Quitting (previously published as Mastering the Art of Quitting) (5 page)

There's the influence of
priming
on decisions we make. Research has shown that all kinds of cues, or primes, in the environment influence our thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors without our being conscious of those cues. Among other things, primes such as the smell of a cleaning fluid have been shown to make people more prone to clean up after themselves. Evoking the mental representation of a library, on the other hand, makes people more prone to lower their voices to a whisper.
Other experiments, especially those conducted by John A. Bargh
and Tanya L. Chartrand, point to a much more direct influence between primes and behavior.
For example, in one experiment
, participants completed sentences with words which were either rude (such as “aggressively,” “bold,” “annoying”), polite (“respect,” “honor,” “courteous”) or neutral. The participants primed with the rude words were, in another part of the experiment, more apt to act rudely than either those primed with polite words or neutral words.

But perhaps even more salient to the discussion about goals and quitting are the experiments with mundane physical objects and the mental representations and behaviors they evoked.
Bargh and his colleagues
conducted several experiments with objects meant to signify the capitalistic business world (such as briefcases, a conference table, fountain pens, dress shoes, suits, etc.). The idea was to see if these primers would activate the construct of competition, and indeed they did. In one experiment, participants were asked to complete word fragments, one of which was
c_ _ p_ _ _ tive
. While
70 percent of those primed with business representations completed the word as
competitive
, only 42 percent of the unprimed participants did. Note that the other possible word to be made from the fragment was
cooperative
.

The most clear-cut experiment on the effect of priming involved
the “ultimatum game,”
in which one person proposes a division of a sum of money (in this case, $10), which the other person can take or leave. The key is that the player with the money had to divest himself or herself of a portion of it so the strategy is normally how little can you give away while appearing fair at the same time. In one experiment, while 100 percent of the group unprimed by business symbols offered a fifty-fifty split, or $5 apiece, only 50 percent of those primed did. In a second experiment, only 33 percent of those primed split fifty-fifty, as compared with 91 percent of those who were unprimed. The business-equals-competition primes in the environment changed not only the participants' understanding of the goal but also how they behaved.

Similar experiments, as well as brain scans
, showed no difference between goals that are consciously chosen and automatic ones. As Bargh and his coauthors explain, not only can goals be activated by external, environmental information, but
“once they are put into motion
, they operate just as if they had been consciously intended, even to the point of producing changes in mood and in self-efficacy beliefs, depending on one's degree of success or failure in reaching the goal.” In other words, we react emotionally in the same ways to goals that are unconsciously chosen as we do to those that are consciously pursued. A later chapter will return to this idea to show how this propensity gets in the way of artful quitting.

And as if all this unconscious activation weren't enough, there's the matter of white bears, another aspect of automatici
ty. Psychologist Daniel Wegner set out to answer one of life's most vexing questions: Why is that when we're trying
not
think of something, the thought keeps barging in like an unwelcome guest? Why is it so hard not to think of cookies the minute we decide to diet, or why can't we stop thinking about the lover who has spurned us, or why
do we keep second-guessing our decision to quit? In other words, why do thoughts we're actively trying to suppress keep intruding on us anyway? Wegner discovered what he called
“ironic processes of mental control,”
but he boiled it down to this:
“The mind actually appears to search
unconsciously and automatically for whatever thought, action, or emotion the person is actually trying to control.” Yes, this discovery is another blow to whatever notion we might have about free will.

Wegner and others initially showed
how this worked in a series of experiments in which participants were told, while they were performing other tasks,
not
to think of white bears. Another group was instructed to think of white bears first and then
not
think of them. Participants who were told not to think about them nonetheless thought about them more than once a minute! And in the second group, participants actually thought about white bears more often when they were told to suppress the thought than they did when they were instructed to think about them.

It turns out that thought suppression and the effort to control thoughts act as primes for the opposite effect. This presents a real problem for people who decide to disengage from a goal, especially one that has been central to their sense of self and identity and that has great emotional meaning.

Persistence and Personal Experience

In addition to the habits of mind covered in these pages—habits that can distort our thinking when the going gets rough—each of us brings our personal histories and experiences to the framing of goals, the assessment of probable success, and our willingness to persist. Sometimes, positive reinforcement, whether intermittent or not, will make people try even harder. Paradoxically, though, others are just as likely to persist when the circumstances evoke difficult or painful feelings and behaviors that they remember from their childhoods. Because these feeling are familiar, they create a comfort
zone for the individual, even though the feelings themselves may be stressful or painful. This sounds totally counterintuitive, but it's nonetheless true.

Comfort zones have to do with how the developing human brain is shaped by experience during infancy and childhood. A later chapter will go into more detail about how this works and why it matters, but the most salient point is that each of us is most comfortable with the emotional patterns we're familiar with—whether they make us happy or not. Overall, the known trumps the unknown, whether the known makes us happy or not. These responses aren't conscious but influence our perceptions in myriad ways.

People who grow up in emotionally healthy environments with attuned and loving parents are much less likely to fall into the comfort-zone trap. They're better than others at reacting relatively quickly to abusive or destructive environments. Nevertheless, most of us have psychological histories that are more of a mixed bag than not, so the comfort-zone trap is likely to keep us persisting at least some of the time.

Persistence and Inflexibility

Persistence gets in the way when the goals we've already achieved, particularly long-held ones, need updating or relinquishing because they no longer serve us or make us happy. Our belief in staying the course doesn't take into account that who we are and what we want may change over time. Perhaps the trade-offs we were willing to make initially to achieve a goal don't end up working for us in the long term. Or perhaps the life we end up living isn't the life our older self wants after all. These major goals may be ones we've chosen for ourselves or those we've inherited from our parents, but in either case, revising them is always difficult.

Because of the cultural and personal pressure, the hardest goals to quit are those that look successful on the surface but leave us feeling dead and soulless or make us unhappy in other ways.
Sometimes, a goal will become outworn because it doesn't deliver what we expected or because it conflicts with new priorities. As we've already seen, the greater the investment of time, the harder it will be to even consider disengaging, thanks to the sunk-cost fallacy. Other times, the struggle entails not just letting go of a major goal but a definition of self.

When persistence isn't coupled with the ability to disengage, there's no solution in sight and no chance of imagining a different future.

How Quitting Balances the Scales

Because the decision to disengage from a goal is a conscious choice, considering quitting diminishes the effect of the brain's unconscious processes and allows us to reframe and reassess the goal at hand. Consciously putting quitting into the mix alters our perspective in meaningful ways and begins a process that will ultimately permit us both to let go of an unattainable goal and to articulate new goals that will enrich our lives.

You won't be surprised to learn that all of the stories about unattainable goals were ultimately resolved when the individual considered quitting as a viable choice. Each woman and man made the decision thoughtfully and, as they tell it, went through the process of what it means to quit. In some cases, the necessary steps took months, if not years.

For Jennifer, the process began when she started to consider using her legal experience in different ways. She networked and sought out others who had given up the practice of law but were using these skills in another context. Once she began to consider quitting, she was able to stop seeing the years she'd invested as a loss. That shift in her vision freed her to explore other opportunities she would never have considered otherwise. She's happy and productive in a nonprofit organization where her skills and her attitude are appreciated.

Julie the jewelry designer closed her shop and came to the realization that she wasn't cut out to be an entrepreneur. She saw that financial stability and peace of mind were more important goals than being her own boss and more than compensated for the loss of her dream. She worked hard at marketing her design skills and got a job at a clothing manufacturer. She still makes jewelry but she looks at it as more of a creative outlet than not. She sells to friends and acquaintances through her Web site and at craft fairs.

Robert finally walked away from the sustainability platform he'd created and went back to corporate communications, which he saw as a short-term solution. This time, though, he focused on finding a firm that served a variety of clients. His specialty has become green industries. Although he's still looking for a suitable new project that will meet his long-term goal, he says that if he finds one, he'll pay much closer attention to the interaction of personalities and long-term vision.

All of these people acknowledge that, initially, it was difficult to come to terms with quitting and what they first saw as a loss of time and energy and, in some cases, money. Even more important, each of them admits that the cultural pressure to persist made disengagement much harder. While some of them found support for their decision to quit in their circle of friends and family, others did not. Through the acts of quitting and then setting new goals, each of them gained a new perspective on what they really wanted and what made them happy.

One aim of this book is to change how you think about quitting so that you can see how being able to let go can increase your sense of well-being. Another is to help you evaluate whether your goals are working for or against you and whether you need to rechart certain aspects of your life. Implicit in every chapter is the acknowledgment that while goals give our lives meaning and structure, it is rare that any of us will achieve
all
of them. Disappointment and regrouping are part of everyone's life script. In no small part, mastering the art of quitting is about learning to be flexible when you need to so that you can meet whatever challenge you're facing. By
permitting ourselves to quit, we can achieve a flexibility of mind and spirit that ultimately yields to greater life satisfaction.

In addition, we think that the lessons contained in these pages will help when we need to cope with and recover from an unanticipated life reversal that forces us to revise or let go of goals we've set for ourselves. These reversals may be in the realm of career, personal relationship, health, or economics. In those instances, even though we've not chosen to change paths, the ability to quit those initial goals artfully will determine how well we recover from their loss and how we're able to commit to scaled-down or new goals that offer the promise of happiness and satisfaction. It's yet another reason why mastering the art of quitting is important.

Having looked at how people are geared to persist, we'll turn next to why quitting in the conventional sense—which is nothing like true goal disengagement—doesn't work.

Persistence Profile

Take a look at the following statements. Answer yes or no, trying to be as honest as possible, to gauge your level of persistence.

1. I believe that things usually work out for the best.

2. I think quitting is a last resort.

3. I'm energized by challenges other people find daunting.

4. I worry a lot when things go off track.

5. When I can't get what I want, I want it even more.

6. I'd rather stay in a situation or relationship too long than leave it too soon.

7. I never walk out of something I've paid for, even if it's boring or dull.

8. I'm an optimist by nature.

9. I believe in staying the course.

10. I tend to second-guess myself.

11. I spend a lot of time talking about my failed relationships.

12. What people think of me is very important.

13. If I lose something, I can't stop thinking about it or looking for it.

14. I won't settle, but I will shop until I find exactly what I want.

15. Succeeding is very important to me.

16. I have trouble compromising.

17. I make to-do lists and complete them all the time.

18. I'm not good at distracting myself when I'm stressed.

19. I consider myself more focused than other people.

20. I think giving up is a sign of weakness.

The more items you agree with, the more likely you are to err on the side of persistence, even when it's unwarranted, and the harder it may be for you to consider quitting. This profile is an informal way of looking at your personal attitudes toward persistence.