The Space After Quitting
Why the void between endings and beginnings is the most honest teacher you'll ever have
The Quiet That Follows
No one talks about what happens after quitting.
After the exit interview.
After the farewell post and the final applause.
It’s the part where your phone goes still.
Where the group chats you once lived in no longer light up.
Where the silence gets so loud, it starts sounding like doubt.
When I left my director role, I thought the world would feel bigger.
Instead, it felt smaller and emptier.
At first, I called it loneliness.
But over time, I realized it was just space.
The kind I had been too busy to notice.
The Shape of the Void
We think endings are the hardest part.
But what comes after is harder: the waiting.
The not-knowing.
The space where the old identity is gone, and the new one hasn’t arrived yet.
That’s the moment your brain screams for noise.
For something, anything, to prove you still matter.
But if you can resist the impulse to fill the silence, you’ll find that emptiness is not a punishment.
It’s the sound of recalibration.
The space after quitting is where you meet the you that achievement drowned out.
What I Did in the Void
In the months after I quit, I gave myself one rule: try things without turning them into plans.
I started journaling every morning. Not for publication. Simply to sit down and see if I had anything to say.
The first one was terrible. Over 500 words about enoughness that went in circles and led nowhere. By month three, I had twelve essays no one would ever see. By month six, I realized I’d accidentally written the foundation for this newsletter.
But getting started taught me something.
I had been so focused on achieving that I had forgotten to ask why.
So I kept writing and kept exploring.
No strategy. No content calendar.
One question: what am I curious about this week?
The first week, I assembled a 1,132-piece Lego model that took me three days and left my fingers hurting through the weekend.
It was the Perseverance Mars Rover, which is currently exploring outer space in search of evidence of life.
The irony felt perfect.
The Coordinate: Grow Curiously
In the ENOUGH Compass, Grow Curiously means try before you optimize.
It’s the antidote to perfectionism.
The permission to explore without turning every discovery into a plan.
Curiosity is how you cross the void without forcing a destination.
Ask yourself:
What could I try, just to see?
What feels quietly alive, even if it doesn’t make sense yet?
What small curiosity keeps tugging at me?
Growth born from curiosity is different from growth born from fear.
It doesn’t demand outcomes, it invites wonder.
Now, here’s the real difference: fear-based growth is scarcity thinking.
You do things to prove you’re enough.
Every project is evidence. Every skill is insurance.
But curiosity-based growth? That’s sufficiency.
You try things because you already matter.
Because something interests you.
Because you can.
The void is where you finally have space to shift from earning worth to remembering it.
This is what “try before you optimize” actually meant for me.
I love pizza and wanted to learn how to make my perfect pizza at home.
For two weeks, I battled my homemade doughs.
Too sticky. Too tough. Never quite right.
Each failed pizza felt like proof that I wasn’t good at this.
Then I realized: that’s exactly the point.
I wasn’t trying to be good. I was trying to be curious.
And I ate every mistake.
But being bad at something new broke open a permission I’d forgotten existed.
The permission to suck at things for the pure joy of trying.
The point wasn’t accomplishment.
It was finding beauty in the imperfections.
Curiosity doesn’t demand you turn everything into productivity.
It asks: What would happen if you tried?
The Lesson Hidden in the Void
The space after quitting is sacred.
It’s the place where you can’t hide behind speed, validation, or applause.
There’s nothing left to perform.
The Lego Mars Rover taught me something: you don’t find life by planning every step.
You find it by following what’s interesting.
Piece by piece.
Even when your fingers hurt.
Same with pizza. Same with yourself in the void.
If you listen long enough, what returns is quieter but truer.
That small voice?
It’s not the ending. It’s your beginning, trying to introduce itself.
Practice for the Week
Pick one small curiosity you’ve been ignoring.
Something that pulls at you but doesn’t make logical sense.
This week, spend 30 minutes trying it.
Not researching it.
Not planning it.
Actually trying it.
Want to write? Write one messy paragraph.
Curious about drawing? Doodle badly for 20 minutes.
Wonder about cooking? Make one recipe you’d normally skip.
The goal isn’t quality. It’s permission.
Permission to be bad at something new.
Permission to try without worrying about the outcome.
Permission to follow a spark just because it’s there.
Write down what you noticed. Not what you accomplished.
What you felt.
That’s your compass.
You’re already holding it.
Exhale.
P.S. What curiosity has been tugging at you since you let something go?