Welcome back to Consider Yourself Hugged: A Place for Women! Click here to listen to Episode 104. (***Disclaimer: We provide these notes as a skeleton for the show - nothing fancy 😄)
CYH 104: Quitting or Quitter: What’s the difference?
Welcome to Consider Yourself Hugged. I am your host, Tami West, excited to be back for our 3rd episode this season.
First, the story to set the stage:
This past Saturday, 9/17, my photographer husband Tim exhibited his photographic art at a show in TX. We drove the day before to get set up, and we discovered a completely chaotic setting. When we asked where our booth was, the response was – and I quote –
Just take the next available spot.
Now, bear in mind, there were no spots! The festival was in a mall parking lot on black asphalt lined for cars – but no markings for booths. We also discovered, despite the marketing materials, that it was in a dying mall. So, we did the best we could and set up the booth.
Saturday morning, we arrived around 8:30 am to finish the setup. It is still very unorganized, but we got everything done and waited for the grand opening at 10 – we were pumped!
And then… 10:00 arrived and no visitors. We waited. And waited. We were realizing that this didn’t seem like a “real” art show. It appeared thrown together, not marketed, and in an almost deserted parking lot.
The temperature was forecast to be around 95 degrees with a heat index of over 100. As the morning went on, the heat went up. And up. And up. Neither Tim nor I do well in temperature extremes, and he has intense outdoor allergies. We felt worse and worse as time drug on.
By 3:00 pm we had seen 5 people. Vendors started tearing down, and we had to make the tough decision to do the same.
By the time we arrived at our hotel, sorry to give you TMI, but we got 2 wet wash cloths, stripped off our clothes, turned the air on high, and lay on the sofa and bed for almost an hour. I’m certain Tim was nearing a heat stroke.
So were we quitters? Some would say yes. Some would say You committed to be there. You paid. No matter how big the crowd you shoulda stayed!
The way you feel about quitting something is most certainly tied to your upbringing and life choices. As you know I grew up with extreme perfectionism, so honestly I quit a lot of things.
I mentioned in a FB post the other day that discussion around the word quitting have increased around the pandemic: The Great Resignation, Quiet Quitting. In case you’re not familiar with these 2 – (quick Wikipedia def) The Great Resignation is the term given to
The Great Resignation, also known as the Big Quit[2][3] and the Great Reshuffle,[4][5] is an ongoing economic trend in which employees have voluntarily resigned from their jobs en masse, beginning in early 2021.
Quiet quitting (also Wikipedia) is
Quiet quitting is an application of work-to-rule, in which employees work within defined work hours and engage solely in activities within those hours. The philosophy of quiet quitting, despite the name, is not necessarily connected to quitting a job outright, but rather doing exactly what the job requires.[1] Proponents of quiet quitting also refer to it as acting your wage.[2]
So what’s the difference between quitting and being a quitter? Let’s look at 4 things, along with advice on each one:
1. First, let’s define the 2 words:
2. Second, one is a verb. One is a noun. Let’s use them in a sentence regarding leaving the show, shall we? 😊
a. Last weekend we quit the art festival.
b. Last week we were quitters.
I don’t know about you, but that second one sounds awful, and I hope it’s something you will not be saying about anything in your life.
3. Now, we need to assess. Did we give up easily because we did not have the courage or determination to finish the task? ABSOLUTELY NOT!! Honestly, there have been times where I have left something because I did not have the courage or determination to finish the task, but quitter?? Let me share a truly personal story of something I quit just this year. In fact, on March 7th of this year.
I had taken on a contract trainer position with a virtual seminar company. I was excited. The pay was decent for virtual. They wanted no tailoring, so it was all their content – minimal prep time. Perfect.
1st session. Great.
2nd session. Great.
And so on.
Until… the ONE!
I was teaching a business writing class – definitely not my thing, but remember I was teaching pre-made content. At this point, though, I was realizing that just because it was their content didn’t mean I didn’t have to learn new material. I mean, writing is not something I’ve ever taught.
I was scheduled to do a part 1 and a part 2. Part 1 did NOT go well. The client found me offensive and said all I talked about was my dissertation which was not the same thing as workplace business writing. Now, how did I get this feedback? Well, I contacted the seminar company rep who booked me, telling her it didn’t go well. And she agreed and asked for a meeting. She was the one who told me these things. Not only did she tell me these things, she asked me if I had ever even done a virtual training before and told me she didn’t know how she could trust me going forward.
I was devastated! In 20+ years of speaking, this has never happened. My knee-jerk reaction was to be what the definition would call a quitter: not having the courage or determination to finish the task.
But I didn’t – at least not yet. Now, the client asked for another trainer for part 2 which I was grateful for. I guess? 😊 But I finished the trainings for that week. I took the weekend to think and pray. The last thing I wanted to do was to quit out of fear and perceived failure. I knew based on my student teaching experience that would haunt me for a long time (I was going to say forever, but I’ve gotten beyond holding things for that long!)
4. Finally, honestly, can we just get rid of the word? We all know someone that we might call a quitter. You’re thinking of someone right now, aren’t you? But choices are made in life based on SO many factors!! The world has changed so much that I don’t even know what normal means! Or loyalty to a job. Or how others’ values have changed.
Make your decisions based on your life, your spiritual beliefs, your values, your relationships. Use these 4 concepts, and never be a quitter again!
Thanks for joining today! As we’ve always asked in the past, please pass the show link along to your friends and subscribe, download, and review wherever you are listening. If you’re a woman and you haven’t joined our private FB group A Place for Women, please do that now! It’ll be your source of encouragement.
Thank you so much for joining us again and for the upcoming growth of our place for women!
And until next time ladies, Consider Yourself Hugged 😘🤗
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