Quitting (previously published as Mastering the Art of Quitting) (21 page)

Using mental contrasting, you'd focus on the goal of giving a dynamic presentation in combination with the things that potentially stand in the way of that end: your anxiety about public speaking; your tendency to fidget when you're stressed; your habit of procrastinating; your way of speaking too quickly and swallowing your words when you're stressed; your tendency to say “um” almost every sentence.

Thinking about potential pitfalls in concrete terms permits you to consider both whether these obstacles can be overcome and the potential gains of giving the speech (winning the boss's approval, bringing yourself to the attention of the president and other high-level executives, perhaps paving the way to future promotions). Your thinking about the upside is grounded in realism, forcing you to
turn your attention to what needs to be done to succeed. You realize that preparing ahead may ease your speaking anxiety, which, in turn, will allow you to develop and rehearse your speech so that you feel more at ease. You decide that exercising before you practice your speech will relax you and allow you to really focus. You take notes, write your speech, and then pare it down to talking points and recruit a buddy to coach you in your efforts. Mental contrasting permits you to go forward with the goal on all levels: cognitive (thinking and planning); affective (feeling responsible and in command of the task); motivational (feeling energized by the potential benefits); and behavioral (investing time and effort).

Mental contrasting can be used to assess and facilitate any goal in any realm. These goals could be as various as establishing a community garden (the obstacles might be researching zoning laws, getting municipal approval, raising funds, getting publicity, finding volunteers, finding a source for mulch, etc.) or switching careers (researching the necessary credentials, planning how to attain them, getting the requisite experience, networking and getting recommendations, finding employment). In every realm, mental contrasting promotes if-then thinking, such as “If X happens, then I will react by doing Y,” or “If X doesn't happen, then I will do Y,” or “If he or she acts in X way, then I will respond by saying Y” and planning ways to get past the impediments to your goal. It promotes action, rather than stasis, or being stuck in old patterns. The process clarifies the possibilities, including the realization that persistence may be futile.

In contrast, both indulging—putting on those rose-colored glasses and dreaming that your ideal future will happen as if by magic—or dwelling—focusing on the negatives and sinking beneath the weight of them—are completely self-referential. They particularly limit your choices in the area of relationship. The if-then thinking that comes out of mental contrasting helps you plan your reactions to situations ahead of time, using what you know to anticipate problems.

Imagine, for a moment, that your goal is to stop arguing with your spouse or partner about money. While an indulging point of
view might have you imagining a life without disagreement and with limitless funds, and a dwelling one might have you focus on the fights you've had over the years and what a spendthrift or tightwad he is, mental contrasting has you thinking about how you'll react to the various cues that you know have triggered fights in the past. Focusing on the present reality in terms of problem solving—what you can say to defuse the situation and make the conversation more productive—will, in fact, make you a more attentive listener as well. If-then thinking allows you to reframe any situation in terms of action and response.

Just as emotional intelligence helps us manage our emotions and use them to inform our thought processes, so too mental contrasting can help us become more motivationally and behaviorally intelligent. It can provide a balance to how we're wired to persist no matter how low the chances of our eventual success, can free us to formulate plans of action with greater authority, or can give us the energy and incentive to disengage if need be.

Mental Contrasting from the Inside Out

Studies that measured brain activity have shown that mental contrasting isn't simply a theoretical construct but is an activity that is different from either indulging, dwelling, or resting. The research also suggests that mental contrasting can only be mastered under certain conditions; our brains should come with a label that reads, “Warning: Capacity Limited.” These findings are in line with what Roy Baumeister and others have noted about ego depletion and other capabilities.

Using brain imaging
, researchers have found that mental contrasting and indulging were two separate activities and that mental contrasting resulted in heightened activity of the regions of the brain associated with working memory and the formation of intention. Interestingly, there was also heightened brain activity in the areas responsible for episodic memory and vivid mental imagery,
“suggesting that mental contrasting
is rooted in the retrieval of past personal events, as well as the processing of complex stimuli such as reexperiencing past incidents.”

According to the researchers, these findings suggest that since mental contrasting taxes working memory, it needs to be done at times when there isn't great cognitive demand; it should be done as a stand-alone activity, not in combination with other tasks or when the person is stressed or tired.

With your goals mapped for clarity, mental contrasting becomes an empowering tool that can help you decide whether to stay engaged, redefine your goals, or disengage. No matter what your ultimate intention, there's another tool left to add to your arsenal.

Forgetting the Little Engine

We apologize in advance for battering some of your fondest childhood memories, but when it comes to psyching ourselves up to achieve our goals, it turns out that the cheerleader-type declaratives we've all been told really work—whether it's “You
can
do it!” or even “I think I can”—actually don't.
In a study of self-talk, Ibrahim Senay
and his team hypothesized that the interrogative form (“Will I”) would produce greater motivation to pursue a goal than the declarative “I will,” because the format would inspire thoughts about the intrinsic reasons about its pursuit and thus engender better task performance. And that is exactly what they found.

Participants who were asked to think about “whether” they would solve anagrams performed better than those who simply thought they “would” definitely solve anagrams. In a second experiment, the participants were primed by writing “Will I,” “I will,” “I,” or “Will” twenty times and then given ten anagrams to solve. Only the “Will I” prime produced better performance. In the third experiment, first the participants were asked to write down a sequence of twenty-four numbers that the investigators read aloud and that were either random or patterned; they were told that this exercise would
clear their minds for the handwriting test (in this case, writing only two primes, “Will I” or “I will”). They were then asked to report on their plans for physical exercise in the next week and the hours they planned to devote. The researchers thought that writing a random sequence would weaken the effect of writing “Will I” repeatedly, and that was shown to be true. The prime “Will I” worked best with the patterned numbers. The fourth and final experiment asked the participants about their plans either to continue exercising regularly or to start doing so, after being primed with “Will I” or “I will.” They then rated how twelve reasons for exercising reflected their thinking. Six of the reasons given were intrinsic (such as “Because I want to take responsibility for my health”), and six were extrinsic (“Because I would feel guilty or ashamed of myself if I didn't”). The prime “Will I” had no effect on extrinsic goals but facilitated intrinsic reasons for exercising.

So if you are going to engage in self-talk to motivate yourself, don't phrase it as “I can” or “I will”; instead, motivate yourself by the question only you can answer: “Will I?” That will kick in all the intrinsic reasons you have for pursuing the goal and bolster your sense of autonomy.

A Leap of Faith

Let's go back to the story of Marie, the artist who, after twenty years as an independent, realized that her original goals were no longer making her happy. At first, unable to think of what she could possibly do next—she had no practical job experience other than being an artist—she cobbled together temporary solutions to the dual demands of making a living and being happy. She continued to take on assignments, but started new projects that got her out of her studio and into the world. She became an artists' advocate and was certified as a mediator; she began giving workshops and advising artists on how to resolve their disputes with clients, negotiate rights, and understand the intricacies of copyright law. Still, while her new
work had her out in the world, connecting to people and helping them, which she'd realized was one of her primary goals, she didn't want to spend all of her time on the road. At the same time, she was still making art and wasn't ready to stop being an artist, not yet at least.

Marie's dilemma is typical of what happens when a major goal that closely defines the self isn't working, and quitting isn't yet a real consideration. When persistence isn't balanced by the ability to disengage, there is no chance of imagining a different future.

In Marie's case, the impetus to act came from the outside—the horrific events of 9/11 and its loss of life. As a born and bred New Yorker, that event inspired a new sense of urgency to give her life both meaning and stability. She stopped making art and turned her focus on pursuing a new career in retail in which she could use both her design sense and her ability to deal with people. In time, she became a successful store manager. That experience, in turn, led her to a job that really fulfilled the sense of purpose she'd been looking for—a job in the nonprofit world working with disadvantaged youth. It has now been ten years since she last called herself an artist, and she doesn't miss drawing or painting. She has digitalized all of her work over two decades and occasionally finds ways of licensing those images. Being an artist is no longer her primary way of defining herself, and she has no regrets.

Unfortunately, that's not always the case for everyone, especially if the goal has been intrinsic and central to oneself. It's at these moments that mastering the art of quitting is absolutely essential, and even more so if the loss of self-definition isn't chosen, as it is when someone is laid off or fired from a job, or left by a spouse. Managing feelings of loss, regret, and inadequacy may be part of the work required to fully disengage and to come out the other side, ready to reengage and set a new goal. Troubleshooting the path with self-knowledge and conscious strategies is where we'll turn next.

Sample Goal Map 1

This goal map was filled out by a twenty-five-year-old single woman who is a college graduate and has worked in public relations and social media. This is the first iteration of her goal list without ordering or numbering.

Sample Goal Map 2

This goal map was filled out by a married thirty-eight-year-old male who has an infant son, is a college graduate, and works as a journalist and an editor. It is his first version, without numbering or prioritizing.