Several weeks ago, a friend correctly pointed out in the comments of my post entitled The Myth of Quitting, that my “idea of understanding quitting means to clarify what the problem is.”
I agree.
Symptom?
The first thing you need to know is whether your desire to quit is a symptom of something else. In my case, hating the lifestyle we had because of music was a symptom. I say it was a symptom because there were causes for that lifestyle that I never recognized. The causes were the real problems.
My Problems
- Blindness: I was blinded by my belief in talent and my love of playing music. Blinded to things about my music career that I hated and could’ve changed IF…I had realized what they were.
- Misalignment: My career goals were not aligned with my life goals. In other words, some of what I wanted to do with my life was not possible given the path of my career and vice versa.
- My path: My path was haphazard at best. Like the vast majority of musicians, I simply wanted to “play” and I took whatever work came my way.
Fixing Symptoms
Most people spend their lives attempting to fix symptoms instead of fixing problems because they never dig further than the surface issues. So how can you get to what’s truly going on? Ask yourself:
The Seven Whys
I learned this from a business meeting facilitation class I attended and I’ve found it works great: ask yourself the question “why?” seven times. For example:
“I hate our lifestyle”
- Why? Because we’re unable to do what we want when we want to.
- Why? Because we either don’t have money or don’t have time.
- Why? Because I don’t make enough money from each gig and therefore have to take gigs when they come up.
- Why? Because I haven’t asked for better money.
- Why? Because I’m afraid I’ll stop getting hired.
- Why? Because, well…I guess I don’t believe I’m valuable enough to expect the extra money.
- Why? Hmmm, I hadn’t thought it that before.
My experience is that you won’t usually get to ask “why?” seven times before you get to heart of the matter. Simply ask it as many times as necessary (including 8, 9, or 10).
So I’m curious, what issues are you wrestling with right now? Are they symptoms or problems?
