Welcome to a new year – 2026! Today is Monday, January 19th, commonly known as Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. But today (January 19th) also has another not-so-common name – Quitter’s Day! Yes, that’s right – Quitter’s Day. It is so named because it is the day that most people give up on any new year’s resolutions. I marveled for years at the fitness industry which sees a surge of new memberships in the new year and by the end of the first quarter of the new year, most people have stopped going and/or turned in their gym membership.
Quitting gets a bad “rap” sometimes. I think it is because psychologically it carries some shame or guilt with it. We’ve all encountered phrases about quitting and since we are on the brink of the College Football National Championship and a few weeks away from the Superbowl, here is a popular quote by legendary coach Vince Lombardi: “Winners never quit, and quitters never win.” That adage may hold true in competitive sports where perseverance and determination play a huge part in success, but not so when it comes to bad habits or relationships in our life.
Not long ago when my dad was ill and in his last days, I recall a conversation with him that went something like this as we were talking about his health and quality of life. My dad was stubborn and at times defiant and his health was failing quickly, and he insisted on not just remaining independent but “fighting off” the inevitable, death. In a conversation one afternoon as he lay in a hospital bed battling yet another setback of age, I began a conversation about his faith and if he was certain where he would spend eternity. In essence, I was giving him “permission” to stop fighting to just stay alive — in essence to quit the fight. He responded that he felt like that would be “quitting” and as he said it, I could tell he felt like there was shame with giving up. I re-directed the conversation that just like when he had chosen sobriety (i.e. to quit drinking alcohol) he wasn’t necessarily quitting but simply choosing a better path. In that conversation, as he assured me of his salvation, I said, “don’t think about letting go of the sheer fight to stay alive as quitting, but much like your journey with alcohol, and with the knowledge and assurance of your salvation, you are choosing a “better path” – a better alternative.
And sometimes, we don’t always know what’s next, but we know when it comes to certain relationships, habits, or choices we are making in our lives, we simply need to quit. Over the past several years, I’ve quit a lot of things…I quit sinful habits in my life that no longer served me well; I quit trying to “make” some relationships work that weren’t; I quit concerning myself with matters that I couldn’t control and/or influence; I quit watching so much news (as it was simply filling my head with negativity and polarizing content); I quit following some people on social media. And the list goes on!
So, while we might now know this day (January 19th) as Quitter’s Day and it was created because of the quitting of new year’s resolutions, I don’t agree with Coach Lombardi that Winners never Quit and Quitters never Win (or at least when it comes to the game of Life). Sometimes, the wisest and best thing you can do for yourself is to quit. So, as you think about today and the rest of 2026, rather than thinking of Quitter’s Day as something to be shameful of, maybe think about one habit or one choice or one relationship, you need to quit this year. In doing so, you simply might be winning in the game of life.
