I really enjoy Emily McDowell’s honest take on creative grief, career identity, life transitions and quitting. She has a brilliant podcast called Quitted that she hosted with her pal and fellow Substacker Holly Whitaker. One of my favourite episodes is titled ‘Emily McDowell quits being a human brand.' (On that note, Emily and Holly have just launched a new workshop on how to help you navigate “the deep shitty middle” of transitions. These are two women who know the score, who have been there in the thick of it, and I’m excited that they are bringing their wisdom forth in this way.)
I love Emily’s views on how we can reframe quitting as a negative thing and instead embrace the bravery it takes to say goodbye to something. Quitting something can be painful but it can allow us to move forward into a new space. She recently wrote an excellent Substack post about the word ‘completion’ when it comes to quitting a job/project/thing: “in conversations about quitting, failure, and walking away, there’s a word and concept I think is underused: completion.”
I also like this line she wrote: “What if, instead of a line that goes perpetually up and to the right, with the goal of reaching a future point of “success” — the point of being alive is expansion?”
I don’t know about you, but the words ‘completion’ and ‘expansion’ make so much more sense to our human psyches, right? More so than arbitrary ‘success’ and ‘achievement’ and ‘climbing’? Maybe there’s an easier way to look at things.
Hope you enjoy this conversation with Emily! This episode is focused on the process of melting down a career and re-building it, slowly. If you like it, please consider leaving a little review on Apple podcasts, it helps more people discover this newsletter and podcast. Thank you! Toodles! ♡
It’s Nice That: creative grief and how to deal with it
You can follow Emily’s Substack here.
Check out Emily’s new workshop here.
Check out A Year of Nothing here.
How do you know when to quit?