Don’t Leave Until You Ask Yourself These Questions.
If you can’t decide whether it will be time to quit your job, end a relationship nasal out of a community organization, or just say goodbye to something in your life that might be kind of good but not great, ask yourself three questions. :
- What aspect of this situation makes me want to quit smoking? What is the problem?
- Can I fix the problem?
- If I can’t fix the problem, will it improve on its own in the future?
Let’s say you’re part of a group that gets together every week to have a beer and play board games. You used to look forward to the weekly freeze, but lately you’ve started to get scared of it – so should you quit or keep showing up?
The first thing you need to do is ask yourself why you want to quit smoking. Is it because you have too much time and not enough time to rest and recuperate? Is it because your job is becoming more demanding or have you made a new commitment in your personal life (partner, aging parent, child)? Is it because the group has added a new member who is addicting? Is it because you and the other band members have moved on to different stages in your life and no longer feel like hanging out with your peers?
Once you have identified the underlying problem, your next question is whether you can fix the problem that is causing you to fear this event. If the problem turns out to be something that can be solved, for example, “I don’t like play nights because the next day I always feel hungover,” then go ahead and implement the solution (in this case, drink less beer) and see if the urge to quit dies down.
If the problem is that you cannot solve it on your own, such as increased demands at work, ask yourself if the situation will improve on its own. Will your workload drop in a month or two, giving you more time (and more energy) for social gatherings?
If the situation improves in the near future, hang on there (or if you prefer, tell your group that you need to take a month’s leave until your job clears up). But if your job remains that stressful for the foreseeable future, it might be a good idea to step out of the board game group or ask yourself the same three questions about your job .
Career expert Amy Gallo of The Lily describes this strategy as a flowchart, noting that the decision to leave or not “boils down to whether something is out of your control and can change in the future “. Of course, leaving a job tends to have slightly more consequences than leaving a board game group, especially if you don’t have another job, so you can give yourself some time to see if the situation arises. actually improves on its own:
In less well-defined cases, Gallo suggests setting a timeline for yourself: Tell yourself that you’ll hold out for another three months, six months, or a year, and don’t drag out that timeline again. “If you keep pushing it, it’s a clear sign,” she says. “The key is what is a reasonable time frame in which you can experiment with the things that you can control and change – do they change?”
Don’t forget that you can stick to your current job while looking for the best one – and you can also stick to your current exercise routine while trying out a new class of group workout or continuing to drop by the board games club. and is also testing another social club or organization. (This does not work well with relationships for obvious reasons.)
But if you are sure that there is no way to improve the situation and / or you simply do not want to improve it, you can simply quit smoking and see what comes into your life as you make room for something new.