When to quit.
To be cowardly, or not to be. Is that the question?
Several months ago I decided to try to get better at telling my story.
I network a lot and when I do, I tell my story. ‘Why not get better?’ I thought.
Long story short, I joined a local public speaking club that helps members improve their communication skills.
And then on a recent club meeting, I prepared and gave a five minute speech. I told my story.
And then I received the feedback.
The feedback was clear and consistent:
You didn’t vary your tone.
You didn’t “own” your story.
You didn’t deliver it with passion and energy.
The story fell flat.
Now feedback is an interesting thing.
You have to decide if there is truth to it or not. You have to consider it.
You have to gate it before you decide it’s allowed to enter and become a part of you.
But I knew that their feedback was true. It stung a bit to admit that.
And after you accept the feedback, there is the next question… what should I do with it? Do I continue with the program? Or do I quit?
Did I want to take the club’s courses on public speaking and put energy into learning how to vary my tone and improve my delivery and practice practice practice practice?
The world tells us that if we identify a deficit we should address it. We should improve and do better. That is grit. That is the marker of success. If we walk away, we are acting out of fear. We are being cowards.
But sometimes quitting is just a “thanks, but not for me”. It’s a way of living our truest version of ourselves.
How do we know the difference?
Here is how I knew.
I didn’t need to continue because I didn’t have the rage to master.
(Thank you Dr. Martha Beck for teaching me this term in your podcast)
The rage to master is not the insecurity to master. I felt nothing but drained at just the idea of practicing tonal variation and passionate monologues.
We are designed for grit. We are designed to overcome challenges. And we are designed to want to master. But we are not designed to master through the soul-sucking work that I was imagining. We are innately confident and playful.
Most likely you felt the rage to master when you were a child.
For example, when I was a child, my siblings and I had the rage to master a type of skateboarding we had invented. The three of us piled onto our one skateboard (we must have been so small…) and tried to ride it all the way down to the end of our driveway without falling off. It was something we never succeeded in. But we didn’t care. We loved each attempt, the possibility of it, the vision of success every time we tried. We would fall over in laughter as our skateboard veered off into the grassy lawn, yards from the goal. Each time we’d race up the driveway to try again. We felt we were right at the edge. Where we could taste victory and still it was so hard to actually get there. We did it over and over until nightfall.
That’s the rage to master.
Because deep down inside you want it. You can see yourself putting in the effort. But the effort doesn’t feel like work. It feels like play. And the pursuit of it is just as joyful as the destination.
So was it quitting? Yes.
And until it feels like flying down a driveway squished on a skateboard, it will stay that way.
Hello, I’m Serena. I am a life coach. I help high achievers with career pivots towards their life purpose. If you would like to receive thought-provoking content, join my email list. If you are interested in 1:1 coaching, get in touch with me here.
