When to Move On. A Guide for Entrepreneurs to Identify the Right Time to Quit
How quitting early can be your new business superpower.
Ever start reading a book, get 3 chapters in and find it’s incredibly dull?
Yet you’ve started, so let’s see if it gets better. Now you’re committed, you have sunk cost fallacy and you have to finish. It’s a grind, it takes twice as long as normal and you don’t take any of the information in.
Why do we do it to ourselves?
The sunk cost fallacy is the feeling that we have invested too much time, money or resource into something to walk away. The cost to leave now is more painful as you’ve committed so much, even if the writings on the wall
I’ve failed to quit spectacularly over the years.
The worst a-day trading career that went south. Countless hours were spent watching videos, followed by a demo account. Then finally resulting in me losing real money and sticking it out for a full year.
This hurt the wallet but what’s worse is I’ll never get that time back.
There is power in quitting. It frees up time.
When you quit early you save the most important thing in your life, time.
Instead of wasting time grinding through a book just to finish it, just quit. Find something more engaging, you will absorb the information rather than just reading the words. You’ll be able to get through more books as you won’t get stuck on one for a month.
Quitting frees up time, and allows you to move on to more useful tasks.
This is so important in Business
There is obviously merit in sticking something out, and consistency is so important but not on bad business decisions.
All the consistency in the world won’t make a bad venture work, have you heard of the Apple Newton?
Most successful businesses have multiple failures before they make it. These failures show what’s working and what’s not. Sometimes you need to quit, allow failure to happen and learn from it.
In business, quitting can save time and money. When something is not working it’s time to quit.
Overcome your fear of failure, being successful means failing a lot.
When to quit versus when to stick at it?
If you’ve committed a significant amount of time, evaluate if it’s working. First question, are you seeing growth? Try to be objective and identify if committing more time is going to improve your results.
If you don’t see progression on the horizon it’s time to quit and find a new approach.
You have to listen to you’re body.
If you’re stressed, have lost interest or are feeling frustrated you need to listen. Step back and determine why your approach is causing these feelings. Even if it’s working, some things have to give, and health is more important than progress.
It’s not worth your health and happiness.
Thanks for checking out my article. I’m a UK Based Contractor & Investor. I write mostly about self-development, entrepreneurship, finance and whatever else interests me as I grow my companies and myself.
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