“Maybe that’s the test,” Ryan Holiday muses. “Are you quitting so you don’t have to do it anymore, or are you quitting because you’re going to do the harder thing?“
When you’ve only tried being a Youtube for six weeks, the answer is clear: Your desire to quit comes from having reached the dip. The honeymoon phase is over, and from here on out, the long night will only allow the committed to pass. But what if you’ve been working on something for years?
What if your spouse wants to walk away after 15 years of marriage? What if your entire industry more or less disappears overnight? What if your business hits a different kind of white-water you don’t know you can survive? Suddenly, even the test is hard — because of course you want relief, but a harder, higher challenge might also indeed be waiting.
Maybe, it is this elusive calling we can call upon: If your “cart is in the dirt,” as we say in Germany, that can be an opportunity to finally cut lose your sunk cost bias. But if there’s nothing different yet obvious that you long to be doing, well, then you might as well start pulling. When the big quagmire feels like the chance of a lifetime to do the thing you’ve been waiting to do, take it — and when you’re mired in the right quag en route to your dreams, keep walking through the mud.
Ultimately, “Is quitting hard or easy?” may not be the right test to get you the answer to a convoluted challenge, but it sure is a decent place to start.