I’ve been surrounded by thoughts of quitting recently. I wrote about The Only Good Reason To Quit Your Job for Forbes.com. I appeared on Fox Business to talk about 3 Signs You Should Leave Your Job:
But quitting is not just about jobs. As time-crunched, attention-deficient, and sleep-deprived entrepreneurs, even we business owners need to think about quitting things. I recently quit 2 things — a class and a networking group — in the span of 2 weeks! Here are some of my decision factors for quitting:
It’s not fun. If I feel more depleted after the activity than when I started, I drop it. This doesn’t mean you can expect to love 100% everything you do in your business. If there is a payoff that satisfies you, then that could be enough to restore your energy. Otherwise, pay attention to when you’re unhappy or annoyed or drained. Can you delegate or drop those activities without a big bottom line impact? Can you make up for any adverse bottom line impact doing something else?
It’s not profitable. Sometimes I fall into a habit of doing things that seem like a good idea (or once were a good idea) but are no longer helpful or profitable. If it’s been a while since you’ve looked at your business activities, networking groups, or daily routines, you might be doing unnecessary or even harmful things. Do you need to change the way to manage your social media? Do you need to call on different people? Do you need to prune your networking groups?
It’s not fulfilling in some other way. If an activity isn’t enjoyable or a money-maker, it might still be worthwhile because I derive some other fulfillment. Exercise is a good example for me because I’m not an athletic person who enjoys the gym. But the energy increase I get is well worth it, even though I don’t enjoy it and it actually costs me money. What activities sustain and uplift you in different ways than just pleasure or profit? Are any of these ruts or habits you need to reconsider?
What are some metrics that you use for deciding to press on or drop something?
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