033: Knowing When It’s Time to Quit | Dr. Zoe Shaw

Grab a cup of tea or listen as you go, ladies. This is your hour with Dr. Zoe, your life and relationship coach. With encouragement, on-point insight, inspiring guests, health tips, and advice, Dr. Zoe helps busy women keep their mind in the game by redefining your superwoman. You're listening to the Dr. Zoe Show.

Hi there, it's Dr. Zoe. I'm a licensed psychotherapist, a life and relationship coach, and motivational speaker. I believe that every woman has a superpower, and my passion is to help you find it, embrace it, and share it with the world. I so believe in strong women, and especially in women helping others cultivate, enhance, embrace, and just show and live out the strength that we already have that's inside of us. So if you're struggling and you wonder If life coaching or therapy can help you, connect with me by sending an email to zoe@drzoeshaw.com. I do therapy in California virtually, and I do life coaching all over the world. You can also join my monthly newsletter. I send out free monthly encouragement to you women holding it down in your lives. And who can't benefit from some free encouragement, right? So you can get on my newsletter by texting the word join to 38470. That's the word join and text it to 38470. So today's topic is, when is it time to quit? And I'm going to get to that in just a minute. And I know most of you are like, quitting? Wait, we're not supposed to quit. We're going to talk about when it's time to quit in your life. So my Superwoman win for the week is that I'm getting used to my 16-year-old son's budding independence. And for right now, I feel like in this moment today, I'm doing a pretty good job of it. I'm getting used to him going and driving and being on his own. And I I'm letting go of some of that mom angst of having your child, essentially not having control over your child, which is really about wanting to protect all the time. I remember I cried when he turned 9 years old and my husband was like, what is wrong with you? And I remember saying, half his life is over. Obviously sometimes I can get a little dramatic, but I remember just thinking that and it hitting me. He's 9. We only have 9 more years and he's going to be 18. And those 9 years, man, it's not quite 9 years yet. Yeah. He's heading towards 17, but they've gone by in such a blink. So my win is that right now I'm getting used to watching his foot halfway out of the door of our family life. So it's going good. So my Superwoman fail: I dropped my wallet and my cell phone in the toilet at a department store. Thank God it was after I flushed it, but still fishing it out of the toilet. Was definitely not one of my best moments. I don't know if you guys have figured out I'm clumsy and it's a trait that I own and I honor. And I'm not really sure what good can come out of the clumsiness in my life, but I'm just going to honor that it's a part of myself. It may not be my superpower, but it's definitely a part of myself. And that's my fail. I did it. I had to wash everything up. It was disgusting to me, to everybody. I mean, It's just a disgusting thing. So another thing I wanted to talk about today, I don't know about you guys, and I'm always behind the late ball on a lot of this stuff because I do not watch TV. That is one way that I can act and live out my superwoman life is that I don't watch TV. I don't like the thought of wasting my time being entertained. And I'm not saying that in any kind of demeaning way. I've just figured out that getting that out of my life has made me more productive and focused. And where I want to go. And so I don't watch TV, which isn't necessarily a great thing because I'm kind of out of the loop on a lot of stuff. But my sister— I shouldn't blame her for this new addiction, but I'm going to do it anyway. So she got me addicted to this show, This Is Us. How many of you guys are out there watching it? I'm only in season 1. And like I said, I don't know if this is a Superwoman win or a Superwoman fail, but I have been binge-watching it. And with my busy schedule, that means I'm sneaking in the bathroom or in between sessions or in bed at night when I'm supposed I'm supposed to be sleeping, and this is such a good show. I've been texting my sister and sarcastically saying, thanks for my new addiction. Of course, the beauty of it is that eventually the episodes will run out, and so I won't even have to go into therapy for this addiction. It'll be a cold turkey ending, just like a good book. I don't want it to end. So if you're looking for a brand new addiction, try this. This Is Us. I know everybody knows about it. I've heard about it. Everybody said you should watch it, and it's really good. And I I don't know if it's as a therapist or even in my, my personal family life, because everybody can probably see little webs or little pieces of yourself or your family reflected in this show. And then also my therapeutic brain is just like, wow, this is good stuff. It took me about 3 episodes to get in, but once I did, wham, I was, I was in there. So that's my other little share for the day. So today We are going to talk about when it's time to quit. And I know unless you are constantly evaluating this every day in your life or every week or in seasons of your life, there is one thing in your life right now that you probably need to quit. I won't even say probably. There's one thing in your life that you need to give up. One thing that is probably past its due date, something that you know you really shouldn't be doing, but you probably keep doing it. And maybe you don't know why. Maybe you do it because it's familiar and it's comfortable, even though it doesn't really feel right. And I don't know about you, but I have a million of those don't quit mantras in my mind. The poem of, you know, never give up and winners never quit and quitters never win. And so we, I think, as humans, as a culture, as a society, we definitely pound that into ourselves and we See quitting as a failure. And so because of that, many of us stay in things in our lives, whether it's a job, a relationship, a dream, or a life path. We stay in it much longer than we should for our health, for the overall success of our life. So I'm sure you probably recognize yourself in some of that. So when is it time to quit? There are probably 6 or 7 little tips that I'm going to give you about maybe why you don't and the sign that it's time to do it. So the first one is this argument, this fallacy that I've put so much into this. And I can think of so many times in my life I've had businesses that have failed. sold and gave up because it was not working for us in our life. And we probably kept doing it way past its due date. And some of the reasons why people do that is because of this idea that I've put so much time, I put so much energy, I put so much money into this, that failing feels like, okay, it's the final acknowledgement or agreement that I failed or I couldn't do this. And really that's a fallacy because what you have to recognize, and it's okay to acknowledge you put a lot into it, but you have to recognize that number one, It hasn't all been a loss if you can identify some lessons that you've learned from it. But also you have to recognize that that thinking is past thinking. You're not thinking about now and you're not thinking about the future. You actually can't afford to waste your time doing things that don't bring benefit to your life right now and in the future. It doesn't matter if you've put everything, it doesn't matter if you've mortgaged your house, it doesn't make sense to continue doing something that's not gonna benefit you in the future. And so that's actually fallacy, fallacious thinking that keeps us stuck. And if you recognize that in your life, whatever area that is, like I said, work, life, relationships, dreams, that you're continuing something for the sole reason that you put a lot into it, it's time to let it go. Another one is if it's not worth it in the long term. So you have to look at things that you're doing in your life and you have to question the sacrifices that you're making for it. There are always sacrifices that come along with any gain. Any gains, even if they're wonderful, there's a sacrifice that you have to make to get that thing. And often the sacrifices are more than worth it. Think about becoming a parent. You had to sacrifice a lot when you decided to become a parent. You lost your freedom. You lost your ability to just get up and get in the car and go do your life and not have to think about anybody else. You lost a lot of stuff, but that's okay because the gain was so so worth it. The benefit outweighed the loss. Even getting married, losing your single life, whatever things, you know, buying a home, you sacrifice, you attach yourself to something and sacrifice some of your freedom. So it's important to recognize that the sacrifices are there, but you have to look at it and go, okay, if I'm sacrificing all my family life and my kids and my, my health for this goal, in the end, is it going to be worth it? Even if I attain it, is it worth it if I've lost all of those things? And if the answer is no, it's time to quit. The other is sometimes we don't recognize because we are so much in the forest or in the thick of doing things that we don't even recognize if there's any benefit to doing it in the future. Are you getting anything from it? Is this something that's setting you up for the future? Whether it's in any of those areas of your life, you need to think about that future-minded. Is this goal going to help you in the future? Another one is that sometimes our life changes, and it's so important to evaluate our goals, to evaluate our priorities, because they change. When things in your life change, your priorities should and will change. And so it's important to go, okay, wait, is this still a priority for me? We get caught into doing the same things over and over again without evaluating that maybe this isn't a priority anymore in my life. And I can tell you a story about when that happened for me. When my daughter Sullivan, my 4th child, was born. She was born with severe genetic disorder, and we had a bumpy road that first year. And I had a private practice when I had her, and I intended to continue doing my private practice and working. I was probably only working like 20 hours a week, but I intended to continue that after I had her. And there came a point, and I remember I used to take walks when she was probably Just a couple weeks old, and we were dealing with all of the medical issues. And this song, Kenny Rogers' song, The Gambler, of all songs, a country song, kept playing over and over in my head. The words were something like, you've got to know when to hold them, know when to show them, know when to walk away, and know when to run. Yeah, something like that. It just kept playing over and over in my head because I think up until that time, I had never quit. anything in my life. Never. I had a goal. I did it. I had that kind of personality that was like, I'm just going to go. And this was the first time I was contemplating quitting my practice. And I remember that song just kept playing over and over and over in my head. And I realized, I think that was my first kind of adult realization that that whole concept of never quitting doesn't necessarily make sense because at this point in my life, I need to focus on Sullivan. I needed to focus on her health. And maintaining my health while I was trying to raise my boys and this daughter and learn about this genetic disorder and this whole new area in my life. And I was able, after singing that song to myself a million times, to recognize that quitting and failure are not the same thing. That this now, this practice that was so very important to me, this private practice that I had built, was no longer a priority. and would no longer give me those benefits, it wasn't worth the sacrifices. And so I gave it up. Now, the funny thing is, is that a couple of years later, I started to practice again. It was easier for me to give it up again when I unexpectedly got pregnant with my, my 5th child. And I was able to do that with the knowledge that I can evaluate my life in the changing circumstances and that I would probably come back to it, which I did. And when I came back, to my practice, I came back with a zest and a zeal that I didn't have before. And now I'm practicing in such a different way that I might not have ever gotten to. I might not even be doing this podcast or my blog writing or the book I'm writing right now if I hadn't been able to evaluate that season and say, you know what, it's time to stop. I need to stop and do something else. And that season was actually a season of growth for me. Another sign that you need to quit is when something is sucking the life out of you. When you are getting zero pleasure from whatever it is that you're doing in, in your life in that moment, in the relationship, in the job, in the work, whatever it is, when you are getting zero pleasure and you recognize that it is sucking the life out of you, it is not worth it. It is time to close that door. And go ahead and let another one open. You know, you can know that this is happening when you are dreading working on whatever project it is, or you're dreading going to work. When you recognize that you are getting nothing out of it, it's time to stop. The 5th sign is when more work doesn't bring better results. I read this concept About, you know, more work not returning more. And so when there's something that's really important to us and we're putting a lot into it, and we have this idea that if we work harder, we're going to get something more from it, you have to really stop and look at that. The concept is boiling water. So water boils at 100 degrees, right? So if water boils at 100 degrees, you've accomplished the boiling. Can you make it boil any more if you make it higher than 100 degrees? Boiling water is boiling water. Putting more energy, you know, into boiling that water actually is giving you diminishing returns. You're expending more energy and getting nothing after a certain point. And so when you've put in all of that, whatever that certain point, that boiling point, and you're still not getting back what you want, you have to recognize that putting in more is only wasting your life, and it's probably time to quit. Sometimes we do things for the wrong reasons, and this one is hard. It's really hard because this one is emotionally laden. When we are doing things in our life, when we are in relationship with people, when we are doing certain work or choosing a certain life path and we're doing it for the wrong reason, it's usually because of an emotional pain or injury, or I guess pain is really the best word that we're dealing with. We're doing it because we want to prove something to ourselves. We're doing it because we want to prove something to somebody else. We're doing it because we want to make somebody else happy, or we want to fulfill somebody else's dream, or because we're scared to do what we really want to do because we think we deserve or we don't deserve something. When we are doing something for the wrong reasons, It doesn't generally yield the results that we need or want, and it's time to quit. It's time to stop, evaluate, why am I doing this, and do I really want to? A good way to look at this is if no one in your life had any say or any opinion about what you're doing right now, would you want to do it? The answer is yes. Boom, you've got your answer. You go on and you persevere and you do it. If the answer is no, then it's time to quit and ask yourself, what is it that I would want to do? If you can't envision a possible solution, if you recognize that no matter what you put into something, that nothing is going to change, then it's time to quit. And that's a hard one. And it goes along with the whole, you know, Putting good money after bad or putting good things into something, assuming that good's going to come out. But if there's nothing good there, it's not going to come out. What you're going to get is nothing. And your life is too precious to waste time on things that no longer serve you. And it's so important to recognize that quitting is not an end. And our brains are kind of hardwired to fear quitting, I think, because we do need to be able to have that quality of perseverance in order to get where we need to get in our lives, in order to accomplish the things that we need to accomplish, we do need to be able to persevere. And so there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, and it's so important. It's a quality that we have to have, but that quality can trip us up sometimes. And if you can recognize that quitting and failure are not the same thing, that quitting is never an end to something necessarily, or it may be an end to that one thing but is not an end in general, that it's an opening of a new door. And when you allow yourself to stop something that no longer serves you, you open up the door for possibilities of things that serve you. And sometimes it's just that it's not serving you in that season. Just like my practice that I had to stop. It's not that the practice— it's not that the work that I love to do was bad or that I shouldn't have been doing it. I shouldn't have been doing it then, and I needed to evaluate that and stop so that I could Opened myself up for what I needed to be doing in that season. And then guess what? The door opened again for me to do this in this season. So when you know that you need to quit, how can you do it? How can you go about quitting when you know it's time? The first thing I want you to do is reframe that word. So quitting, like I said, has this connotation of failure, of I couldn't do it, or, or there was some type of deficit in me. I want you to think of it as creative abandonment. And what that means is that you are choosing to let go, to abandon something in your life, to open up room for more, for those open doors that I talked about before. And so what you have to recognize, though, is that whenever you quit or abandon or choose to leave something in your life, especially something that's been big for you and really important. And if you're kind of in this angst about quitting something, it's usually because it is something that means a lot to you. You have to recognize that grief is involved. Don't try to pretend like you're not going to grieve it, because anytime we have a loss in our life, whether we choose the loss or the loss chooses us, there's grief involved. And so you must allow yourself to go through the grief process. And if we look at grief, There's stages of grief. I'm sure you guys have heard of this: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally the beautiful one, acceptance. And so you might have to go through all those. Sometimes you have to cycle through them a number of times, and you're probably right now anyway in the denial phase if you're contemplating the whole quitting thing. And sometimes we try to make it so it doesn't need to be when the reality is it does. And then sometimes that does make us angry. It does make us feel like that's not fair. And I certainly remember having that feeling of, it's not fair that I had to build this practice, and I did all of this, and now I have to let it go. But that's part of the grieving process is you have to be able to sit in those feelings and walk through them until you can get yourself to that place of acceptance. And part of that acceptance is recognizing that there's more, there's more coming up for you, there's more in life that you're going to experience. And You probably need to quit this thing in order to get there. The next thing is that you have to do sometimes some succession planning. So what does that mean? Succession planning? Well, we think about the way it works in our country with presidents and how many terms they're allowed to serve. And at the end of the term, there's succession planning. If you're not going to be president again, and that is really planning for the next person to come. So depending on what the thing is that you're quitting, you may need to have a succession plan. Who's going to take that over? Is it something that can or needs to disappear, or is it something that needs to continue going, but somebody else has to do it, not you? Succession planning is important because it helps to kind of calm some of your angst and fears about, well, what's going to happen if I let this go? Who's going to take care of it? But then also succession planning needs to happen on another level, and that's you figuring out What do I need to bring in my life to replace whatever the good was that I was getting out of this thing, whatever it is that you know you need to quit? And that is placing something else in succession to this thing in your life. And it's okay if you need to take time to do that, but then that needs to be part of your quitting process, is succession planning so that you can move forward. And it also kind of is wrapped up with the grief and it helps you be able to process. And move on to those open doors that I talked about. So those are a couple steps when it comes to how do you quit and what things do you need to make sure you're putting into place when you do quit. And please reach out to me with any questions that you have about this as well. As I said, I'm a life coach, I'm a relationship therapist, and I do virtual therapy and coaching all over the world. And I help women and men get unstuck in their lives and also evaluate all of those balls that we're sometimes juggling, which ones need to be put down, which ones need to be picked up. So it's time for a health tip. My health tip of the day is that every woman should take a self-defense class. I just took one for the first time, which is kind of crazy because you hear about them all the time. And if you guys are taking martial arts, you're cool, you're good. But if you don't take martial arts and you are a woman or you have teenage girls, you guys should be taking a self-defense class. And you can take a one-timer. I had a friend who invited me to to a self-defense class and I thought that would be good. That would be a good thing for me to do because I've never done it before. I had the best experience, but here's the deal. I failed the beginning part when the instructor asks you like about your safety practices, like what do you do? I answered wrong for every single one of them and really surprised myself because I like to think that I'm— well, I do know though that I'm kind of not trusting, but I just expect that Most people are not gonna do wrong and most people do not have bad intentions. And so I kind of go about my life like that. I'm not really big on locking my doors or keeping after my purse or all that kind of stuff. But when he really just laid it all out there and I realized I failed on every single one, that's about protecting myself. And so the class was just great for me, not just the awareness stuff, but also the physical part of it was just really great. So if you haven't taken a self-defense class, Go take one. You can take one in a few hours, learn a lot. It might spark an interest in doing martial arts or learning about martial arts in general. But my health tip today for all of you ladies, and if you have young women in your life, teenage girls, encourage them, take a self-defense class. So thank you for tuning in to the Dr. Zoe Show. Tune in next week and every week. New shows go up on Tuesdays on podcasts. And if you know a friend who may benefit from any of my topics, Please spread the love and share my show. If you like my show, please show me some love with some stars and connect with me at drzoeshaw.com or any of my social medias. I love to hear from you guys. My handle at all my social medias is Dr. Zoe Shaw. Join my free newsletter by texting the word join to 38470. I look forward to speaking with you wonderful ladies on social media after the show. Have a super week.

You've been listening to the Dr. Zoe Show, redefining your superwoman. With your host, Dr. Zoe Shaw. Don't forget to sign up for her monthly newsletters to get encouragement, tips, and skills for keeping your mind in the Superwoman game. Connect with her now at www.drzoeshaw.com. Tell your friends and subscribe to her podcast on iTunes. Join us next time for another edition of the Dr. Zoe Show.