Successful people actually quit things all the time. They’re just really good at knowing what to quit and when to do it.
In The One Thing You Need to Know, author Marcus Buckingham says that the key to sustained success and happiness is, “Discover what you don’t like doing and stop doing it.”
Stanford Professor Jim Collins shares in his book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t:
Most of us lead busy but undisciplined lives. We have ever-expanding ‘to do’ lists, trying to build momentum by doing, doing, doing—and doing more. And it rarely works. Those who built the good-to-great companies, however, made as much use of ‘stop doing’ lists as ‘to do’ lists.”
Seth Godin wrote a book about how to recognize when it’s worth pushing through a challenge, and when it’s better to quit. Turns out, successful people are good at making that distinction.
And the least influential on this list by far wrote a past post about quitting.
As you head back to school and think about all the things you want to accomplish, you might also consider quitting a thing or two.