Quitting (previously published as Mastering the Art of Quitting) (25 page)

Take the example of a young woman who was utterly stymied in her efforts to get a job in the nonprofit world; it was clear that budget cuts had made it well-nigh impossible for her to find work that paid enough to cover her rent and bills. Ultimately, she chose to do volunteer work on the weekends in addition to her full-time job, for the pleasure of it, to keep her connected, and to keep her goal in focus. She believes that her volunteerism may well be the path that ultimately gets her where she wants to be.

Understanding your goal in abstract terms may also make it easier for you see opportunities in interim goals. Your ultimate goal may be to remarry after the loss of a close relationship, but it may be easier and more realistic for you to focus on deepening the ties you have in existing relationships in the interim.

Anything that helps you be cognitively and emotionally flexible will serve you well as you move forward. But the closer to your central self-definition the relinquished goal is, the greater the emotional impact. Seek support if you need to; emotional recovery is part of the process.

Optimism and Reengagement

We've talked about optimism in these pages, most often in terms of overoptimism, which often contributes to people's holding on to unattainable goals and encourages their lack of realistic appraisal about both the goal and the skills or opportunity necessary to attain it. Generally, optimism is a cognitive bias that doesn't serve us when we need to disengage. But Carsten Wrosch and Michael Scheier have argued that optimism—which they define as
“a relatively stable, generalized expectation that good outcomes will occur
across important life domains”—is, nonetheless, an important ingredient in reengagement. In this research, optimism isn't the opposite of pessimism as it is in common parlance (“Are you a person who sees a half-full or a half-empty glass?”) but is a spectrum of expectation. By “stable,” Wrosch and Scheier mean that optimism, like personality
traits, tends to be stable across the life span. They measure optimism and pessimism with a six-item scale called the
Life Orientation Test
. It's only used in research and not as a clinical tool, but you might as well locate yourself on the scale as you read the questions below.

1. In uncertain times, I usually expect the best.

2. It's easy for me to relax.

3. If something can go wrong for me, it will.

4. I'm always optimistic about my future.

5. I enjoy my friends a lot.

6. It's important for me to keep busy.

7. I hardly ever expect things to go my way.

8. I don't get upset too easily.

9. I rarely count on good things happening to me.

10. Overall, I expect more good things to happen to me than bad.

Items 2, 5, 6, and 8 are fillers and don't get scored. For items 1, 4, and 10, score 4 points for “I strongly agree”; 3 points for “I agree”; 2 points for “I'm neutral”; 1 point for “I disagree”; and 0 points for “I strongly disagree.” Reverse-score items 3, 7, and 9 (0 points = strongly agree, 1 = agree, 2 = neutral, 3 = disagree, and 4 = strongly disagree). Add up all your answers. The higher the number, the more optimistic you are; high values imply optimism.

Wrosch and Scheier assert
that optimism provides the necessary fuel for reengagement; in addition, they write that optimistic people use a more active style of coping and engage in more problem-solving when a goal has been blocked. Remember that goal disengagement requires both a reduction of effort (ceasing activities in pursuit of the goal) and a relinquishment of commitment. As we've already seen, people who are unable to let go of the commitment end up stuck and unable to set new goals. Wrosch and Scheier argue that being optimistic about your chances of achieving a new goal facilitates the process.

How optimism needs to be balanced by realism is further explained by examining the mind-sets necessary for achieving the goals you set for yourself.

The Question of Mind-Set

Because this book focuses on mastering the art of quitting, we haven't really addressed what contributes to successful goal achievement in detail. Since reengagement demands that we understand not just how to set the right goals for ourselves but how to achieve them, we'll turn our attention there.
A highly influential argument by Peter M. Gollwitzer
proposes that planning is a key element. Gollwitzer divides goal pursuit into four separate but related stages. The first is what he calls the
predecisional stage
, in which a person considers wishes and desires in terms of feasibility and desirability, pushing some desires to the side and focusing on others that appear to be reachable with effort. That predecisional stage yields to the
preactional
stage, during which the person begins to plan actions that will move him or her closer to the goal. This process focuses on when, where, how, and how long to act. During the third stage, the
actional
stage, the person responds to opportunities for goal advancement and to redouble efforts if there's an impediment. The fourth stage, the
postactional stage
, is more like the predecisional stage in that it's evaluative. The person evaluates not only his or her own performance but also the outcome, asking, among other things, whether the goal has delivered the expected promise. Looking back to the original moment of choosing and setting the goal, the person reevaluates it in terms of both feasibility and desirability and looks ahead by comparing it to other possible goals that may be more feasible or desirable, or both. Goal disengagement, if it is to happen, occurs in the postactional stage.

Gollwitzer further posits that there are two different mind-sets—separate cognitive orientations—that distinguish these phases. The
deliberative
mind-set—utilized in both the predecisional and the postactional stages—is distinct from the
implemental
mind-set, which accompanies the preactional and actional stages. The deliberative mind-set is open-minded, since the individual is still weighing options and deciding which goal to pursue; this mind-set is inquisitive and open to all kinds of information. In contrast, the implemental mind-set is focused, selective, and “close-minded”
in comparison. The deliberative mind-set is more accurate and realistic in terms of gauging feasibility, while the implemental mind-set tends toward optimism and self-serving analysis because it is focused on continuing action.

Although you can readily see the usefulness of the implemental mind-set when you're pursuing the right goal that's actually attainable—full steam ahead!—the deliberative mind-set is also invaluable if you must adjust your commitment to the goal or if the goal itself isn't delivering on its promise. The illusion of control, as we've seen elsewhere, is increased by the implemental mind-set.

A number of experiments that induced these mind-sets in participants led Gollwitzer to suggest that these mind-sets have practical application outside the laboratory and in ordinary life. By focusing, people can actually orient their thoughts in a deliberative or implemental direction, depending on the situation at hand. Being able to match your mind-set to the problem at hand is an effective strategy for goal engagement.

If you're having trouble setting a new goal for yourself, try to pinpoint what's standing in your way. Is the failure or obstruction of the goal you've quit preventing you from focusing on new avenues of pursuit? If the answer is yes, the open-ended nature of the deliberative mind-set can be of use to you. If need be, write the possible alternative goals down, and think about which are desirable first, and then consider which are the most feasible. Allow yourself the freedom to imagine where you might go next. On the other hand, if the disappointment associated with quitting is stopping you from acting, an implemental mind-set is in order. Making plans will strengthen your commitment to both the goal and the active behaviors; it's called
implementation intention
.

The Benefit of Planning

The decision to pursue a goal is a conscious declaration of intention (“I will do X”). The single decision to go after a goal opens up to a series of other decisions on how precisely to achieve the goals.
These are what Peter Gollwitzer calls
implementation intentions
, or thoughts and plans about what to do if a specific situation arises. The formulation here is “If X happens, then I will do Y”; basically, you are reframing your goal in terms of specific actions you will take. How does the formation of these intentions connect to goal setting and achievement? Is some way of proceeding more effective at moving a person from the mere contemplation of a goal to action? That is the question Gollwitzer and his colleagues looked at in a paper titled “From Weighing to Willing.”

The researchers had participants name two personal problems
that were either unresolved or undecided; one had to be relatively simple (e.g., “Should I subscribe to the newspaper?” or “Should I go skiing on vacation?”) and the other more complicated (e.g., “Should I break up with my boyfriend?” “Should I start my master's thesis?” “Should I move out of my parents' house?”). The researchers ascertained that all of the participants were, in fact, far removed from actually making a decision about these personal matters. The subjects were divided into three groups and a control group. The first group was asked to imagine and fantasize about the positive expectations they would have, should they move ahead with a decision. The second group was asked to come up with different ways they might achieve their goal without committing themselves to a single plan. The third group, however, was instructed to decide on a single path of action. The control group was distracted from thinking about their personal situation by doing math problems. When the researchers followed up three weeks later, they found that only the subjects in the group instructed to think about and commit themselves to a specific path of action actually moved forward to the goal of resolving the problem.

The lesson here is that implementation intentions facilitate overcoming procrastination and other obstacles to beginning goal pursuit, as well as heightening a person's attention to possible opportunities for action. Gollwitzer asserts that forming an intention to act makes you sensitive to situational cues; furthermore, he says, the linking of a behavior to a chosen critical situation will lead to
the “automatization” of the behavior. In other words, the behavior won't be conscious and it will take advantage of the automaticity described by John A. Bargh and others and discussed in Chapter 1. In this case, though, you are choosing the situational cues you'll be responding to.

Thinking about the future in concrete terms—the implemental mind-set—combined with intention or commitment can help you pull out of stalled situations caused by rumination or distraction. Both the deliberative and the implemental mind-sets are extremely valuable tools that can be used consciously as you set goals for yourself and act on them. The deliberative mind-set allows you to reevaluate your efforts along the way and recalibrate or redefine your goal, if need be. Plans or implementation intentions gear your thinking to troubleshoot and problem-solve along the way; they are the engine for the enterprise.

If your goal is to resolve a conflict or misunderstanding with another person, making that intention conscious will help you shape how to respond in actions and words. For example, you would think, “If he's open, I'll respond by making a suggestion about how to mend fences” or “If she says she dislikes my manner, I'll ask her for details in a quiet, nonconfrontational way.” Forming the intention will focus you on the cues in the person's behavior—is he or she signaling a willingness to end the friction?—thus allowing you to figure out what you can do to facilitate that willingness and achieve your goal.

Implementation intentions can be used in any domain; they take you out of the vague realm of setting a goal (becoming a nicer or more responsive person) and into a proactive frame of mind (“If my spouse asks me to run an errand, I'll do it without complaint” or “If my neighbor asks me to help with a yard sale, I will”). Implementation intentions don't just turn abstract goals (being a nicer person, getting into shape, becoming more well-read about a subject) into actions, but are also effective strategies for self-regulatory behavior. Suppose, for example, that you've received a pretty mixed evaluation at your job. The report praises you but also singles out your
unresponsiveness to criticism as a weakness. Rather than tell yourself that you will be more responsive in the future, instead you formulate a plan for action: “If I'm criticized, I'll immediately ask my supervisor what I should have done, and do what I can to fix things.”

Most importantly, implementation intentions can become automatic and thus take advantage of the
“nonconscious” thinking that sometimes gets in the way
of conscious goal setting, Gollwitzer says, “By forming implementation intentions, people can strategically switch from conscious effortful control of their behaviors . . . to being automatically controlled by situational cues.” (That is, “I'll do X when Y happens.”) Implementation intentions also help prevent distractions, keep you on track, and strengthen commitment to the goal.
As Gollwitzer, Ute C. Bayer, and Kathleen C. Molloch note
, “it is important to recognize that all these maneuvers focus on changing the self so that the self becomes a better executive.”

Getting to “Happy”

It turns out that
the road to happiness
—not hell, as the adage has it—is paved with intentions, at least according to a study by Sonja Lyubomirsky, Kennon M. Sheldon, and David Schkade. They posit that there are three factors that affect whether an individual considers himself or herself happy: the happiness set point, life circumstances, and intentional activity. The terms demand explanation, and even though you're probably inured to the idea that what you considered your free will isn't nearly as free as you thought—and that you're not completely in charge of the “car” that's you—this last salvo has a bit of good news.