclimate.

Speaker 1 And then the next thing,

Speaker 1 you acclimate that, your like emotional self

Speaker 1 metabolizes that, and you end up the exact same level of happiness.

Speaker 2 Interesting. Okay, I feel that you are someone who has done some research to support your theory that quitting is not going to be helpful.
I

Speaker 2 hear you.

Speaker 2 I feel like I want to get into what one of the things that I want to ask you all, which is to think about some of you, the best quits or the best non-quits in your life, right?

Speaker 2 I actually have made a few quits that I know dramatically affected my joy and freedom and power and peace. I don't know about happiness.
I don't know what that is.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 2 certainly I would say quitting drinking, right, was the biggest, most important quit of my life. And like all important quits, I never think of it really as quitting.

Speaker 2 I think of it as starting something else. like starting down this path of sobriety.

Speaker 1 Which I think is important, babe, to talk about the actual word itself

Speaker 1 and like

Speaker 1 how we use it. Actually, you might not even need to use the word quit, right? Like, so I think that it's got free from.
You got free from. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And every person has to define what that means for them because quit might mean the complete opposite from one person to the next. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So I like that. Okay.
So I freed myself from alcohol so that I could start living deeply.

Speaker 2 Leaving a broken marriage, right, was one of the best and most important and empowering quits of my life.

Speaker 2 I just remember being constantly so angry at my ex-husband, even after all the healing that we had done,

Speaker 2 and, you know,

Speaker 2 obsessing about the infidelity and so much more. And I remember one morning thinking, the track in my head was, how could he do this to me? How could he have done this to me?

Speaker 2 How could he have done this to me? That was in my head over and over again. And suddenly it just switched to, wait, how could I do do this to me

Speaker 2 like he's it's he's done and dusted like everything he's there's nothing else he can do to undo that i'm the one who continuously is choosing this every single day i'm the one who's not being responsible to my own joy and my own peace and my own so that's right you know i mean babe you i think rethinking the ending of a marriage i think is interesting we were talking to your friend recently

Speaker 2 and she was reporting that one of your mutual friends had was going through a divorce and we we were all sitting at a little table and you said oh my god that's so sad

Speaker 2 that's so sad i feel so bad for her

Speaker 2 and i just remember looking at you and just being like i just want to rethink that compulsory reaction to divorce yeah like actually

Speaker 2 you know in some ways divorce is like

Speaker 2 always

Speaker 2 good because it's like clearly it was bad clearly the relationship was bad like nobody wakes up in the morning is like you know what what the hell we're bored let's get divorced that's just like the end of a long you know suffering struggling road and they say that it wouldn't end unless it was hard and bad because otherwise it wouldn't end right so sometimes you know i just remember thinking looking at you and and and that reaction we were all a compulsory reaction oh it's so sad and thinking what if this is not sad at all like what if this is the most strong hopeful creative triumph that this woman has ever had.

Speaker 2 Especially the beginning of her life.

Speaker 1 Especially coming from me, somebody who has literally had the positive experience of divorce. Like,

Speaker 1 it's so ingrained in us. I've had the positive experience of divorce of like leaving a marriage, you leaving a marriage, and us finding something better and more true and beautiful.

Speaker 1 How could, and it's because it's so deep in all of us, this like, this narrative that we have about divorce. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Stay even if you're miserable. Stay even if you're

Speaker 2 staying is winning. Quitting is losing.
Not my lived experience.

Speaker 2 Right. What about you all? What are your,

Speaker 2 and by the way, let's mention that so much of this,

Speaker 2 so much of this quitting, ability to leave a job, ability to leave a relationship, ability to leave a toxic community, ability to, is so much based on privilege. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Right. I was, I was able to leave that marriage because I had savings, because I had people helping me, because I was able, even, you know, I was thinking about this last night.

Speaker 2 Even quitting alcohol and drugs is based on privilege. Yep.
I mean, I had access to therapy. I had a car to get me to recovery meetings.

Speaker 2 Yes. Sister, what's a good quit of yours? Or Abby, do you want to go? Cause you were just talking about marriage.
Like,

Speaker 2 tell us a quitting story.

Speaker 1 Well, I mean, obviously, I feel like I'm a middle in between you and sister, like sister's hardcore never quit mentality. You're like, quit every day.

Speaker 1 I have learned lessons from both of these mentalities and have had positive reinforcements. And quite frankly, I think the reason why I was such a really

Speaker 1 big alcoholic is because I really, I was really a refuser of quitting.

Speaker 1 I was really righteous about this. Like, don't ever quit.

Speaker 1 But when I dropped that narrative and I stepped into sobriety, it's the thing that I think I'm the most proud of in terms of moving beyond. You know, that was a season of my life.

Speaker 1 And I don't really love thinking about the regrets of my life. The truth is, is I believe that we, our lives are our decisions and what we do.
And

Speaker 1 quitting drinking was the thing that impacted my life the most.

Speaker 1 I was going through a really weird time that I quit playing soccer and I quit traveling the world. I quit representing my country.

Speaker 1 I quit being a teammate. I quit a marriage.
I quit drinking all like within like a five-month period of my life.

Speaker 1 And had I not done all of those things, Glennon,

Speaker 1 I met you like a month later. I think we would have missed each other.

Speaker 1 And so I attribute so much of my happiness now

Speaker 1 to

Speaker 1 moments where my life wasn't working for me in the way that it was presenting itself. And I had to make choices.
And some of those choices involved quitting things that weren't serving me.

Speaker 1 And because of that, I was able to like actually meet you where you were.

Speaker 1 So yeah, I've had some really good, good experiences with quitting.

Speaker 1 So I, and I see you actually, one of the, you model it for me so often every night when like you power down and you you run out of Glennon.

Speaker 1 I love that because I'm like, oh, yeah, like we've had a day. Like we could chill.

Speaker 2 Right. Great time.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I love it.

Speaker 2 What about you, sister?

Speaker 1 Well, I will good quits or bad quits. I will just one, one decide.
Abby just talked about meeting you.

Speaker 1 I think in defense of not quitting, I would like to mention that the day you were scheduled to fly to the convention in which you met Abby for the first time, you did call me from the gate saying,

Speaker 1 Please, I am, you are my sister. You are my manager.
What I am asking to do, and what I need you to do is tell me that I do not have to get on this plane. My body is tired.
I do not want to go.

Speaker 1 I am done.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Okay. I'll just say that.
I'll just say it out. In defense of not quitting.

Speaker 2 Thank you. As you deposit that, I would like to.

Speaker 2 What is it when I try to undo the posit you just made? I would like to deposit this.

Speaker 1 Deposit.

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Speaker 1 That is

Speaker 2 so interesting because when I think about that moment when I called you, I think I was like crying. I mean, I was so upset.
I was so upset. And by the way, it was the first stop on my book tour.
Like,

Speaker 1 it was like you're in. What?

Speaker 2 It was the beginning. I know, but listen, I know what was happening at that point when I

Speaker 2 was about to go on a

Speaker 2 nationwide book tour to tell a story that I wasn't sure in my bones that I believed.

Speaker 2 I was about to tell the Love Warrior story, which was about the redemption of my marriage.

Speaker 2 And I didn't know really at the end of the day if it was redeemed or if I was just like forcing it to be real. So my body does when the ways that I know.

Speaker 2 That I have to stop something, that something is not serving me is first I get really bitter and angry and defensive and nasty. I'm mad at everybody else.

Speaker 1 I can agree to this.

Speaker 2 Yes, for making me do things.

Speaker 2 So this is stage one in which I have forgotten that I am a grown-up and responsible for my own life and no one else is responsible for my life.

Speaker 2 And everyone will always ask me to do a million things and no one will save me but me. Okay.
So I forget and I'm mad at everyone else for not taking care of me.

Speaker 2 And then if I don't handle my business, soon enough, my body starts shutting down. I start getting totally exhausted.
I start getting, right, right, babe? Yep.

Speaker 2 My, I will just, so I believe that that moment in that airport was like my body starting to reject

Speaker 1 the

Speaker 2 what was coming. But thank God, sister, you football coached me up.

Speaker 2 You told me no guts, no glory.

Speaker 2 It was time for a Hail Mary pass or something. I don't know, but I got on the damn plane.
Thank God.

Speaker 1 Hey, a Hail Mary pass. Right.
See, that's, by the way when

Speaker 2 oh you're mary mary mary abigail wombach okay sister can you just tell us a story about maybe a good quit or a bad quit or something a quitting story right well i think no doubt the the if the being free from the best being free from was

Speaker 1 stopping my lifestyle of binging and purging because that was just so all consuming. It was,

Speaker 1 I wouldn't be doing anything with my life if I were still doing that. Um,

Speaker 1 and then I think, um, and leaving

Speaker 1 being free of my marriage was another great one. I mean, these, none of these are in the quote unquote quit areas.

Speaker 1 They're just things to get free from that we are very, that we had a prior commitment to to pursuing.

Speaker 1 I think we view quitting as this random, like it's either people or jobs or, or substances, where I feel like the, the work that could, that I could do most dramatically on my life are kind of quitting my commitment to ways of thinking about things.

Speaker 1 Oh, amen.

Speaker 2 Like what?

Speaker 1 Well, you know, like that idea of like constantly striving, like the thing, the happiness is just one, you know,

Speaker 1 once I start, once I start saving a hundred bucks a month for college, for my kids' college, I'll feel financially secure.

Speaker 1 Once I start, um, you know, once I fold all this laundry, my head will be in order. Once I, you know, just all, I mean, and then the longer-term ones, because that's that same

Speaker 1 because that leads to lack of rest, that leads to lack of freedom.

Speaker 1 It's like so much is ingrained in our commitment to continuing to believe and think with a certain framework that I think that the quitting, the setting free from, is so much more expansive than the way we think about it.

Speaker 1 Sometimes I think that the relationship and the jobs are false,

Speaker 1 they're a little bit like false prophets. Like if we, we are deeply sad.

Speaker 1 And that's why I will continue to go back to my hedonic theory, because I do think that we, that, that it is true that they said that the, that, the ways that you impact happiness, like we think if we leave our job or some marriages, yes, you need to leave.

Speaker 1 Leaving my job was one of the best decisions I ever made, my other job. But

Speaker 1 I also think that A, when you're in it and deciding to leave, are you taking,

Speaker 1 you know, is that in

Speaker 1 support of yourself?

Speaker 1 Are you going to have the maximum freedom for yourself after? And then B, I think that they're kind of, we think, those are like the easy buttons in some ways.

Speaker 2 Yes. So I think when you say that, I think of when you said, if I quit my job, like every job, my job is too stressful.
Everything's too stressful. This is too hard.

Speaker 2 My job, my, my dream is to quit my job and become a gardener in

Speaker 1 Bali.

Speaker 2 Like you would be the most stressed out, overproductive Bali gardener that ever existed.

Speaker 2 You would ruin your freaking Balinian life. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I would ever be. Like kicked out of Bali.
Yes. Yes.

Speaker 2 That's correct. So, so, because the problem there would be that you switched the outer part of your life without switching the inner belief system

Speaker 2 that that will make you bring that striving self to whatever situation you're in. And you're not, you're just rearranging chairs on the Titanic.

Speaker 1 And I think that that's liberating.

Speaker 2 I think, I mean, for anyone who's listening to this, that's like me,

Speaker 1 please find the liberation in this theory. It's that like, I always thought I have all these wonderful things.
I have all the ingredients of

Speaker 1 a happy life, of a life that for someone who should be very happy and grateful, but yet I am not happy and grateful and there is something deeply broken about me. But then I think, no, guess what?

Speaker 1 If the science is telling me, I just, whatever your universe is, you acclimate to it and it becomes your new baseline. Okay.

Speaker 1 So there's not something wrong with you that you're not feeling this deep abiding sunshine worth of gratitude all the time. That the only things

Speaker 1 that are,

Speaker 1 you're constantly looking for the next thing. So the only things that actually

Speaker 1 are susceptible to, to not this, the hedonic adaptation are just a few things. And one of them is this idea of gratifications.

Speaker 1 If you can find something that is challenging for you that you get lost in,

Speaker 1 that is something that doesn't, it doesn't metabolize. Like you can keep doing it.

Speaker 1 And also the experiences, like what you're saying about quitting and actually living in your experiences and being grateful for it.

Speaker 1 And I also think that one of the reasons that I have gratitude for my marriage and my job are because I had a super shitty marriage and a super shitty job.

Speaker 1 Like I can compare those things in a way that gives me gratitude because I having had them.

Speaker 2 Yes, for everyone who's going through shit. Like it's the idea of nobody enjoys the sun more than somebody who was in the rain for a really, really long time.

Speaker 2 That is, Abby and I talk about that all the time. I mean, we are so grateful for having had first marriages that did not serve us because we wake up grateful every day,

Speaker 2 right? I mean, I'm grateful to be in California right now after my, our kids are so grateful.

Speaker 2 Every time we walk by Pride Flag, every time we see, you know, different sorts of people, like we just feel

Speaker 2 grateful in a way that people who have lived here for a long time probably would think was wild, but it's because of where we came from, right? That makes,

Speaker 2 um, and you know, this idea of forcing time into our lives to quit producing and enjoy, you know, I'm such a Bible nerd, you know, that I just learned this so early.

Speaker 2 It's in the rhythm of creation, right? It's like the poem in the Bible about like how anything gets made. It's like you work, you work, you work, and then you stop.
and you rest and you call it good.

Speaker 2 And you don't stop and rest and call it good because you like ran out of Red Bull. And it's, you stop and rest and call it good because,

Speaker 2 because

Speaker 2 it's part of the creative process, right? That is part of it. It's not breaking from creating.
It's part of it.

Speaker 2 It's like this idea that the potential for the next thing is all in the stillness and the quiet and the enjoyment of this, of this moment right now.

Speaker 1 That's good. Right.

Speaker 2 And if we don't look at what we've made and we don't look at our lives and our people and soak them in,

Speaker 2 then we're like our grandfather who's just saving up for one day.

Speaker 1 Well, and you have to enjoy your people. You have to examine the narrative that you have of yourself and the definitions that you have around this idea of quitting, right?

Speaker 1 Like, I mean, sister, I think that what you said is so profound. You too, Gwen,

Speaker 1 like the stillness and the quiet helps you recover so that you can begin again tomorrow.

Speaker 1 And then the idea of like, the idea of changing your thoughts around stuff, like and quitting those things are doable. Like, this is what I think is so important

Speaker 1 as a recovered person. I had to actually recreate a narrative of myself, like that I was and could be a sober person

Speaker 1 before I ended up being a sober person.

Speaker 1 Like it happened in a very short period of time sitting in jail after my DUI, but like

Speaker 1 I had to like create that narrative for myself real quick and be like, wait, I have to be a sober person now. That's, that's my path.

Speaker 1 And that first, like, you can do that work and you don't have to tell anybody about it, right? That's the beauty of like changing your life or quitting things.

Speaker 1 It's not, you're not like buying a ticket into a new life until you actually start doing it, but you can do it privately first.

Speaker 2 I love that. You guys are making me think about the idea of quitting being internal before it's even external.

Speaker 2 Okay, let's jump on to some hard cues. I'm going to read one first and then we'll get into some voicemails, but I liked this write in.

Speaker 2 How do we know

Speaker 2 when we're quitting because it's wrong for us or just because it's hard for us?

Speaker 1 So the question is, do I want to become free of this thing because this thing is hard for me? Or do I want to become free of this thing because this thing is not for me? It is wrong for me.

Speaker 1 That's the question.

Speaker 2 Well, I think you just answered the question. Yeah, I think so so too, actually.

Speaker 2 I mean, I think maybe the way we know, because I want to quit things, I will say, I want to quit things often that I do not quit. I mean, there's, I,

Speaker 2 writing a book is hard. Raising kids is hard.
Like staying sober is hard. There are things that I continue to do every day, even when I want to quit.

Speaker 2 So how do I know whether the thing I want to quit is correct to quit?

Speaker 2 Because do, how do I know whether it's just, whether it's wrong for me or or hard for me and i think the answer is what you just said sister you ask yourself this question which is what was it again

Speaker 1 do i want to be free of this thing because it is a hard thing for me or do i want to be free of this thing because it is the wrong thing for me that's so good that's so good also when you think about a quit or pivot or whatever we want to call it or freeing ourselves from something, does it feel like joy?

Speaker 2 Like, does it feel lighter? Does it feel happy? Or does it feel like a loss?

Speaker 1 I think that in

Speaker 1 my, to answer the question, because I'll do it. I like to think five years down the road.
And what kind of person do I want to be in five years down the road?

Speaker 1 And how can that person incite some of or inform some of the decisions that I'm making today?

Speaker 2 That's amazing. I think the opposite.

Speaker 1 I want to be a person who has run a marathon. Like, that's what I'm thinking about right now.

Speaker 1 And every single day when I'm running these programs and this training program that I'm doing, I want to stop running.

Speaker 1 I want to not run anymore, but I want to be a person in a few years that has ran a marathon. So I'm going to keep able to endure those moments where I do want to give up.

Speaker 1 Because I also think managing what you know is good for you and figuring out what is good for you is really important to deciphering kind of the answer to this question.

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Speaker 2 okay let's move on to Sarah

Speaker 3 my name is Sarah I'm leaving a stable government job this month to pursue my career in art it's something that's taken a lot of time for me to realize that this is what I want want to do and I'm excited about it, but I'm mostly terrified and overwhelmed and feeling like I'm not fully ready or fully established enough to do this.

Speaker 3 But I also feel that it's necessary and I know that I need to take risk and jump in both feet.

Speaker 3 I'm just having a hard time trusting myself and trusting the people that are offering me their help. So I'm wondering if you're able to speak to any of these feelings.

Speaker 3 Thanks so much, and I hope you all have a good day. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 That's so cool, by the way.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Oh, wow.
So brave.

Speaker 1 So brave. It's so interesting that she's kind of framing it as like she's quitting her job.
So could she, should she quit her job or should she not quit?

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 the truth is it by

Speaker 1 if she stayed in her job, she'd also be quitting in a way, because she said that she's been excited excited and preparing and her heart wants this art thing for so long

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 that she'd be quitting that if she stayed at her job so it's just like a different way of framing it to say which which one do you want to quit sarah it sounds like it sounds like you're deciding that being free of the one allows you to not quit the other and that sounds amazing Let's just frame everything that way, sister.

Speaker 2 Like let's frame every decision as it's quitting either way. So you quit the job or you quit your dream of art.
Like which quit?

Speaker 2 Which quit? So it's like when people say, you know, I

Speaker 2 want to leave this toxic relationship, but it just, it's too hard. It's too hard to leave.
And it's like, well, isn't it hard to stay?

Speaker 2 Like, it's hard either way. Are you going to quit the relationship? Are you going to quit your idea that you deserve to be loved well?

Speaker 1 Right. Right?

Speaker 2 It's like, I'm too scared to say the hard thing, and it's like, yeah, saying the hard thing and rocking the boat is hard, but so is you know, swallowing it and slowly dying inside.

Speaker 2 So, which heart are you gonna pick? So, Sarah,

Speaker 2 we

Speaker 2 we can do hard things.

Speaker 2 I think you picked the right quit.

Speaker 1 Also, just a note on her saying that she's not fully ready or she doesn't know if she has enough experience. I would say, Sarah, be like a man

Speaker 1 and assume,

Speaker 1 assume that you are qualified and ready and prepared for all the things. I mean,

Speaker 1 I forget what the statistic is.

Speaker 1 It's like after reading qualifications for a job, it's something like 41% of women will not apply for it because they've read the qualifications and they have deemed themselves unqualified.

Speaker 1 Whereas with the people with the exact same level of qualifications who are men will say, yeah, good, I got it. So don't, don't call yourself out.
You are more than ready. No one's ever 100% ready.

Speaker 1 Go get it and then share your art with us. Yeah.
And being terrified, being terrified, just know this because I quit my job five years ago. Being terrified is a constant for a pretty long while.
So

Speaker 1 it's just, nobody says that. Like, I think that that's like such a disservice that we give people.
Oh, yeah, like just focus on the positive. Like you're going to be terrified.

Speaker 1 You're probably going to feel really overwhelmed and you're probably going to question this choice for a while, no matter what.

Speaker 1 And so, just like settle into that and just expect that, because if you can expect that, goodness will come. It just will, I just know it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's the right kind of hard, right? Kind of hard. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Um, okay, let's move on to

Speaker 2 Bridget.

Speaker 4 Hi there, Lisa, Bridget.

Speaker 4 Um, Brennan, thank you for doing everything that we do.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 what I've been struggling with lately is all the change with my teenage daughters. The big one that has shown up for us is my younger daughter is a junior.

Speaker 4 She plays club soccer, has played her whole life since she was six years old.

Speaker 4 She is on a nationally ranked team. We live in Michigan and her team won State Cup two years in a row.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 she wants to quit in her final year,

Speaker 4 her senior year of club soccer.

Speaker 4 And I tried to beg her, I tried to punish her, I tried to bribe her, and she is just really digging in her heel

Speaker 4 that she doesn't enjoy it anymore. And I know

Speaker 4 that that is tough for her to do and it's probably the right thing.

Speaker 4 for her to do is quit, but I just am so entrenched in this life right

Speaker 4 and I feel embarrassment and a little bit of shame with all those soccer parents and not being a part of that

Speaker 4 group anymore.

Speaker 4 So I really just appreciate some words of this so much. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 So Abby, I think as the soccer resident expert, you might want to jump in. I just want to say real quick that I love Bridget's honesty.

Speaker 2 I love that she freaking admitted that she bribed and threatened her child. I mean, Bridget,

Speaker 2 yes to that kind of honesty. Yes to admitting that sometimes it's like you don't want your kid to quit something because it's your life that they're messing up.
Just yes to Bridget.

Speaker 1 Abby, what do you think?

Speaker 1 Well, I'm all for

Speaker 1 kids and girls, especially to play sports. I think that it's breakthrough for so many things.

Speaker 1 It gives it gives little girls and however you fall in the gender lines, it gives young kids more confidence, self-esteem, all of those things.

Speaker 1 But if she doesn't like it,

Speaker 1 she doesn't like it. You can't force your kid to do something because it's giving you an identity.
Like that's just, we can't be living vicariously through our kids in that way.

Speaker 1 You know, when our kids do something great, I really force myself to say, I'm so happy for you because

Speaker 1 it separates myself and my impact with them and their

Speaker 2 whatever it is that we're selling because when we say because when we say i'm proud of you then they think oh i got to keep doing this thing to make my mom proud yeah to me i think what i hear bridget saying is that they've been through a lot with this decision doesn't sound impulsive it sounds like she has you know gone through a lot of checking to make sure that that her daughter is saying this is the wrong thing for her and not just a hard thing for her.

Speaker 2 And it sounds like her daughter knows what she wants. I mean, we think all the time about,

Speaker 2 you know, maybe looking to the future, maybe looking to the future and deciding

Speaker 2 what Bridget wants her little girl or her big girl to be basing her decisions upon.

Speaker 2 And if this girl is willing to disappoint

Speaker 2 her team, disappoint her mother,

Speaker 2 disappoint all of these people so that she doesn't disappoint herself.

Speaker 1 I can't imagine how hard it is for Bridget.

Speaker 1 I mean, I'm just, my heart is in knots thinking about the actual real grief and mourning that you would have when, whenever you have, you know, it's hard not to dream through your kids.

Speaker 1 When we're being totally honest, we have these dreams for them. We see them.

Speaker 1 We see their

Speaker 1 10 years ahead self, just like we see our 10 years ahead self. I think it's really, I think there's a major loss there in terms of what they've been building, what the

Speaker 1 community they've been building, the fear that will she regret it? Should I make her? Because maybe this is her gift and I'm allowing her to, I'm allowing her to step away from her gift.

Speaker 1 And will she come back in five years and say, why did you let me give that up? I was so good. That was my thing.
So I just think I understand why it's so hard.

Speaker 1 And I understand why it's a deep grieving process for

Speaker 1 losing your dream on behalf of your kid and letting them have their own dream instead.

Speaker 1 That's, that's really, I think, probably hard and probably like the whole crux of parenting, letting your kids have the life they choose rather than the life that you were building and

Speaker 1 already attached to that you had planned for them.

Speaker 1 And you know what we say?

Speaker 2 You know what we say, babe? My job as your parent is to help you create the truest, most beautiful life you can imagine. So here is the truest, most beautiful life I have imagined for you.

Speaker 2 Let's go get it.

Speaker 1 I'm going to, I'm going to do everything I can to make all my dreams for you come true.

Speaker 2 That's exactly what you please join my dreams for you.

Speaker 1 The paradox of this, too, is that Bridget wants to have raised a daughter who can stand up on her own two feet and say the things that she needs to say to get the life that she wants.

Speaker 1 And here she's doing it, right?

Speaker 2 It worked, it worked too well.

Speaker 1 It worked too well.

Speaker 2 Good news, bad news, Bridge.

Speaker 2 Your girl's a badass.

Speaker 2 You did a good job, Bridge. Yes.

Speaker 2 How sad when our children become the people we dreamed they'd be

Speaker 2 when they actually do what we taught them to do. Okay, our next right thing this week is this.
I'm not going to give you any homework. It's too hard.

Speaker 2 We're going to quit hard things today because we can quit hard things. There is no homework.
You've already done your homework, which is that you learned this.

Speaker 2 Tell us one more time, sister, what the definition, the original definition.

Speaker 1 The original definition of quitting was to be set free from, to be calm, to rest.

Speaker 1 That was the origin of quit

Speaker 1 for 700 years until like a hot minute ago.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 So is there anything you need to set yourself free from?

Speaker 2 And when things get too hard this week, don't forget we can quit hard things.

Speaker 1 Love ya.

Speaker 2 We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 Especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it. If you didn't, don't worry about it.
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