At 44, I’m finally learning how to quit

For most of my life, working harder has been a winning strategy.

As a collegiate athlete, hard work wasn’t just admirable; it was the standard. When things got difficult, I never questioned whether I should keep going. I trained harder, stayed longer, and pushed through pain: for sure that mentality served me well, and I’d bet is responsible for a significant amount of the success I’ve created in my life.

I see the same thing in so many of the women I work with. We became successful because we were willing to do what other people weren’t, and after enough years of watching hard work pay off, we learned to trust our ability to outwork almost any problem.

But when the thing that made you successful becomes part of your identity, it’s hard to recognize when it’s no longer serving you. So when something stops working, we don’t question whether it’s still worth fighting for. We assume we just haven’t fought hard enough.

And we keep pushing the boulder uphill.

We put our shoulder into it, dig our feet into the ground and convince ourselves that if we can just push a little harder, we’ll eventually get it over the top. And because we’ve moved a lot of boulders this way before, we have every reason to believe we can move this one too.

But at 44, I understand something I didn’t when I was younger: my ability to move the boulder doesn’t mean it deserves to come with me.

That distinction has become increasingly important.

There are hard things worth fighting like hell for. 

And then there is the kind of hard where we’re simply pushing because we’ve already pushed it this far. For high performers, letting go can feel dangerously close to quitting. We’ve spent our lives being rewarded for endurance, so we assume strength means finding another gear.

But there comes a point when the strongest thing we can do is stop pushing long enough to ask a different question.

Not “Can I get this boulder up the hill?”

Of course I can.

Is this boulder worth pushing up the hill at all?

Because maturity isn’t proving how much weight we can carry or how hard we’re willing to fight. It's knowing what deserves our fight and having the courage to let the rest roll away.

What boulder are you pushing that really needs to just be released?

Something to think about.