70. Pivot vs. Quit: Navigating Change and the Power of Adaptability

In this episode of Weight Loss Made Simple, Dr. Stacy Heimburger explores the difference between pivoting and quitting when it comes to weight loss, lifestyle changes, and personal growth. Learn how making small adjustments can help you stay on track with your goals, and why quitting can sometimes be the healthiest decision for your progress. Whether you're reevaluating your diet plan or navigating obstacles in your journey, this episode will guide you in making mindful, empowered decisions that align with your long-term vision. Tune in to discover how adaptability can lead to lasting success in weight loss and life!

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Transcript

Hello, my friends! Welcome back to today’s episode of Weight Loss Made Simple. I am your host, Dr. Stacy Heimburger. I want to talk about something called pivoting versus quitting. I think I forget what the national day is for New Year’s resolutions—I think it might’ve already passed, which is crazy to me because it’s just the beginning of February—but I want to dive into this topic today. I want to talk about the difference, as I see it, between pivoting and quitting.

Change can feel really hard, and when we make a decision, we can feel really tied to that decision. But every once in a while, we face a moment where things aren’t going as planned, so we need to change course or pivot, or we need to walk away from something that’s no longer serving us. So, we need to know the difference, right? I also love the idea that if you keep going, you’re never quitting, but I think we need to just differentiate in our minds the difference between pivoting and quitting.

You know I’m a big proponent of not really letting other people’s opinions dictate anything, but I think if you really have this concept clear, it really won’t matter if someone else says, “Oh, you never finish anything” or “You quit” or whatever, because if you feel clear in your mind, either you walked away from something that’s not serving you or you pivoted to something else. It just makes it much easier to ignore that and feel better, and that’s what I want for you—to feel better.

So for our purposes, pivoting is about making a strategic change.

It’s not about giving up, but pivoting is about looking at where we’re going, looking at the path, seeing that we’re no longer aligned with that path, and finding a different solution, a different path—something that works better for us where we are now. You can think of it like adjusting your sails when the wind shifts. We’re still going forward, but we are adapting to the new conditions. Okay, so we’re still going; we’re just changing directions a bit.

Quitting, on the other hand, is more about just stopping and letting go, and not necessarily trying to continue toward that goal. Okay, we’re sort of going to abandon whatever that was, and we’re going to release it and we’re not going to try and continue toward it. So, depending on the circumstances, we are probably going to use both of these things a number of times in our lives, and the more adult we get and the more adult decisions we have to make, the more we want to really understand the difference between the two of these when we’re making decisions for ourselves.

There’s a misconception that pivoting means giving up or that we’re failing, and so we’re going to know we’re giving up on this path and try something new, but pivoting is just a critical piece of growth. It’s trying something, realizing it’s not quite how we thought it was going to turn out, and adjusting. I love the visual of adjusting our sails. I think without feeling comfortable with pivoting, it can really stop us from just trying things, right? You know I’m a big fan of trying things and seeing, and trying something else if that didn’t work. To me, that’s the art of the pivot. Right? I’m going to try this thing. If it doesn’t work like I thought, I’ll try this other thing.

So, in weight loss, I’m going to try not to eat sugar and see what happens. Then if I like that or I don’t like that, maybe I’ll pivot and be like, “Okay, now I’m going to really try and focus on protein now that I’ve kind of got the sugar worked out.” I didn’t quit trying to lose weight. I didn’t stop working toward that goal; I just pivoted my approach.

Where quitting is very different. I don’t think anyone listening to this is quitting on their weight loss journey, so I will use a different example. I have a client who was gifted an art project, right? She was recovering from surgery. She was gifted an art project, and she was working on it throughout her recovery. It’s no longer bringing her joy. She hasn’t finished it, and it’s preventing her from doing anything else in her creative arena, right? Because she goes into the craft room, she sees it there, and she’s like, “I don’t want to finish that. If I quit and I don’t finish it, then I’m a quitter, and I’m someone that doesn’t finish,” and I don’t think that’s true at all. I think this is a perfect example. I mean, yes, we are going to quit this project, but maybe it just wasn’t supposed to be in our life for that long, right?

In this instance, that gift was given in the spirit of “I want to help you recover.” It was not given in the “like, you finish this or else.” Right? It served its purpose. It’s no longer bringing joy. It’s no longer serving its purpose anymore. She’s recovered, so I think it’s okay to get rid of it. I think that’s the perfect example of sort of releasing these things and quitting and letting it go.

Right, if my exercise, if I was like, “You know, I’ve decided that exercise for me is running,” and then I realize I don’t like running. It hurts every step I take, it’s not enjoyable, I don’t like going out there, I don’t want to go and exercise because I know I have to run and I hate it.

I would much rather do these other 10 things that are all exercise than quit running. That seems very reasonable to me. It’s not serving its purpose. Their purpose was to feel good and move my body, and I don’t feel good when I’m doing it, and it’s making me not want to move my body, so I’m not going to do it. I’m going to do something else. I’m going to quit running, and I’m going to find something else.

So, pivoting is sometimes the answer. I think a pivot there would be like, “I’m going to run slower,” or “Run faster,” but pivoting might be picking another sport too. I don’t think quitting means failure is really the message I want to get across today. It just means that I’ve made a decision to walk away from something that’s not serving me anymore. I think jobs, sometimes friendships, definitely art projects that you don’t like anymore—these are all examples of when quitting is really necessary for personal growth.

You just really have to like our reasons. I push my clients on this all the time. They like— I help them make whatever decision they want to make just by making them tell me why. Just like, “What are your reasons?” If you want to throw that art project away because it makes you feel bad, yes, get rid of it. If I wanted to throw it away because it was hard and, you know, you’re going to love the outcome but you just like it hard, I’m not probably going to question you on that one.

But if you have something you’re doing, if somebody gives you something, if you’re in a relationship with someone, if you’re at a job, if you’ve taken on a task and somehow the situation has changed, it is no longer serving the purpose it was supposed to. It is not bringing you joy, the goal doesn’t make sense anymore—quitting is an absolutely reasonable answer or solution to that. We just have to like our reasons. We have to be mindful, we have to be thoughtful, and then we redirect our energy toward something else.

I think we have it a lot. I’ll give you an example because I think it’s both things—pivot and quit—when I cause we need to ask ourselves, “Is this all aligned with all this?”

So, when I first became a grown-up doctor, a hospitalist, I loved being a hospitalist more than anything. I thought it was just the coolest job. Like, people were sick and I made it better, they went home, I had enough of the business side, like I knew why the hospital had hospitalists and how to make my job align with what they needed and how to, like, quality patient care and timely discharge—like all the things, right? That just made sense to me.

And then I wanted to be a leader in hospital medicine, and I went and took all the leadership classes, and I wanted to be in charge of a hospitalist program, and I was. And then at some point, it wasn’t bringing me joy anymore. I didn’t like it, so I really had to think about a pivot. And it was like a two-year plan. I became a life coach because I decided what I really want to do is just help people feel better and help them be their healthy selves and help women feel beautiful, help things be simple, help weight loss be simple.

So, to figure out what I need to do for that, I became certified as a life coach and then became certified as a life medicine doctor, and then I did advanced weight loss coaching. Now I’m doing my menopause certification, right? It’s a pivot. And quit hospital medicine—it was a quit. It was a change of direction that no longer made sense. No longer served me, no longer brought me joy. I don’t do it anymore. I do what’s aligned now. That’s a pivot. A real alignment can be a quit and a pivot. I just think you need to feel really good about your decision. So when someone comes to you, like, “Oh, why did you do that?” you have a good reason.

How do we know when it’s time to pivot or when it’s time to quit?

The first thing I think we need to ask is, “Is this still serving me and my long-term vision?” Like, my long-term vision was no longer to be involved in hospital administration or be in charge of hospital programs anymore. It was no longer my vision. It was no longer aligned. I had to create a new one.

Do I feel aligned with the goal, or does it feel like a drag? Do I want to finish this craft project, or is it just sucking joy out of my life? It shouldn’t feel like a drag. Things can be hard, but they shouldn’t feel like they’re sucking the energy from your life, right? If we have really hard tasks that are aligned with our goals and our vision, they do not feel the same amount. They do not drain us the way that misaligned goals, misaligned tasks can be half as hard and twice as draining if we’re not aligned. It looks like a recipe for burnout, so it’s probably a good red flag if you’re doing something and you’re like, “Oh my God, this is just like sucking the life out of me. I can’t stand it. I dread it.” Maybe it’s not aligned with your goals anymore. Maybe it was. Maybe it’s time to have it. Maybe it was. We just need to do some work and get aligned with a small pivot work, or do I need to really change roads here?

Do I need to quit and pivot? If I need to just put in a little small changes, maybe I just need a new routine. Right? Maybe I need to prioritize some self-care and then my task won’t feel so awful. Maybe I need to—I used to have lunch at my desk every single day. How awful! How different! Maybe if I had gone to an exercise class every day at lunch instead and had self-care, had that healthy break, and had that re-energize myself in the middle of the day...I don’t know. Maybe it’s just a small pivot.

Am I holding onto this out of fear or pride? I could’ve stayed that job just to say I like—I could’ve continued to strive to go up the ladder in hospital administration just to be prideful, but it wasn’t aligned anymore. But if I had never come to know this work and ask myself these questions, I wouldn’t know. So it’s not a big deal if you didn’t know before. Knowing is half the battle, right? If you know it’s not aligned, then we need to start making a pivot plan, and it might involve the quit.

It’s all just about being mindful and creating some space to be mindful.

I don’t know how many of you enjoy silence. My husband does not enjoy silence. I love silence, but it really helps with my mental clutter. It really helps me sort of check in and take the pulse of what I’m feeling and how my alignment is and how all these things are working because I have a lot of tasks, and I really need to feel aligned or I will feel overwhelmed. So I have a 45-minute commute when I go up to the hospital. I drive it in silence 80% of the time. I highly recommend it. It’s a great time to check for alignment. It’s a great time to daydream, manifest, whatever.

What do I want my future to look like in a year? Do I still want to be at this job? If I wasn’t at this job, what would I be doing? What would be an amazing job? What would the perfect schedule look like? What does the perfect day look like? Can I pivot? Can I make some schedule changes? What do I need to get closer to that vision? What do I need to quit? Where do I need to pivot? If we don’t think about it, we’re not going to do it, and then we won’t ever reap the benefits.

All right, I hope this was helpful. I hope that this makes pivoting and quitting a little clearer. I don’t know, maybe it’s more confusing. I hope not, but I hope you feel better about it either way. As long as you like your reasons and you’ve been mindful about your reasons, you have to do what feels aligned. That’s going to give you the best life. All right, I will talk to you guys next week. Have a wonderful, wonderful week. Bye!