Economist Henry Siu found that young people who switched jobs more often earned higher salaries in later life. Quitting one job after another may not be a bad thing either: despite commonly-held belief, frequently job-hopping can actually make you more successful. Meanwhile, a job you hate can leave you prone to depression, anxiety and physical illness – so much so that when it comes to mental health, no job at all may be better than a thankless one. (Just ask the employees of once-thriving chains like Blockbuster, Borders or Woolworths) And not knowing what will happen after a big change doesn’t mean that path is worse. What we forget is that just because we have more information about our present situation doesn’t mean those facts will stay the same in the future. But we do know what we’d lose by leaving. We don’t know what will happen if we quit to take a different path. Something that might make your life better – if only you weren’t so worried about the sunk cost,” he says.Įxacerbating our dilemma is our fear of the unknown. “For every hour or dollar that you spend on one thing, you’re giving up the opportunity to spend that hour or dollar on something else. It’s the same reason that someone with an expensive, time-intensive law or medical degree may be less likely to leave their career path, no matter how unhappy they might be.īut as Stephen Dubner points out in the Freakonomics podcast The Upside of Quitting, we’re so loss-averse that we favour sunk cost over an equally important consideration: opportunity cost. Would you rather lose $5, or turn down the opportunity to earn $5? Most of us find the latter easier, even though the result is the same. What we have already invested, whether time or money or something else, reflects our sunk cost. This reflects a particularly human tendency: our excruciating aversion to loss. “If I never quit anything, I’d still be playing tee-ball and playing with Transformers,” Barker jokes.īut once we have realised we want to take a different direction, most of us still find it difficult to abandon our current path. Even if a goal was once a good fit, it might not be so appropriate a few years later. Research suggests that, when done for the right reasons, walking away from a workplace, relationship or even an ambition can make you happier, healthier and more successful.įor one, people often are working towards the wrong goals to begin with. But rather than thinking of quitting as the absolute last resort, we may want to reconsider its value, say experts. If you abandon a marathon at the 5km mark, you’ll never succeed. If you never quit anything, you’re going to have less time for the things that really matter.” It’s really important,” says Eric Barker, author of Barking Up the Wrong Tree. “What nobody talks about is that, sometimes, quitting is really good. As promises of job security have dwindled, that role model of a company lifer has been replaced by the entrepreneur who never gives up. In previous generations, the usual narrative was that success (and financial stability) followed the workhorse who stuck with their job, or career path, no matter what. But quitting was a terrifying – and necessary – starting point.įor most of us, the important role quitting can play in success runs counter to deeply-held beliefs. And leaving my job wasn’t the only reason for everything that followed. Of course, I didn’t know it would work out that way. One of the publications I began writing for was the BBC, which led to a full-time job across two continents. Only by giving up my job as a political reporter in Washington DC could I move to Italy and pursue my dream of becoming a travel journalist. It turned out to be the best career decision I ever made. It seemed to be a mistake: it was in my industry of choice, it was the start of the recession, I had just been promoted, and I didn’t have another 9-to-5 lined up… or any real financial assets to fall back on. I quit my first ‘real’ job after university.
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