How to Ensure You're Not Quitting Too Soon

I'm okay with anyone quitting anything. I just don't like when they quit it too soon. Does that make sense? If it's the right thing? I don't like when they quit too soon. If it's apparently and obviously the wrong thing. Listen, we don't even need to have that conversation because you already know what to do when it's the awful, wrong, terrible thing. That's the easy decision. The tough decisions in our life are when it's both right and wrong to quit. Again, this is not me trying to make the decision for you. I'm just trying to go, how do we insert some perspective here? If you're thinking of quitting something, I want you to diagnose what we call the oops. Diagnose the oops. It's an acronym. Like, okay, you bet on the wrong thing, you're in the wrong place, you're thinking of quitting. Oops made the wrong decision, chose the wrong partner, took the wrong opportunity. Oops, you know, okay, OOPS is a framework we're going to go through that we would just kind of try to figure out, oh, okay, what's going on here as a coach, so I can get some more information and I'll go to the conversation of relationships, because I think that's the most common thing I get is like, I either want to quit my relationship or my marriage, or I want to quit, you know, this job or career. I'll use those examples because they're very often convenient as metaphors. So, number one, the origin. Okay, you think about leaving this marriage. Tell me, why did you pick this person in the first place? Can you take me back? Help me, help me understand. What was it about this person that made you want to be in a relationship with them? You know, what was the origin? Just going back to the original decision, the original commitment point, we often call it in coaching. What was that original commitment point that locked you into this relationship or locked you into this career? Like, why did you start the thing, do the thing, try the thing. Okay, we'll have that conversation. And I encourage you if you're really. If you're in a place where you're actively thinking about leaving a relationship or career or something, like, why did you start that? You know, if it's a job, why'd you take the job? What was it about the job? What were the elements, or the excitement, the passion, the interest? What was there that you accepted that job or career or started that new dream? Because just rekindling or remembering where that commitment was and why it happened. Sometimes you go, oh, yeah, that's what I. Okay, that's what I was after. That's the person I want to be connected with. The second thing is, what is the outcome you hope for? Okay, the outcome that might be, for example, in the job category, you might say, well, you know, I. I wanted to have a. A 9 to 5, where I just felt like, you know, I was applying my interest, I was being challenged, I was contributing something on a regular basis. Okay, because maybe some of those things aren't there right now, but maybe. Maybe you can change how you show up at work. You can ask for new responsibilities. Maybe the job's right, but the outcomes aren't happening yet. And often when the outcome isn't there but they're in the right relationship with the right job, they strategically chose it. Oh, let's adjust our approach. Let's try some new tactics and habits to see can we get that outcome there before we quit? The thing I'm always asking that, can we get the outcome you had hoped for before you quit it? Right. That is that trial and error process we're gonna talk a lot about. Like, hey, I'm okay with anyone quitting anything. I just don't like when they quit it too soon. Does that make sense if it's the right thing? I don't like when they quit too soon. If it's apparently and obviously the wrong thing. Listen, we don't even need to have that conversation because you already know what to do when it's the awful, wrong, terrible thing. That's the easy decision. The tough decisions in our life are when it's both right and wrong to quit. You know, you can make. You can draw that line down the page and go, well, it could be either one. Well, that's why I wanted to revisit what was the outcomes you had hoped there. Next up, process. What did you hope or think it would be like on a daily or a weekly basis, you know, and what are you doing currently in that relationship or that opportunity? Processes means, like, what's life really like? Like entrepreneurs. Let's say you start a big dream, right? And you think, well, I thought, you know, the process would be I could just create content on social media every day. And then you realize, oh, well, the process actually is, you know, running and managing the business and, you know, making money and filling out a lot of forms and doing your taxes and hiring people. And you learn all these process. You didn't anticipate that. That's part of the process. And the process doesn't feel good. Many people in their careers, as an example, they're in a career doing something Monday to Friday that they don't enjoy, probably right company, probably right career. But what they're doing Monday to Friday isn't the right slot. And what we need to do is not quit the decent job if they like it. What we need to do is go, we need to change what you do here. We need to adjust your role or your responsibilities within a good career so you enjoy your Monday through Friday. Does that make sense? And it. And a lot of people don't try that. They just go, this job sucks, I'm leaving. But they haven't made the attempt to adjust their process or how they show up towards their outcome or to a new process within the frame. Same thing in your relationships, right? Oh, every day it's the same old thing. Get up, make the kids some food for some breakfast and some lunch, drive them to school, go to work, come home, eat dinner, watch show and go to bed. And you're like, oh, my God, this is every day. Well, you know, you got to change the process. Wait, you don't have a date night. Wait, in your process. You're not going on vacations together. Wait in your process. You're not debriefing the week, you're not planning the weeks together. Wait, you're not making sure that you've ensured there's time for fun. Well, you're not quitting the relationship. You just don't like the process. You got to change the process. You got to show up. You got to change how you show up in that relationship or in that career. You got to change where your emphasis or your focus is going. Last big idea here on the oops is the social connection. Now, most people don't realize that a vast majority of the major decisions in their life was not psychology, it was sociology. They made a decision because they hope to have a specific type of connection with somebody, right? That's from the relationships we choose to the neighborhoods we choose, to the schools we choose, to the companies we go to work for, right? People say, you don't go to work for a job at a company. You go to work for a company because you like the culture, right? If you choose a company for its culture, that's a social connection expectation, isn't it? But a lot of people, the most amount of discouragement and quitting comes from the expectation related to social connection. If you've been with me for a long time, you know, in our high performance research, it's super clear that most people quit their job because of the discouragement and the disempowerment that they sense with their first line manager. Meaning the person that they report to that relationship is not what they wanted it to be. They feel disempowered, not heard, not understood, not respected. They're not getting opportunities from that person. They don't think they'll ever be able to rise up beyond that person. That person's going to hold them down or that person's just a jerk. And because of that one person, they leave a whole company. Think about that. This is 70% of people who quit a job. It's related to their relationship with the first line manager. 70% of people leave a company because of one person, a relationship with one person. Think about that. Think about that for a minute. Billions of workers around the world, 70% are going to leave because that one relation, that company might have a hundred thousand people in it, but they're going to leave because that one social connection didn't give them what they want. And this is where the high performance coach, I always say, okay, so there's one pain in the butt at work. You're going, but you like the company, you like the mission. There's other humans there working too. You're going to quit because that person. Now sometimes it makes sense, right? Again, this is not me trying to make the decision for you. I'm just trying to go, how do we insert some perspective here? So again, I'm fine if you're like, no, this is definitely the wrong thing. I'm like, great, then let's be strategic in leaving the wrong thing. Let's be strategic in leaving the wrong thing. So things are left well, so that you don't have a lot of shame and regret there, but also that your social connections support you wherever you go from there. Does this sometimes require you to be the bigger person? 9 out of 10 times. Why are you complaining about that? Drives me crazy, people. This sucks. I have to be a bigger person. I'm like, good for you. What relationships do you want to be in? Do you want to be the lesser person? No. Good for you and your character and your integrity that you want to leave things well, do things well, play the higher moral game than being drug into the pits. Good for you. That's what makes you a leader. That's what makes your opportunities in the future better. That's what you can bank on when you go to bed at night and you have a dream that you know you will show up and show up well. With high integrity and values and character. Where do we lose that conversation in the world? Well, we lost the conversation in a social media selfish world where we don't talk about servant leadership anymore, we don't talk about civics anymore, we don't talk about, you know, respect anymore. And so now it's just about me, me, me, me, me, me. And people wreck a lot of relationships and businesses because, you know, they're willing to go into the pits and fight dirty and be awful and terrible and that stuff catches up with you. I know you want to fight it. I know you want to quit. I know you want to burn everything in fire and get it the hell out of there. And I also know what your goals are in the future. And if you wreck everything here, you know, it's hard to do build upon wreckage. You all ever realize that you ever wreck a relationship so much that you are wrecked for years? I've been there. Right? We have to figure out elegant ways to move through difficulties and I could go off on this one for a really long time. So let me just pause there. I'm going to have a conversation with the client about what was the oops. Why did you choose to get in there? What were the outcomes you hoped for? What's the process you expected? What's the relationships or the social connections you had desired? Hey, it's Brendan. 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