Since I was a kid, I have been taught to persevere. “If at first, you don’t succeed, try, try again” is what they told us in school, at home, and on all those after-school specials (for those of us old enough to remember them). We were taught to keep trying no matter how many times we failed.
For the most part, this lesson has had a positive impact on my life and career. It helped me build a growth mindset, believing that intelligence and success have everything to do with how hard you work and not with any special biologically endowed talents. Because I’ve been so goal-oriented, I did well in school, went to a great college, and have had a successful career.
I continued with this mantra into my adulthood, across my 30s, and into my early 40s. This lesson stuck with me so hard that to this day, if I start a movie or a television series, I have to finish it, no matter how bad it is. If I start a book, I will read until the very last page, no matter how much I hate it.
In fact, I spent two years of my life crawling through Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, which is over 1,000 pages long and is utterly massive in size. I lugged this thing onto the subway with me every single day, tucking it under my arm because it was too big to fit in my bag. I kept doing this, every day, even though I absolutely hated the book (no offense to David Foster Wallace fans), because I started it, and I was going to finish it.
I know why I started the book—because the New York Times hailed it as one of the best books in over 100 years. But why did I feel so compelled to finish it when the task had become time-consuming, stressful, and downright unpleasant?
There is a ton of research out there on what motivates us to accomplish our goals, and the classic research has shown that pursuing a goal because you think the goal is interesting and personally meaningful to you is related to successfully achieving that goal. In contrast, pursuing a goal because someone else tells you to, or because of some external reward, like money or popularity, or because the New York Times told you to, more often leads to dropping that goal (Koestner et al., 2008).
This has been found to be true in relationships, and when you have a personal motivation to improve a romantic relationship, you are more likely to make progress in improving that relationship (Holding et al., 2020). It has also been shown with eating habits: If you are motivated to change your eating habits for a meaningful, personal reason, you are more likely to achieve that goal (A. Holding et al., 2024).
But is it ever a good idea to disengage from our goals? In other words, is it ever OK to quit?
Deciding between whether you should let go of a goal or keep trucking is something many of us struggle with, and is something that researcher Dr. Anne Holding calls an action crisis. According to her work, we experience an action crisis when one of our goals starts to seem impossible, or just isn’t something we want to accomplish anymore, either because it’s boring, time-consuming, or just seems unappealing (Holding et al., 2017).
Just like what predicts whether we are likely to successfully accomplish a goal, what best predicts whether we make it out of that action crisis seems to be whether we are motivated to disengage from that goal because of personal, autonomous reasons, or because of some external reason, like we’re worried about what other people would think. In other words, when you’re motivated by internal factors, it’s easier to let go (Holding et al., 2017)
The Challenges of Quitting
Whatever your motivation to let go, Holding’s research has shown that holding onto goals that we aren’t finding fulfilling anymore because of obligation or guilt, much like I held onto the goal of finishing Infinite Jest, can lead to stress, depression, and decreases in overall well-being (Holding et al., 2021).
As someone who is juggling lots of adult responsibilities, including a job, family, mortgage, bills, and various social commitments, I’ve had to think about letting go of some of my goals more seriously than I ever had before. As a gold star “finisher,” I’ve prided myself on finishing everything I’ve started, no matter how mundane. But reading this research has made me see how stressful holding on to the less meaningful goals has been.
As a result, for this year’s New Year’s resolution, instead of making lists of things to do, I’ve been making a list of things not to do. This list doesn’t include things like spending time with my family, or doing my job; it instead includes things that I don’t find particularly meaningful, but am holding on to just for the sake of finishing—things like finishing Season 2 of a TV show that’s lost its luster, those guitar lessons that I never practice for, and that extra book club that I never feel like reading for. Instead of spending a little bit of time on everything, I want to spend more time on the things that are actually meaningful to me, and less time on the things that aren’t.
The moral of the story? If there’s an activity you don’t find super interesting, it’s OK to quit. If something looks good on paper, but in reality, it’s a drain on your energy and resources, throw it out. And if you’re holding on to something just because you’re worried about what others would think if you walked away, maybe it’s time to run.
I know we’re told to see things through—to work hard to accomplish our goals, to lean in. But in reality, we don’t have time to do everything, and we certainly can’t have it all, so maybe it’s time to normalize leaning out.
So this year, you can add a new goal—but consider also shedding some of those old goals that aren’t quite working for you anymore. Sometimes, it’s OK to let go, and you just might feel better for it.