The song The Gambler, has one line (the only line I actually know) “you gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em…” and that is the difference between quitting and failing.

Quitting is taking in the information and making the decision to be done, to stop doing the thing. This can happen quickly like a child who feels wronged and takes their ball and goes home, so from a place of high emotions and feelings of being wronged. This can also happen with a lot of conscious thought and consideration, like someone playing a high stakes poker game do you hold ‘em or fold ‘em?

Does this make one right and the other wrong? No, there is a good deal of learning and growing that happens in both of those circumstances the quit feels valid to both of those people.

Failing comes when you fall short of success. I like to think of this like setting up a science experiment, you have a hypothesis, controls, you take into account variables, so on and so forth. You set out to conduct the experiment, and see what happens. While you may fail to prove your hypothesis there is a so much valuable learning that comes along the way, many things are critical in aiding you as you move on to the next experience.

However, if you can see early on the experiment is not going to work the way you hoped or thought it would it’s typically best to quit doing the experiment, course correct and try again, unless continuing on becomes part of the experiment.

If you’re not sure if it’s time to quit the experiment/experience, and take a pause. Regrouping, pausing, redirecting, asking for help, is not a failure it’s what smart people do.