Cutting Your Losses and Starting Over

On occasion, we are faced with scenarios in our lives where we frankly need to quit. Failure can sometimes be a challenge that many people do not want to meet. Trust me; I understand this all too well myself. Our society often can develop a stigma around quitting and cutting your losses. The problem with this stigma is that many of us keep going in scenarios that are not good for us because of the possibility of failure. We don’t allow ourselves to enforce our boundaries as self-care because we may be seen as a failure because of this stigma. The truth of the matter is that it’s okay to cut your losses and start over if a situation causes more harm than good. Therefore, let’s explore how you can cut your losses gracefully and start over with better success.

Why It’s Okay To Quit

Many people struggle with allowing themselves to cut their losses and quit. Most honestly hate the thought of failure, but it there would be no growth, evolution, and wisdom developed for us in our lives without failure. When we put a lot of time, energy, and effort into something, it can make it more challenging to justify cutting our losses, especially from someone like myself, who is driven. Ideally, the reason you quit should need to make sense to you to allow yourself to do it and give yourself the kindness to understand when something is no longer serving you. 

A few posts back, I discussed my climb on K2 and how I had eventually just needed to cut my losses and accept that I would not reach the summit. In that situation, as much as I strived to summit K2 and was driven to complete it, the external circumstances surrounding that climb were beyond my control. The risk versus the reward was potentially compromising my physical safety. Therefore, I had to cut my losses, quit the climb, and eventually start all over when I could return. I learned in that situation that it is okay to stop if it could cause a great deal of physical risk and harm to my body. My physical health will always matter more than climbing the mountain, and I felt it truly justified that it was okay to cut my losses for my safety, give myself the chance to go back to the drawing board, and start over for next time.

When It’s Okay To Quit

In addition to understanding the reason why it’s okay for you to quit and cut your losses, it is also essential to know when to call it a day. Sometimes many of us struggle to pinpoint the best time to cut our losses in a situation. While, of course, if it is no longer serving you, your goals, your purpose, or your physical or mental health can be quality time to go, it when it’s draining you more than fulfilling you that it’s time to cut your losses. The same sentiment can be said if it’s also financially draining you. While money has an energetic flow, and it comes while it goes, if you are paying more dues than collecting them, then it’s time to let it go. Although I have career experience in the financial sector, I have yet to understand or master the boom in cryptocurrency. While I have invested some money into it, I set myself rules with it, and if it wavers too close to breaking those rules, I cut my losses and will start again later. 

Final Thoughts On Cutting Your Losses and Starting Over

Often, we have this idea of how life is supposed to be, which gets in the way of us enjoying life the way it is. So when getting into anything, it is best to have a plan that takes the emotions out of decisions that can be emotional. Understanding why you need to cut something loose and when to cut it loose can allow you to embrace failure more as fuel than loss. Starting over again can be a beautiful part of the journey and can turn any setback into a comeback.