Limits, Quitting, and Learning - Extended

A deeper dive into "Limits, Quitting, and Learning."

(This post is part of an on-going series dedicated to developing Agile mastery. It's for paid subscribers and includes additional material - sometimes brief, sometimes lengthy - to help deepen the reader's understanding of the ideas presented in the lead article, "Limits, Quitting, and Learning.")

There is a difference between quitting when faced with the first bump on the path and going down a path that offers nothing but obstacles and fruitless efforts. A few obstacles along the path - even big obstacles - is the path asking "Do you really want this?" Nothing but pain and misery along the path is the path telling you "Not this way!" I'm close to thinking this is a bedrock heuristic for evaluating decision quality. When I take it to an extreme - like being handed the short and sharp end of a medical diagnosis stick - it still applies. Do I really want to experience a horrific treatment path for a shot at 10% survival or do I want the highest quality of life for the time I have left? (A question anyone faced with such a path must answer for themselves.) But for most of our time on the planet, the choices are not so extreme and it's important to know the difference between impulsively quitting at the first sign of difficulty and intelligently quitting in order to move in a direction that increases the odds of success.

Quitting is a natural part of life. Our culture may not support that notion and as a consequence we're not very skilled at quitting intelligently or gracefully. There are more examples of people working way past their prime - particularly professional athletes - then there are people who have chosen to quit at the top of their profession (Jerry Seinfeld, comes to mind.) Learning how to quit intelligently early in life prepares us for the inevitable transitions where our bodies and minds will no longer be up to the task. Intelligent quitting means we are in control of how we experience the transitions between our early, middle, and late chapters in life.

Somewhere between giving up at the first sign of difficulty and going down the wrong path for far too long is a squishy zone of doubt and uncertainty. It's in this space we need a better set of mental models and tools to help work through the ambiguity and either shore up our resolve or shift direction.

In the lead article to this post, you were given a self-assessment task. On a scale of one (Not me!) to ten (Definitely me!) rate yourself on the following:

• Fear of failure or being judged for failing

• Blaming others for failures I was involved with and/or...

• Avoid conflict

• Struggle with making decision due to procrastination, lack confidence, or impulsive behavior

• Uncomfortable with new patterns, unexpected situations, or changes to the familiar

• Overly focused on defined plans or outcomes

• Completing everything I start

• Seeking perfection

If your score for any of these traits was seven or greater, the odds are good you will benefit by strengthening the skills related to knowing when and how to quit. With this knowledge in mind, the first exercise was to shake out of your mind and onto paper all the things you were thinking about doing and then set them aside. That is, quit thinking about them. To accomplish the really important things in your life, you need to quit thinking about all the other things you might do that are marginally rewarding or productive.

Assuming you've done this exercise, revisit your collection of cool things to do and organize them on a scale that feels comfortable - 1 to 10, 1 to 100. The way I do this is to place each opportunity on its own sticky note. Looking at each one separately, I write the number on the note and move on to the next. After that, I place all the notes on a wall according to where they are on the scale.

This exercise will likely help you focus your energy on the high value opportunities and make it easier to let go of those with lower value. It may also reveal the need for alternative paths and shifted timing for when you pursue any particular opportunity.

But often, this isn't enough. Are there other mental skills that can help us make our cloud of opportunity rain real action and progress? Yes, there are! Let's look into several of the more effective methods for making it rain!