Done Trying

Sometimes Quitting Works

Grip

A while back, I was ready to quit. Not “thinking about it” quit. Quit quit. I even went and bought a car. Which sounds normal—except I work for a car company. For decades, I’ve driven company vehicles. But when you leave, you turn in your badge and your keys. And it’s not very badass to announce your grand exit and then stand on the curb calling a Lyft. So I bought the car. I was ready.

And wouldn’t you know it—a few weeks later, out of nowhere, I got a huge promotion. The kind you don’t even see coming. But did it really come out of nowhere? Or was it finally able to land because I’d stopped gripping so tight?

We’ve all lived this story. The job you chase. The house that slips through your fingers. The pregnancy test that keeps saying no. The second date that never materializes. The rescue pup you’ve already named. You do the work. You network. You hustle. You track the signs. You visualize. You optimize your schedule, your supplements, your spreadsheets, your horoscope. And nothing.

Release

Eventually, you run out of steam. You call it “letting go,” but what you really mean is: I’m done. You stop plotting. You stop calculating. You stop trying to micromanage every variable. You give up. And then, somehow, it happens. The call. The offer. The house. The puppy. The second pink line. The thing you wanted finally lands—right after you stopped chasing it.

It’s not luck. And it’s not magic—though it feels like both. What actually shifts is your nervous system. When you’re locked in fight-or-flight, your prefrontal cortex—the part that solves problems, builds relationships, and sees possibility—goes offline. Cortisol floods your system. Everything narrows. You get tighter, smaller, less flexible. And that energy? People feel it. Whether you realize it or not, it repels the very thing you’re trying to attract.

But when you stop willing it into existence, something releases. Your brain comes back online. Your voice changes. You move differently. You stop sounding like someone negotiating with fate and start feeling like someone already living in the answer. And that ease is magnetic. What felt impossible finally has space to arrive—not because you worked harder, but because you stopped gripping the steering wheel with both hands.

That’s harder than ever right now, when the whole world feels like a pressure cooker. We wake up already bracing. The news cycles, the markets, the layoffs—it’s all tension, all the time. So the reflex is to grip even tighter. To believe that panic is proof of effort. That if you care more, push harder, maybe this time it’ll finally break through.

And if you’ve spent years in corporate hell, you’ve been professionally trained to do exactly that. White-knuckling your way through uncertainty. Mistaking exhaustion for excellence. Confusing control with leadership. It’s baked into the system: hold on tighter, and maybe you’ll outrun the chaos.

But Bitches—sometimes the win only shows up after you stop managing it to death. It’s not surrender. It’s making space. And yes—it still feels like magic, even when you know damn well it isn’t.