5 Signs You Need to Leave A Relationship (or a Bad Habit) - 1:1 with James Laughlin

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Welcome to Lead On Purpose. I'm James Laughlin, former seven time world champion musician and now executive coach to global leaders and high performers. Each week I'll publish a solo cast where I'll share my top high performance habits and methodologies to supercharge your life and career. If you enjoy the show, please take a short moment to subscribe and leave a rating and review. I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time to connect today and and investing in yourself. Enjoy the show. A very special thanks to NZ Mortgages for sponsoring this episode of the Lead On Purpose podcast. You can check them out at nzmortgages co NZ Staying too long in the wrong relationship, be it with a person, a habit or a job, can cost you your happiness. Let's talk about the five signs that it's time to leave. We're told that winners never quit. You know, quitting is for losers. Well, I disagree. It's important that you know when it's time to change direction, it's time to move away. It's time to do something different. And these signs are critical and if you can see them, acknowledge them and take action, I think you'll be better off. Certainly in my life, I've stuck around for friendships, habits, relationships, jobs even for too long not seeing the signs or justifying those signs. So I wanted to share just some of those with you. And you know, I see this with the people that I work with, the people that I coach, you know, some of the people I have on as guests. We talk about, you know, when is the right time to leave something or stop doing something. We're going to look at these signs and I want you just to look at them from your own point of view and your own experience. I'll share some of my experiences, but the first one I think that's important is that you feel drained, not energized. So whether it's a habit, whether it's too many coffees, whether it's too many alcoholic drinks, Whether it's smoking, maybe it's not making you feel better and elevated, it's draining you. The same could apply in a relationship setting, a friendship, family member, intimate partner. If you're constantly feeling drained, maybe it's time to reassess the direction that the relationship is taking. And that's not always easy. You know, I've certainly found that hard. You know, I've. For those that know me well will know that I've been divorced. And that's not something that I look back on and go, hey, I'd love to do that again. Like, no way. There are great lessons learned there. Thankfully, I've still got a very positive, healthy, connected relationship with my former wife, as does my current partner. She's very well connected with my former wife, and I love that. And I think that's going to help us all have much longer, sustainable, thriving relationships. Is it easy? No. Is it fulfilling? Yeah, absolutely. So number one is just, you know, if you're feeling drained or not energized, it's time to reassess. And that could be even your job if you're starting to feel bored. Like I was in what I would have described as my dream job. I was teaching drums. I was getting paid pretty well. I had 16 weeks a year of holidays as my own boss, essentially. But I started to get bored. I started to see a different vision of what I wanted for my life. I no longer really believed in the leader that was leading me in terms of their vision. I just didn't think it was very exciting or very, very innovative. And I just wanted to look elsewhere in terms of what can get me fired up again. Walking away from certainty, security, or what we know is often difficult. When you walk away from the known, you're walking into the unknown. And at a evolutionary basis, the brain wants to and the mind wants to stay in the known. The safety, the security, certainty. Stepping into the unknown is very uncomfortable. And that's why often we'll put up with jobs that drain us, that take away from us, because it's safer than going into the unknown. The second sign that it's time to consider walking away or quitting is that when the bad outweighs the good, you know, often when we start things, there's a lot more good, there's a lot more joy, there's a lot more connection, reward, fulfillment. But sometimes, over time, little negative things can creep in. Surprises come up, oh, that person changed. I didn't know that about them. Now we're three years in. I can see that thing but when the bad outweighs the good, it's truly time to take stock and go, huh? If there's no change in behavior or the change in the relationship that I have with this person or habit or job, then maybe it's time to change course, you know, And I can remember times when there were habits. A great example is alcohol. In the beginning it was good. I felt great, you know, as a teenager and having a few drinks and felt silly and free and, you know, it gave me confidence. So in the short term, there was a lot of goods. Then there was the odd hangover that was not so good. But then over time, I started to drink more often. So my productivity dropped, my reliability dropped, I made poor decisions. I spent way too much money on alcohol and didn't have any to invest. So the bad started outweighing the good. You know, I remember in my teenage years blacking out, being found, you know, like it wasn't good. I wasn't pride, I was ashamed. So certainly it took me a while to actually readdress that relationship. But take a little look at the good and the bad and see which way, you know, it looks for you. The third sign I want you to consider when deciding should I quit on this thing, this relationship or this job or habit is the values are there. Are the values no longer aligning? When your values no longer align, it's time to really reassess. You know, if somebody wants to go right and you need to go left, you know, they value quick money, you value long term relationship building, they value, you know, winning at all costs, you value inclusivity and collaboration. It's not going to work. It's time to face the music, have a difficult conversation and move in a different direction. But it's important to always know what your values are. And if you haven't done that before, that's something I've talked about on previous episodes, is how do you uncover your values? Please go to that episode and work on discovering and uncovering what your values are. It's something I often do one to one with clients and sometimes in small groups is uncovering what do I value? What are the things in life that make decision making possible for me? We've all got key values, core values. You must know them. In terms of leading yourself on purpose, getting clear on your values is so important. I've had opportunities in recent years, very good opportunities in terms of financial reward that I've said no to. Hell no, in fact, because the values were misaligned. So I want you to think about that. Where in your life are their values misaligned? That's an area you need to address. That's an area you need to spend time on. And possibly it's an area where you need to walk away or quit on that thing, because your values are everything. Number four, you've stopped growing, you've gone stagnant. You know, you're rotting instead of ripening, you're decaying instead of growing. So this has happened for me for sure. You know, in a previous career, I was absolutely stagnant. I was essentially at the top of my game. And success breeds complacency unless we're committed to growth. And so I was just going around in circles, ticking the box. I didn't feel good. I was certainly wasn't my healthiest physically or mentally. And so getting on the focus of how do I grow, how do I develop? To me, that's so important. So if you are in a relationship that's absolutely stagnant, that has been for a long time, it's time to ignite some excitement in it, some passion in it. If that's not possible, maybe it's time to move on. You know, I'm not saying run away from relationships, but what I am saying is be conscious of what's happening in those relationships. You know, often when a relationship breaks down, it's not a 32nd thing. It's over days, weeks, months, or sometimes even years. But the longer we leave things to fester, often the more pain and damage comes with that. So I want you to be conscious of, you know, are you growing? Is the habit that you're engaged in helping you grow? Is the books that you're reading, are they helping you grow? The job that you're in, the career, is it helping you grow? You grow? Because if you're not growing, you're decaying. And every, you know, I don't care whether it's the start of the year, middle or the end, you need to have a personal development plan. Some people might call it a personal growth plan. If you don't have a personal growth plan by default, you have a personal decay plan, right? We need to be intentional with where we spend our time, our focus, our memory, our connections, our energy. It's so important that we take the time to get clear on what growth looks like for us. And last but not least, you're staying in this relationship, this job, or committed to this habit out of fear. When you're committed to things and staying around with people or jobs because you're afraid, maybe afraid of societal expectations, of pressure, of guilt, of the unknown. To me, it's not a good reason to stay around. It's a really good reason to reassess what's most important. I always say to my clients, WMI today, wmi, what's most important if you want fulfillment and importantly, if you want success. I would say that getting really clear on WMI is important, certainly for me, when I've been spread thin and lots of priorities, you know, dilute my focus, I've always diluted my results when I've done that. But staying around because you're afraid of the unknown, afraid of failure, afraid of people expecting different things or assumptions of you, it's not a great reason to stick around. So I hope that this short session has inspired you just to consider A, your relationships, both, you know, familial friendship and intimate. B, I hope it's really made you consider your work. You spend a lot of time in your career, you spend a lot of time at work. It should help you grow, it should elevate you and excite you. Maybe not all the time, but the majority of the time. And I hope it makes you just consider your habits. What are you doing day to day? Are they serving you? Are they helpful? Because at the end of the day, success is a habit. The most successful people that I sit with, whether they're billionaires, they're top athletes, they're running incredible companies, small, medium or large. They're very committed to curating the relationships they have with people, with their network, with their habits, with their nutrition. They're very, very thoughtful and intentional, and those are the ones that I consider true high performers. That is consistently exceeding norms whilst maintaining healthy relationships and wellbeing. I hope you've enjoyed the show. If this has been helpful for you, please consider one other person that you could send this to. Copy the link, send it to them. I would deeply appreciate it. But for now, please get out there and lead your life on purpose. A very special thanks to NZ Mortgages for sponsoring this episode of the Lead On Purpose podcast. You can check them out@nzmortgages.co.nz. thanks for tuning in today and investing in your own personal leadership. Please hit that subscribe button and I'd love if you'd leave me a rating and review. I've got some amazing guests lined up for you in the coming weeks and leaders. It's that time to get out there and lead your life on purpose.