The surprising benefits of giving up

This is literally the reason that the emotion of frustration exists.

Our brain is aware of when we stop making progress towards a goal we care about. The feeling of frustration builds until it becomes so strong it essentially forces us to stop.

Then, to get rid of the emotion, we have to step back and reassess. And then either see if we should try a different approach to the problem, give up on the problem entirely, or triple-check that the same course of action is still worth pursuing and thus "re-energize" ourselves.

If we never felt frustrated, we'd keep attempting futile goals for so much longer. When you feel frustrated, the answer is never to just ignore the feeling and try to "power through". It's to step back and reassess at the first opportunity.

This analysis is interesting, but I think there’s a small self-reference problem hidden in it: what exactly counts as an “impossible goal,” and who gets to decide that?

It’s obviously true that some people chase almost “fantasy-level” ambitions. But for most of us, the reason we keep going is that, somewhere in the background, we still believe our goals are possible, possible enough to justify the time, effort, and even psychological pain. If some external standard comes along and declares “this is impossible, you should give up,” that can reduce stress in the short term, but it may also plant a long-term regret that keeps growing with age.

Looking back on my own life, the goals I abandoned for internal reasons (“this no longer fits who I am / I don’t want to pay this price anymore”) are the ones I can live with. I learned from those failures and even feel a bit stronger because of them. The painful ones are the goals I dropped mainly because someone else convinced me they were impossible. Those still feel like open loops.

So maybe the more useful takeaway isn’t “giving up is good,” but: keep reassessing your goals realistically as you grow. If, after a sober look at your skills and constraints, you still feel a goal is worth the cost, then commit and try. At least when you’re old and sitting in a chair somewhere, you’ll be less haunted by “I never even gave it a shot.”

The author of the article obviously didn't read the paper.

The paper's finding focuses on goal adjustment/flexibility being a functional response when encountering difficulty meeting a goal. Disengagement had correlations with impairment. Which probably tracks most people's life experience.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02312-4

| This interpretation aligns with our finding that dispositional flex- ibility, rather than more proximal disengagement or reengagement, more strongly predicts functioning. Notably, we observed a positive association between disengagement and impairment. Although this could reflect a ‘dark side’ of disengagement—where letting go of goals offers short-term relief but risks longer-term purposelessness and dysfunction11—this pattern was not evident in longitudinal or experi- mental studies. An alternative explanation is that the association is bidirectional, with impairment potentially prompting disengagement as a reactive strategy. Given these complexities, we advice caution in interpreting this finding and highlight the need for further research.

I'm not sure if this falls under the same vein but in 2016 I just decided to stop paying my bills and I didn't have a job. I was just "free". I mean my life was imploding (and it did eg. 350s credit score/getting sued by debt collectors) but man I felt so free that time. I didn't have to get up/sleep at any particular time or be anywhere. I long to get back to that state (although with money saved/invested). And the goal isn't to do nothing but not to be forced to do anything.

I'd feel the same when between employment like in 2023 the tech industry tanked so I could not get hired for a year (there were 6mo contracts which I did not accept). Before I decided to eat it and work at a factory, I was just watching TV/enjoying a couple months off (I had to sell all my possessions at a loss to get by). Eventually at the end of 2024 I did accept a 6mo contract that is now going beyond a year.

The thing I didn't realize is the 6mo contract while short pays double a factory wage so it's like being employed for a year.

In my experience what matters most is understanding your goals, or lacking clear goals, what you want and enjoy. It’s remarkably easy to latch onto goals that seem like great ideas but ultimately don’t align to your own happiness.

That’s not to knock ambition, but to frame it in the most practical terms. How will success actually and specifically benefit you?

A nice article on the benefits of giving up from a magazine promoting religion under the guise of science.

https://www.templeton.org/grant/nautilus-magazine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Templeton_Foundation

I quit my job 2 months ago ago Best thing I have ever done. Only now I realize how toxic and unrealistic the projects I have done where

>According to a review of more than 230 studies recently published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, adjusting our goals in response to stress or challenges, rather than grinding on, is often “a more appropriate and beneficial response.”

That is also what people who persist on the path of their goal do. And that's not giving up, as the title claims.

The issue is that we live in an era were a 2-bedroom house is already something people can start giving up on. So the threshold for whats attainable is getting lower and lower, and soon enough just food will be enough.

Modern upbringing of children is full of nonsense forced by business and political goals. Rhymes that go "rain, rain go away" etc. Values that prioritize and reward sales skills, TV shows that show telling lies and pretending is acceptable and fun, weirdness is desirable etc. Importance of presentation over core content and so on.

We trained our mind to ignore and forget all animal instincts, body signals and wisdom acquired through ages.

Of course, ancient battle wisdom from the East tells you how to approach issues - saama, daana, bhedha, danda - that is - make friends, negotiate, divide and rule, use force. At any point, if things look infeasible, retreat and avoid. Pure common sense.

> Newer evidence suggests that ditching tough-to-attain goals > can actually be good for us.

> adjusting our goals in response to stress or challenges, rather than grinding on, is often “a more appropriate and beneficial response.”

It depends a lot on the goals. I give up often and quickly. One reason is ... lack of time. (And also lack of discipline, but lack of time is really one key reason I toss away many things these days. You live only once, at the least most of us.)

There is, however had, one interesting study from psychology. I forgot the name, but they showed tests with kids as to "if you eat this now, you won't get an additional reward, but if you won't eat it for an hour, you get more lateron". Now this was not the setup, I am just quoting this from memory. The adults left the room so only the kid was there and some sweets on the table.

It was quite convincingly shown that the kids with more discipline and will-power, aka who refused the sweets in order to get more reward lateron, were also more successful on average lateron. Or, at the least, avoided some problems such as drug addiction and what not. So I think the "benefits of giving up" has to be put in context. It depends on what and how you give up. I may not give up on A, but then I may not be able to do B, because of lack of time, lack of resources and so forth. So these are just trade-offs, but discipline and will-power are just about almost always really excellent traits to have or train for.

'When' does one give up? That is the question that needs an answer.

This reminds me of Henri Laborit's book entitled "Eloge de la fuite" (in praise of flight) which states that when faced with stress, we can respond with action, flight, or inaction. Unlike the other two responses, inaction is toxic to the body. Maybe giving up corresponds to flight. I didn't read the article.

I just read an article on this subject last week and thought this was going to be a republication on a nautilus but it’s different authors and different stories - https://www.newscientist.com/article/2501420-why-giving-up-o...

The nautilus story uses one meta study and the New Scientist has many individual citations with some quotes from scientists.

I don't believe in "giving up" but I do believe in picking battles and leveraging higher order effects. A short term retreat to win a long term war. Walking away can be the best strategic option.

For example, if you find yourself in strong disagreement with the current leadership at your company, instead of having cataclysmic battles every day on Teams, you could simply hand in your resignation letter and walk away while the boat is still afloat. Keep your chin up and firmly depart with grace.

Short term, this looks exactly like giving up. Long term, it can surface the foundation of your arguments and force those higher up the chain (investors) to potentially come back to you and your arguments in the future (assuming you were actually right).

I'm living this one right now. It's surreal watching people who attempted to game of thrones me ~every day get perp walked. I wouldn't say I enjoy this because it would have been better if we had figured out a way to work together. It definitely wasn't a skill problem on anyone's part.

It is often best to use your opponent's momentum and energy against them. If the problem you are dealing with is other people, giving up is a reasonable default. If the problem is some challenging machine learning algorithm or other personal project I think you should be more cautious about walking away. This can turn into a bad habit.

The fewer chefs you have in the kitchen, the easier it is to assign blame and figure out what the real issues are. You can become part of that refining process if you have the contingencies to endure this job market.

It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes: "You never finish, you give up."

It was said speaking of art, but it could also apply to software projects :)

This piece is missing something important: Pain of letting go. Especially if you're sensitive to pain, you will be sensitive of letting go.

Yesterday I spent two hours looking for something that I thought I needed. Ten minutes in I thought of an alternative solution that wouldn’t require the item I was looking for. I wanted to do more interesting things, but I still /had/ to find it. I’d accidentally end up doing it again when I try to stop. A friend who was observing this tricked me into eating something, and then I was able to stop.

If I forget a word mid conversation, I spend a lot of time trying to remember it. I can google or ask the chat bot, but emotionally I want to get there it on my own.

I think that I’m addicted to the feeling I get when I find these things or solve a very difficult problem. After reading an earlier article about “aha” moments, I wonder if it’s the same circuit. Maybe there is also a natural predisposition for hunting in my brain, which is why food seems to help me get past these … moments.

I think a better way to put this is the acknowledgement that resources are limited rather than giving up.

It makes absolutely no sense to do an analysis of such a broad subject and then analyze it in such superficial detail. At least this article does nothing but give the most vague description of what might in general happen.

It is of course obvious that any hard goal requires effort and effort is linked with a lot of "bad things". The whole article can be reduced to this. Trying requires effort and effort is hard.

Going through a lot of changes right now and two lines are reverberating in my head.

I was into punk as a kid, still am I guess, and there's this recurring motif in Rancid tracks: "the secret to a good life is knowing when you're through".

Also recently had some words of wisdom I liked from a mate in his mid-sixties: "one door has got to close for another one to open".

Seth Godwin has a book about this called “the dip” it’s worth a read and isn’t too long, find it at your local library

Philosophy has had an answer all along;

One should become aware of one’s deluded notion in which one thinks that ‘I belong to these objects of the world and my life depends upon them. I cannot live without them and they cannot exist without me, either.’ Then by profound enquiry, one contemplates ‘I do not belong to these objects, nor do these objects belong to me’. Thus abandoning the ego-sense through intense contemplation, one should playfully engage oneself in the actions that happen naturally, but with the heart and mind ever cool and tranquil. Such an abandonment of the ego-sense and the conditioning is known as the contemplative egolessness.

-- from "Vasistha's Yoga" translated by Swami Venkatesananda.

i spend a lot of time looking at companies to buy for the company I work at. A decent number of them are in situations where they aren't doing well and the founders have had a very difficult 10 or so years and you can see the pain. They should have given up 8 years ago in most cases.

giving up is a good tactic to see if an idea is any good

good ideas are very hard to give up on

go all the way there & imagine your life without this goal, and accept it

if it forces its way back into your life multiple times, it might be a good idea

wait for the conditions to arise where it becomes a possibility and execute

My little list of things I gave up in life and increased my overall happiness and well-being beyond comprehension:

1. Job: I used to take job as my heaven, over-work, over-deliver, over everything. You are let go the moment the company please coz you are just a number. I stopped seeing workplace as heaven but as "it pays the bills", full stop.

2. Finance: Directly related to above, have an emergency saving preferably at least up to 6 months worth of paid bills. I have been layoff twice up to 5 months before finding a job. Nothing destroy you more than finance stress, giving up that fear of job loss alone will increase your well-being beyond your comprehension. Some people give up working altogether, we all will get old one day, your "giving up" must include that.

3. Cash/Minimalist: Give up having the latest phone model, the latest car model, the latest everything, nobody cares, and definitely not the people from your social media. Cash over debit card so you can easily see what you are spending on. Ban credit card and you will see money you didn't know you had.

4. Relationship: I never had much luck with it, but after ending a 6y long term relationship, I gave up. I have hobbies, pets, that is all I need.

5. Friendship: People will only show you their side that they wanna you to see, and not who they really are. Stop trying to please friends and you will see who are the real ones and who are after personal interest.

This is me giving up and yet, being happier, healthier, eating better, etc, etc.

I used to think David Bazan's "Winners Never Quit" was a little over the top, but with some modern "grindset" advocates, I feel like it's becoming less so.

Save your applause for the end of the road.

In most trading advice, cutting loses as soon as possible and as emotionlessly as possible is emphasised heavily. It's also physiologically one of the hardest parts for people to do consistently.

I've worked way, WAY harder on my failures than I did on my successes. My biggest failures always came from holding on to long.

I gave up my well paying full time job to start my own mammoth, own intuition. Been 5 months now and mammoth is ready for the ride.

> The scientists also analyzed the impacts of these decisions. Giving up on goals was significantly linked to reduced stress, anxiety, and depression, for instance.

This seems to be a correlation, not a causation. There are many studies that show Stress, Anxiety, and Depression are prevalent in people who are smarter than the average, due to factors such as heightened self-expectations, rumination on negative experiences, and awareness of negative aspects of the world.

People who are smarter are more driven, which is how they develop their cognitive abilities. Giving up doesn't cause less anxiety, these people have less anxiety because they don't have the faculty to be affected by it.

I once spent 2 years working on a book about why you should give up on your dreams.

Couldn't find anyone interested in publishing it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Distilled it down to 1. a 3-min song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDnpZJI7jKw 2. a 5-min talk https://youtu.be/U4ZnfCmTJMY?si=Ac_jVKnR-ARQilLu

by far the most helpful realization i had in the last decade was that i have severe limitations, and i have to give up constantly until i find the path of least resistance

It is indeed true that giving up can be the best choice.

> But letting go and—crucially—reengaging with new goals, was found to restore purpose and well-being.

Seems everyone here is kinda missing the point. It looks to be less about giving up and more about engaging with new goals. You find X goal is too hard to achieve and give up but also decide to pursue Y goal that is more achievable (and still has some fulfillment to it).

I get that but doesn’t seem anything too radical… If I have impossible to achieve goals then I’d naturally be upset. Spending time on goals I feel I can accomplish is almost always going to be more fulfilling than doing ones that feel impossible.

From my own entrepreneurship scars, the real curse is never knowing when “enough is enough.”

If I’d pushed a little harder, would it have finally broken through?

Figma, Airbnb, and the other freak successes only exist because they didn’t quit.

was gonna read this, but realised I didn't have to:D

Any study involving so called meta-analyses is not worth reading on the basis of some scientific evidence, just call it a hot take and leave it at that. It might still be an interesting hot take, not to say this is or is not.