The Art of Strategic Quitting.

Some exits are upgrades in disguise.

We do not quit when something ends.
We quit when the gap between who we are and who we are pretending to be gets too wide to hold.

Quitting gets labeled as failure.
Usually by people who stayed too long themselves.
I know all about this. I am working through it as I write this.

For me, it showed up as a slow ache. Meetings that drained me. Projects I could do in my sleep. A job I had outgrown years earlier but kept showing up for out of habit and fear. My body knew it was time to go long before I said it out loud. My mind just kept bargaining with the sunk costs. And not well, either.

That is the trap.
We tell ourselves to push through.
We call it loyalty, responsibility, adulthood.
Really we are avoiding the truth: staying is often the more dangerous choice.

Strategic quitting is different.
It is not an escape.
It is a decision made with both eyes open.

It is noticing the energy leak before the burnout hits.
It is recognizing when the work no longer asks anything of you.
It is realizing that comfort is starting to cost you more than change.

When I imagine actually quitting this job, it feels like failure in the moment.
I worry about the title I would leave behind.
The predictability.
The identity I wrapped around the job.
But here is the part we forget: quitting is not the end.
It is the space between versions.

And it was not the first time. Years ago, I got pulled into sales on top of my operations work. It sounded like an opportunity, but it felt like being split in two. I was still running the ship while learning a whole new game. That season taught me how to talk to people, how to negotiate, and how to survive without a script. The whole thing felt like one long trust fall. At the time it felt like failure. Looking back, it was prepping me for the chapter I am building now.

Every major pivot only makes sense in hindsight.
The door shuts.
The panic hits.
Then a few months later you realize you were supposed to move on.
You were just too tired or too scared to do it sooner.

So I am trying to trust the pattern. The panic is real. But so is the upgrade waiting on the other side.

Strategic quitting is not a collapse.
It is an upgrade disguised as discomfort.

What are you still holding onto that has already let go of you?

CTRL:R

CTRL by JP Bristol
Clarity. Tenacity. Reinvention. Legacy.

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