The Quitters Club

I just finished a book that has had my mind completely reeling. It is about a group of friends who made a pact during a girls weekend. They called themselves the Quitters Club. Each woman in the group was in a situation that had quietly turned into a drain: a relationship that had shifted, a career that used to light her up, a version of herself she had been performing for so long she had forgotten it was a performance.

And so they decided to quit. Not the big things, not their jobs or their marriages, but the smaller, quieter things they had been doing on autopilot for years. They quit comparing themselves to other women. They quit living someone else’s dreams. They quit doing things that no longer fit who they had become.

Here is the thing I could not stop thinking about as I read it. Every single woman I have ever coached has needed a Quitters Club. She just did not know she was allowed to join one.

We Are Not Raised to Quit

Let me say out loud the thing that almost everyone reading this is already thinking. We are not raised to quit. We are raised to finish what we start, honor our commitments, follow through, not be the kind of woman who lets people down. And those are genuinely good qualities. They have built strong women.

But somewhere along the way, those qualities got hijacked. Finishing what you start turned into doing something forever just because you started it once. Honoring your commitments turned into honoring a commitment your past self made to a life your current self has outgrown. And the word quit became the dirtiest word in a high-achieving woman’s vocabulary.

Today I want to take that word back. Because quitting when you do it on purpose is not weakness. Quitting on purpose is one of the most powerful moves a woman can make in her own life.

Six Things I Quit (And What Each One Made Room For)

Full disclosure: after I read this book, I made my own list. Here is what was on it.

1. A networking group I did not actually like.

I had paid for it, blocked the time, told myself it was good for business. The truth I finally let myself say out loud? I did not actually like the people in the group. I was showing up out of obligation to a version of me who had signed up six months earlier. I quit. The world did not end. My business did not collapse. I just got ninety minutes back in my week.

2. A stack of tasks that were draining me.

When I actually quit doing them, I realized something that made me want to laugh and cry at the same time. Most of them were not even needed. Nobody noticed. Nobody asked where the thing went. I had been carrying work that was not serving anyone, including the people I thought it was for.

3. Daily social media comparisons.

Not social media entirely, I am not going to pretend I have transcended the algorithm. But the daily scroll that was making me feel three steps behind a version of success I never actually decided I wanted. I started asking myself: is what I am looking at actually my dream? Or am I borrowing someone else’s? My version of happiness is mine. I do not need to measure it against anyone else’s.

4. Worrying about whether I am a great mom.

Family is my biggest priority. My kids are everything. And I decided to just keep being a great mom instead of worrying about whether I am one. Here is what I realized: the worrying was not making me better. It was eating up energy I could have been spending actually being present. Quitting the worry was the most loving thing I could do for my family.

5. The Saturday morning alarm.

Revolutionary, I know. But what was I rushing toward at six fifteen on a Saturday? I still wake up at the same time, but now I grab my book, or turn on a podcast, or go through my affirmations. I do not jump out of bed. I let myself ease in. It is a small thing that changed the entire texture of my weekends.

6. Working on Friday afternoons.

I used to protect every Friday afternoon, and somewhere in the last few months I had stopped. So I went back to my calendar and blocked every Friday afternoon from noon onward. The wildest thing happened. My Mondays got better. My weekends got longer. My creativity came back online. My brain got the downtime it needed.

Here is what I want you to notice. When I quit those six things, I did not just remove things. I made room. I reconnected with friends I had not seen in too long. I started showing up more authentically instead of performing the polished version. At work, I started honing in on the things I actually love. The work that makes me forget what time it is. Quitting did not shrink my life. Quitting expanded it.

Three Signs Something Is Ready to Be Let Go

Sign One: It used to light you up and now it drains you.

The volunteer role you used to love. The committee you fought to get onto. The friendship that used to feel like coming home and now feels like one more thing on your list. The fact that it used to light you up is not a reason to keep doing it. That is guilt talking. You have changed, or the thing has changed, or both. Honor what it was. Celebrate it. And then let it go.

Sign Two: You are doing it because you already paid for it.

The membership you already bought. The certificate you already started. The relationship you already put years into. The money is already spent. The time is already gone. Continuing to drain yourself does not earn any of it back. The only thing it costs you now is the future you could have been building with that energy. Chalk it up to a lesson learned and quit.

Sign Three: You are carrying it so someone else does not have to.

The meeting no one else wants to run. The family role no one else will fill. The emotional labor that no one has even noticed you have been carrying. Here is the gentle truth: if you put it down, one of three things will happen. Someone else will pick it up. The world will figure out it was not actually needed. Or someone will be uncomfortable for a while and then adjust. None of those outcomes is your responsibility to prevent.

The Coin Flip Tool

Here is the simplest tool I took away from this book and the one I think about almost every day since I finished it.

You flip a coin. But not to let the coin decide. You flip it to find out how you already feel.

Take whatever decision you have been agonizing over. Assign one outcome to heads and one to tails: stay or quit, yes or no, keep going or let it go. Flip the coin. And before you do anything else, check in with your body.

If it lands on tails and your heart sinks, if some quiet part of you goes oh, I was really hoping for heads, there is your answer. That is what you already knew. And if it lands on heads and you feel trapped instead of relieved, you have your answer too.

The coin does not decide for you. The coin drops the decision into your body where you have to feel it before your head can talk you out of it. Try it with something small first. A committee, a standing meeting, a subscription you keep renewing. Flip it. Listen. Trust what you find.

Your Homework

Get out a piece of paper tonight, or after this episode ends, and write down three things you have been doing on autopilot that you suspect, somewhere deep down, you have outgrown. You do not have to quit them tomorrow. You just have to be honest that they are on the list. Awareness is the first piece. Everything else gets easier from there.

Then take each one, one by one, and flip a coin. See what your body tells you.

When You Know What to Quit But Not What Comes After

If you are sitting with a list in your hand and you have no idea what comes after the quitting, that is the moment coaching exists for. Not for women who have it all figured out. For women who are standing in the doorway between who they once were and who they are becoming, and who do not want to walk through it alone.

The link to book a collaboration hour with me is in the show notes at lynseymulder.com. It is one conversation. Bring your list. We will figure out what comes next together.

And send this to one friend you would invite into your Quitters Club. She has a list too. She just has not written it down yet. She needs someone to tell her she is allowed to.