Walk away? Try harder?

Jun 1

“One of the hardest decisions you’ll ever face in life
is choosing whether to walk away or try harder.”
Ziad K. Abdelnuour

“Oof” Audible exhalation.

Yeah…I’ve had to make that choice a couple of times, to walk away or to try harder.

This crossroads moment, whether it be with your job or a relationship- personal or professional, the decision making process disrupts the status quo, and is fraught with questions to consider.

What makes the decision so difficult?
Considerations to take in making the decision.
The gifts and opportunities of this decision making process.

So, first, what makes this decision, to walk away or try harder, so difficult?

Well, we are talking about making a change, and change is hard! We crave certainty. We feel uncomfortable living in the land of the unknown. This discomfort tends to trigger fears and our fight-or-flight response, awakening the reptilian part of our brain where - you guessed it - the Saboteurs live! An alarm sounds: “Hey guys, wake up! Change is on the horizon. Get ready to spring into action!” The cascade of thoughts and feelings swirl around in our minds like sharks scenting our fears and insecurities.

This brings us to what considerations are most important in this decision of whether to walk away or to try harder. You likely ask yourself several questions to assess your motivations and to decipher what will really serve you now and in the future. You may want to enlist the help of a coach, therapist or close friend/family in this exploration. The inquiries will flush out your inner-knowing from the sabotaging elements, so that what serves you becomes clearer.

Now, let’s take a closer look at these two paths, and contemplate some questions which could help parse out your sabotaging thoughts from your inner-knowing: .

First, what exactly does ‘walking away’ mean? Are you giving up? Are you abandoning? Are you avoiding? If so, what are you avoiding? Or, are you taking care of yourself and recognizing that it is time to move along from something which does not fit or serve you - whether that’s a job or relationship or situation. And so maybe stopping or leaving is really about taking care of yourself - truly choosing what’s healthiest for you.

The other choice is to try harder, but does it mean that you haven’t been trying hard enough? Have you been a slacker? If you try harder, will you be able to affect the situation, the person? What will trying harder give you? What are you trying harder at? Does trying harder just provide an excuse for your ego if you don’t succeed? Or is trying harder a way of avoiding what happens when you stop completely? Are you banging your head ceaselessly against a wall, bruised and hurt? And doesn’t that remind us of Einstein’s definition of insanity?

And finally, when have you tried hard enough? When is enough, enough?

In staying and trying harder, are you re-aligning with your values or abandoning them?

Are you people pleasing? Betraying yourself day after day so as to not upset somebody else, or the system? Does the decision to go or to stay reflect a pattern of trying so very hard to be liked, to feel loved, from external sources, no matter the cost to you?

This choice may reveal a conflation of luv and pain: if it doesn’t hurt, it can’t be luv. Thus I stay and try harder because that means this is luv, even as I die inside.

Does continuing the effort simply reveal a hyper-achieving tendency? If my knuckles aren’t bloody, maybe I’m just not working hard enough? If I’m not working hard enough, well, I’m just not good enough.

I mean, who knows? Only you.

Third, what are the gifts and or opportunities at this crossroads of decision?

In almost every instance, wrestling with these questions is an opportunity to strengthen your relationship with yourself, to go inwards and explore what’s really working for you, and what’s not. To clarify what’s really important to you. This is an opportunity to grow trust in yourself. You can live with this uncertainty and actually use it to become closer, more authentic to yourself, and then to those around you.

As you grapple with the barrage of thoughts and feelings, acknowledge the discomfort and that struggle and change are really hard. Be extra gentle with yourself during this time.

As for the timing of when to leave and when to try harder, you’ll know when you know, and not a minute sooner, no matter how hard you try.

Trust your timing. You’ve got this.