Throwing in the Towel Can Be Good For You
Some people just don’t know when to quit.
Like Michael Jordan, who was cut from his high school basketball team before turning into the greatest player in the history of the sport. Or 65-year-old cook Harland “Colonel” Sanders, who was reportedly turned down 1,000 times before finding a buyer for his Kentucky Fried Chicken. Thomas Edison went through countless trials before inventing the incandescent light bulb. “I have not failed,” Edison reportedly said. “I’ve just found 6,000 ways that won’t work.”
For the most part, North American culture celebrates people who refuse to throw in the towel. But there is a flip side to such dogged determination. According to a recent study by UBC psychology professor Gregory Miller and Concordia University associate psychology professor Carsten Wrosch, not knowing when to give up can damage a person’s physical and mental health as well as cause serious regrets later in life. “Persisting may not always be the right response, especially when people face goals that they cannot realize anymore,” says Wrosch. “In such situations, it may be better to give up and find something new and invest effort in new endeavours. The problem is that giving up is not so easy.”
“What we find across studies is that the capacity to disengage and find new goals affects well-being,” adds Wrosch. “People who have an easier time letting go are at lower risk of developing physical health problems.”
Miller and Wrosch’s study, which was published in the September 2007 issue of Psychological Science, followed a group of 90 Vancouver teenagers for a year and found that those in the group who found it easy to quit difficult goals had far lower levels of C-reactive protein (C.R.P.), an inflammatory molecule that is linked with diabetes, heart disease, and early aging. Miller believes that the pressure of constantly striving for unattainable goals can create undo stress and also make people forget to focus on their health.
As if that was enough cause for concern, Wrosch also suggests that giving up too early can also have negative psychological effects, creating waves of regret that can last a lifetime. So what’s a person supposed to do when they find themselves at a crossroads? Wrosch is studying the problem and believes that the answer may lie in viewing things through a detached perspective. “We are rather at risk at persisting too long,” says Wrosch. “The way I think about it is you should step outside your goal and re-evaluate the situation. You should also ask other people to get a more realistic estimate of what your opportunities are.”
Not knowing when to give up can damage a person’s
physical and mental health as well as cause serious regrets later in life
Wrosch insists that his work does not suggest that one should give up the ghost when times get tough or, even worse, not bother trying in the first place. What it does suggest is that there is no shame in occasionally giving up and moving on. It may be the best thing you can do for your career and your well-being.
