I don’t do giving up

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“I don’t quit.”

She’d been brought up that way, and it had served her well. She’d already said yes to something new. And she was still asking me whether she was running away?

I knew the feeling. In 2024 I wrote a LinkedIn post that included the line “I do NOT do GIVING UP!!” In capitals. With two exclamation marks.

I still mean it. Grit has built most of what I have.

But it’s also a sort of thought trap. And it’s a hard one to spot from the inside, because from the inside it looks exactly like a strength.

Staying

In my early 20s I worked in film and TV. I got to a point where I could see the ceiling on how far I’d go in the organisation I was in. I knew it was there, and I stayed for another year or two anyway.

I liked some of the people. My ego got the odd stroke. I was doing something lots of people really wanted to do, so I felt I should stick at it.

In the end I didn’t quit. Redundancies did it for me. It was the push I’d been needing.

That’s how grit kept me there. It made leaving look like the weak option, so I waited for someone else to decide.

Annie Duke, a former professional poker player who now writes about decisions, puts it plainly in her book Quit: “Quitting on time will usually feel like quitting too early.” By that measure, I was well past it.

My client could have stuck it out too. She said she’d probably be miserable for a few months and get there. People who’d been there far longer felt the same Sunday night dread she did. Her own image for it: ‘If you stay in a bad relationship, it often only gets worse.’

Her grit was offering her more months of the same dread and exhaustion, and calling it character.

Getting out

Years later, in a different career in education, I was in a toxic team in a toxic organisation. I was holding my breath so hard from tension that I felt dizzy every day.

This time I knew it was time to go. My problem was getting out. So I put my grit into building an escape tunnel.

I’d learnt from that first time I stuck around too long. I asked for support - I didn’t get it. So I dug hard and fast and got out within a year. As an aside the role I left was then turned into three separate full time positions - so I felt a bit of validation. I’d been given an impossible task.

The next role was a lot better. I had freedom and independence, room to be creative, real impact and good support around me. I stayed a long time. I left for good reasons - to set up home with my partner, now my husband, and for some stability after yearly restructures. The role I moved to was more senior, so it looked like climbing the career ladder, having more impact. It looked like I was gaining a really strong team (I’d had to grow my teams from the ground up in all my previous roles)… It was quite the opposite.

I’d swapped one set of problems for a very similar set to that first role, dressed up differently and with a few additional challenges added on. I’d chosen on how the role looked from the outside: the seniority and a good reputation had stood in for the things I actually needed.

My client has done this part better than I did. What she’d been missing was support, and she did her homework before making her choice to quit, made this a priority criteria - her new role comes with a team she can ask questions of.

No one makes a founder redundant

When you work for someone else, they can end it for you. I had redundancies to thank once.

Run your own business and nobody’s coming to do that.

I worked with a founder who ran an established and long standing publishing business. When things got tight he pushed on rather than scaling down, and he didn’t ask anyone for support. When the cuts came, they had to be deeper. Looking back, he could see the options he’d had. By then it was too late to take them.

I know that one from the inside too.

When I realised the senior role was a mistake, I turned up the focus on the business I’d been running on the side. Suddenly a very early-stage business had to succeed. I needed it to be my way out. The pressure was real.

I tried for 4 years. Threw everything I had at it. Financially, energy and emotionally.

And it kept giving me just enough hope. I’d land an amazing deal or a brilliant high profile customer. When I told people who I worked with, they were impressed.

What I didn’t tell them about was the tumbleweed in between.

I never got the pipeline consistent. When it worked it was great and exciting. When it didn’t, it was a hard slog.

Enough hope to keep going.

Grit can hold on to the way out just as hard as it holds on to the thing you’re leaving. Once a business has to be your escape tunnel, you can’t see it clearly.

Grit or quit?

The answer I’ve come to is checking where my grit is pointed. These are the questions I wish I’d asked sooner:

• What does this look like from the inside? The ordinary Tuesday, behind the title, the reputation and the customer names.

• Is it working, or is it giving me just enough hope? Judge it on the average month, not the best one.

• Who am I waiting for to end this? If the honest answer is someone else, that’s the answer.

• What’s my body saying that my grit is talking over? Mine was holding its breath.

There is more…

After 4 years, I let that plan go. Then I founded the business I run now.

It’s called Ellipsis, after the three dots I had tattooed on my arm at 35 when I was in the middle of a number of difficult transitions. They mean ‘there is more’... They’ve been useful every time I’ve had to start again.

I still don’t do giving up. I also know now it’s got potential to serve me and potential to be a trap, and I watch for it.

My client asked whether she was running away? She’s leaving something that was costing her, for something with the support she’d been missing. That’s a different thing from running away, and it took me several jobs and a four-year business to learn it.