Quitting is an emotionally charged word. In contrast, words like perseverance and grit are revered. They collide when it's time to pivot, move on or change direction. Pulitzer Prize winning author Julia Keller makes the case for strategic quitting and why it can be a courageous act of love to make a course correction versus sticking it out. In her new book, Quitting: A Life Strategy, she explores the neuroscience behind quitting and recounts the experiences of people from various walks of life for whom quitting was the right play. If you're contemplating retirement or a pivot to a second act, you'll find this conversation and Julia Keller's new book to be timely, insightful and thought-provoking.

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Bio
Julia Keller, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and former cultural critic at the Chicago Tribune, is the author of many books for adults and young readers, including A Killing in the Hills, the first book in the Bell Elkins series and winner of the Barry Award for Best First Novel (2013); Back Home; and The Dark Intercept. Keller has a Ph.D. in English literature from Ohio State and was awarded Harvard University’s Nieman Fellowship. She was born in West Virginia and lives in Ohio.

Julia Keller's new book is Quitting: A Life Strategy: The Myth of Perseverance―and How the New Science of Giving Up Can Set You Free.

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For More on Julia Keller

Quitting: A Life Strategy: The Myth of Perseverance―and How the New Science of Giving Up Can Set You Free

Website

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Wise Quotes

On Grit & Perseverance

"I think we are all very much under the sway of this idea of grit, this idea of being gritty and persevering as an unalloyed good. Now, there's no question that sometimes it's great and sometimes it works out, but not always. I like to say it's a good servant, but a bad master. You don't want to always have grit and perseverance to be the only tool in your toolbox. There are other ways to approach life and to get to where you want to go. But that's very much against the common thinking that grit is always celebrated and always generative."

On the Courage to Quit

"There are times when a pause and a pivot is the best strategy, that not being gritty and not sticking with it is absolutely the best thing you can do. But in order to do that, as we'll talk about in a bit, you have to overcome a lot of cultural messaging. I call it cultural baggage that we live with all of our lives where we have to move through that somehow. And it takes a great deal of courage. Quitting takes courage. And that's something I always say to people. I don't want anybody to be under any illusions. Anybody past the age of 12 knows this already. Quitting something is very, very, very difficult. And it does take a lot of personal courage and a lot of intellectual courage as well."

On Neuroscience & Quitting

"In my conversations with many neuroscientists I spoke with, and scientists and evolutionary biologists, they all make one salient point about our brains. Our brains like to be active. Our brains like to stay in motion. The worst thing you can do for a brain, any brain, ours or anybody else's, is to have it just be sitting there not doing anything. Our brains like to be in motion. So I call quitting aerobics for your brain. It's a way of keeping your brain active when you change course. When you look at the path you're on and say, I don't know. I think maybe I can do better. When you change course like that, you are forcing your brain to be engaged and your whole brain ...