When to Walk Away

As in-house counsel, you constantly assess risk, opportunity, and timelines for your company. But how often do you do it for yourself? Here are the highlights from NPR Life Kit’s podcast on “how to know when it’s time to walk away” so you can guide your own career.

1. Don’t stick with something “just because you put a lot of money or time or effort into it.” This is a great analogy: “if you dig a hole in the wrong place, digging deeper is not going to help.”

2. Start with a deadline. “A deadline gives you time to come up with a plan and build an off-ramp if you need it. For instance, if you want to quit your job but can’t afford to, you can start pursuing other work or other careers while you’re in your current position. A deadline also gives you a chance to ask yourself some important questions.”

3. Ask yourself why you are on this path. In particular, ask if you are the same person who set the goal? Who are you afraid of disappointing if you quit?

Also, how passionate are you about the goal? Colin Rocker, an entrepreneur who left his corporate job says “People come to me sometimes for career advice … and they explain this whole situation where they’re clearly, clearly, clearly not passionate about what they’re doing for work. They don’t want to continue doing it, but they feel like they have to do it because of someone else’s perception of them or what it means to someone else.” Psychologist Angela Duckworth who studies grit says passion is very important because “if you want to reach a goal, you’ve got to be deliberate. You’ve got to put in the reps,” so you need to choose something “that spontaneously grabs your attention, puts you into the flow state.”

The host of the podcast summarizes: “If you can help it, don’t choose a career or a hobby or a lifestyle or a path where you’re going to be hating every moment.”

4. Conduct research, figure out how likely you are to be successful and weigh whether you are ok with the odds. This is what we do for a living so do it for yourself!

Be sure to factor in opportunity cost, i.e., what you could be freed up to do instead. Rocker, the entrepreneur, said, “I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve shown up to jobs that I ended up leaving where I could feel the tightness in my chest. I’ve lost hair. I’ve grown gray hairs.” Instead, think about “making way for new growth” because “if you have too much stuff going on, there’s no room for anything new to come into your life.”

To avoid paralysis, put in parameters and timelines, e.g., I will persist UNLESS (X event) or I will persist UNTIL (Y time frame or Z conditions). Duckworth says “Think of this like a little contract with yourself that could make it easier to quit when the moment is right.”

5. If you’re stuck, ask people you trust if you should continue. They can see your situation more clearly than you because they “don’t carry around all the baggage” of sunk costs, i.e., the time that you invested in a non-ideal career path doesn’t cloud their judgment.