As a coach, I’ve witnessed a lot of suffering in business. Some of it is normal and transient, but a lot is persistent. The persistent suffering is almost always due to  indecision in the face of a universal business dilemma.

The dilemma

The dilemma is a conflict between two nuggets of conventional wisdon: “Winners never quit” and “Don’t flog a dead horse.” The two sayings define a dilemma every business owner has faced, is facing, or will face: Do I keep going, or do I quit?

The middle

One saying tells us to never, ever, ever give up. The other tells us to quit wasting time and resources on a lost cause. You can’t do both, so which is it? And how do you choose? Either choice might work for you. What will NOT work is to get stuck in the middle.

If -

• You wake up every morning dreading the day

• Cash is always a problem

• You don't take a regular paycheck

• You don’t know your costs or what it takes to make a profit

• You just can’t seem to hire or keep good people

• You work ridiculous hours

• Your home life is a wreck

• You bid jobs from a position of fear and desperation

• You allow customers to dictate your relationship

• You lack the confidence to raise prices

• You are scared to delegate

• If it feels like disaster is always looming

you are in the middle. 

A lot of us find ourselves in the middle. That’s no place to be, at least not for the long haul, because it results in a lifetime of challenges - stress, piddling income, health problems, fear, long hours, low self-esteem, sleepless nights, regret, and family problems. 

If you are stuck in the middle, get out.

The Choices

Being stuck in the middle is a result of indecision, and the solution is to choose from two options. One option is to buck up, to stay the course, and, in spite of fear and lack of confidence, to fight your way out. Staying the course is the default advice we are likely to hear most often.

The second option is to quit.*  However, because quitting is frequently perceived as a sign of weakness and failure, friends and advisors are usually reluctant to recommend it - even when it is the right choice. 

In either case, you are the one who must decide.

Rethinking the notion of winning

When making your decision, it is important to recognize that “not quitting,” by itself, is not a winning strategy. In fact, being stuck in the middle is not quitting. You’re just not quitting the wrong things. To win, you have to recognize what winning is and to pursue relentlessly those things.

To win in business, you must

• Make tough decisions and act on them

• Have a vision for the future of you company

• Make a net profit of at least 10% of sales

• Have the cash necessary to run your businesses

• Take a regular paycheck for the work you do AND draws for the risks you take 

• Know how to attract and keep good people

• Keep books and know how to use them

• Have effective marketing and sales processes

• Bid with confidence and appropriate margins

• Command mutual respect with customers

• Delegate to good people who run the business with written  systems

Quitting Doesn't Mean You’re a Failure

We are conditioned to believe that quitting means failure. It does not. In fact, deciding to quit is a form of winning. You win when you make a choice about your future. You win when you act courageously and decisively. You win when you choose to not continue suffering and to not allow fate, or a cash flow crisis, or a job-gone-wrong to make the decision for you. 

Neither are you a failure if you simply don’t like business. You are not a failure if you choose to stop doing what you don’t like or what doesn’t suit you. You are not a failure if you don’t like the risk, the stress, and the hours required to run a business. Not only are you not a failure, but also you deserve credit for having avoided the regret people feel, who, having never tried, are left to wonder: “What if I had?” 

The only true failure is the failure to decide.

Conclusion: You Must Decide

Winning at business does not happen naturally or by accident. The middle, on the other hand, does. Indecision and inaction will deliver you to and leave you stuck squarely in the middle. Therefore, to avoid a life of persistent suffering, you must decide either to move out of the middle or to quit.

• Quitting does not always mean shutting down. You can always try to sell your business, but that is the topic for another article.