Quit on Good Days, Not Bad Days
You can quit anything you like — just never on a day it's going wrong.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 85%
Quit on Good Days, Not Bad Days is a rule Lisa Bilyeu credits to gymnast Nastia Liukin's mother: 'you can quit anytime, but you cannot quit on a bad day.' It filters real desire to leave from the temporary sting of difficulty — quit only when things are going well and you'll know if you truly don't want it. Lisa pairs it with a hard lesson from her own life: she and Tom never reassessed their plan or gave their goal a deadline, so they punted for eight years. A goal needs a deadline, and plans need scheduled reassessment.
Origin
Lisa learned the rule from gold-medal gymnast Nastia Liukin, whose mother told her at 11 or 12, crying that she wanted to quit: 'you can quit anytime, but you cannot quit on a bad day.'
Core principles
- 01The best entrepreneurs know when to stop, quit, or let go — not just when to push harder.
- 02Deciding to quit on a bad day tells you nothing except that the day was hard.
- 03Quitting only on good days reveals whether you genuinely don't want the thing or just found it difficult.
- 04A goal needs a deadline, and plans need periodic reassessment — otherwise you just keep punting.
How to run it
- 1
Check the day before you decide
When the urge to quit hits, first identify whether things are currently going wrong.
Watch out A quit decision made on a bad day is contaminated by the difficulty of the day.
- 2
Defer the decision to a good day
Refuse to quit on a bad day; wait until a day when things are going well to revisit the question.
- 3
Test true desire vs difficulty
On the good day, ask whether you genuinely want out or only wanted to escape the hardship.
- 4
Give goals deadlines and reassess
Attach a deadline to any goal and schedule reassessments so you don't punt indefinitely out of inertia or loyalty.
Pro tip 'A goal needs a freaking deadline' — without one you just keep punting.
In the wild
Lisa and Tom agreed to work for a year then make movies, but never reassessed the plan or set a deadline. They kept punting on inertia and loyalty for eight years.
→ She concluded the best entrepreneurs know when to stop, and that goals must carry deadlines and scheduled reassessment to avoid this trap.
Common mistakes
Quitting in the heat of a bad day
Deciding to abandon something while it's going wrong confuses temporary difficulty with a genuine lack of desire.
Never setting a deadline
A goal with no deadline gets punted forever; Lisa and Tom lost years because they never reassessed their plan.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone deciding whether to abandon a goal, project, or commitment and unsure if it's genuine or just hard.
Not ideal for
Situations requiring immediate exit for safety or ethics, where waiting for a 'good day' is inappropriate.
From the transcript
“darling you can quit anytime but you cannot quit on a bad day”
“a goal needs a freaking deadline and so we didn't actually give it a deadline we just kept punting”
From the episode
Lisa Bilyeu: How to Cultivate Radical Confidence, Live Authentically, and Become the Hero of Your Own Life
Lisa Bilyeu