Growing up, we’re constantly told that quitting is bad and that only losers and weak hearted souls quit. I completely disagree.

Life is about learning. Learning to live and learning to make good decisions. How do we learn to make good decisions? Usually by making bad ones. Thus, the need to quit. If you’re driving and you get lost and head down the wrong way, you don’t just decide to keep going because you don’t want to quit.  You stop and change course so that you can get to your destination.

I frequently tell my business development students and my clients that it’s okay to quit. Quitting is sometimes the best thing we can ever do. But there is a caveat and that is that I don’t actually mean quit for good or forever. Rather, I tell them to just give themselves permission to quit for a day or two. In fact, I suggest they have a full out tantrum in which they rebel completely against anything and everything having to do with running a business. Indulging in this behavior can be an incredibly effective and efficient way to clear out lots of emotional debris that’s standing in the way of productivity and passion. If we leave the feeling vibrating under the surface we risk burn out and the desire to really quit. Much better to simply indulge the feeling and take a time out, refusing to play for period of time until the feeling passes.

I have done this a number of times, and while a bit rough on the ego, it has always served me well. Typically, the need to quit comes when I have deprived myself of any real nurturing or downtime and my battery is completely without a charge. Of course, I shouldn’t wait this long to take care of myself, but it’s a common hazard of business owners and thus the need to quit.

The beauty of quitting is that when the tantrum passes, we are free to choose to continue what we were doing before or to do something different. Mostly, after a period of rebellion, I am happy to re-choose the path I was on before. But it feels fresh to choose it again, rather than to just keep plodding on without even considering that I might have other options.

As business owners, it can be revitalizing to step back and assess whether or not we are truly doing what we’re doing for the right reasons. We benefit; our businesses benefit; our clients benefit when we are really, authentically at choice about what we’re doing. If we discover we’re not,  we should walk away, because it ain’t worth it, no matter how much money it’s bringing in, because eventually we will burn out and it probably won’t be pretty.

So do your self a favor, when the walls are closing in and it all feels too much, take a time out and just quit. Take as long as you need. Get in bed. Watch movies. Hang out with forgotten friends. Get a massage. Go out on the town. Anything as long as you really quit your business. Cancel your appointments and meetings. Trust me it will all wait and it probably won’t last as long as you think, and it will be well worth it when you discover how productive and inspired you are when you return. In fact, you may wonder what all the fuss was about.