Sean Buttner walks through a five-step framework to decide when to quit a project, relationship, or commitment. He uses his abandoned five-year ebook as an example, showing how it failed every check: no joy, no future alignment, no passion. The framework frees mental space for work that actually matters.
Start your day. Great. Start your day with a coach. I am your certified high performance coach, Sean Butner, today with the question for getting tripped up. Basically, we're talking about today. How do you know when it's time to stop a project, a relationship, or anything else that's been dragging on for a while? Because, you know, if you believe that you create your own reality, then, you know, you feel like you can control what's going on. The type of work you do, the relationships you're in, the things that are spending time on, the things that are important to you. And, you know, sometimes we have pride, you know, sometimes we feel like, I'm sticking, you know, to finishing this book, I'm sticking with this relationship, because I don't quit things. So if there's ever been something you thought, hey, I don't quit things, and I'm going to stick with it, or maybe it's been 13 years, you haven't fixed that fence. You're like, I'm going to build it, I'm going to repair and paint everything out back. And you said that 13 years ago. You still haven't gotten done, but it's still on your to do list, still gnawing at you. You know, it can create anxiety when we have these things that we can't let go. And it can be very freeing when we give ourselves permission to say, you know, what? Life happened, things changed, and maybe this isn't important to me anymore, and it's not a reflection of me failing, it's me growing beyond what maybe was important previously. So if you've ever had that feeling of, you know, stress or regret or anxiety over an unfinished project or you've been in a relationship where you're like, yeah, yeah, we should have broken up like two years ago, a year ago. You know, I don't know why we're still here, but I don't quit relationships or I love this person no matter what, which is noble. But I have five checks for you to evaluate projects, relationships, or anything else that can really help. So, yeah, and really, these are all questions that support that belief that you create your life. You design your life, you create your reality, and you can be an agent of change and what's going on. So let's go into the five checks. Okay. The first track I like to call the Marie Kondo check, which is simply if you know, in my life, I once had an ebook that took me, like five years to write. And I started a business and was doing it as something to support that. That business failed I switched jobs, but I was going to finish this dang thing anyways. And so first question in this particular case is, does this bring me joy, you know, or is it making me miserable? And with that ebook case with the old business on student debt, it wasn't really bringing me joy. It was me being stubborn to say, I'm going. I said I was going to finish this. I'm going to finish it. And along the way, it took away focus and energy from my other business. The 1. The coaching business that I had started. It was taking away time and energy from my day job as a software engineer. It was, you know, constantly in the back of my mind working on it in bits and spurts and then get kind of frustrated. So at the end of the day, like, when I was working with my coach, she's like, why are you doing this? And I'm like, huh? Yeah, I don't know why, like. And she asked me this question, which is the second check, which is the future check, is, is this important to who you are right now or the person you want to be in the future? Is this moving you closer to your best self? And I'm like, not. Not really, other than, like, keeping that promise to myself. But okay, well, the optimization check, check number three. Is the expected output that you're going to get from this worth the resources going into it? And I, like, actually, no. I'm spending all this time and energy and revision and, you know, a little bit of money, and it wasn't completing the project. So it's like, okay, so it's not really worth the expected input output. So I'm starting to get, you know, start thinking about that. The. The fourth check in this is, does this fire me up? Does this ignite your passions, set your spirit on fire, get you really stoked and excited for the day? And again, in this particular case, for me, the ebook, it wasn't. It was actually kind of taking away some of the momentum I'd have on some things that I was excited about, but gosh darn it, I was gonna finish it. And then the fifth and final check is the student check. Does this task, in my case, creating this ebook, help develop skills that are important to your personal growth, the growth of your business or career, or developing important relationships in your life? And I was like, no. And so at the end of these five checks, I really didn't say yes to any of them. So why was I doing this? There's no. No good reason. And this. Going through the system and. And going through these checks gave me the aha. Like, oh, like, I can let this go if I let those go. And here's the, the bonus thing. When you have, you know, a process like this, I can give myself permission now to let this go, to focus on things that are a bit more meaningful and to lay the project to rest. So, you know, that changed everything. You know, I, you know, the sense of relief when I finally, like, you know, was journaling was like, I'm letting this go. It's not perfect. I put a lot of effort into it. I learned a lot. But it, at this point in my life, it's not worth going forward with. And that's, I think, the power of this idea, right? Which is have a process to evaluate the things that you're doing to make sure they're helping you grow, helping you advance, helping you create and design the life that you really want. So with that said, guys, I hope you enjoy this video. Please do the social media share, like, ask any questions you have below. I'd love to hear from you and I'll see you guys tomorrow at the same time. This is Shabbat nursing. Go with more joy, personal growth and impact your communities. I'll see you guys.
