In this video, certified high‑performance coach Sean Buttner presents a practical decision‑making framework to help viewers determine whether to persist (grit), quit, or pivot on a personal or professional endeavor. He begins by emphasizing the need for a systematic process when life changes—new children, moves, job changes, or business shifts—cause uncertainty about continuing or abandoning a path. The core of the framework is a "moving toward vs. moving away" diagnostic: for each major life dimension (financial, time, quality of life, relationships, values) the viewer lists what they are moving toward (positive outcomes) and what they are moving away from (negative pain points). He advises rating each factor on a 1‑10 scale, summing the scores, and comparing options; the side with the higher total indicates the more aligned choice. He highlights self‑awareness signals that should trigger the assessment—persistent feelings of misery, exhaustion, overwhelm, or lack of motivation. These emotional cues signal that a decision point has been reached. The framework is presented as an objective tool that can be applied to career choices, business decisions, or personal projects. He also notes a practical business trigger: when a team doubles in size, it’s a natural moment to re‑evaluate processes and decide whether to continue, quit, or pivot. Buttner stresses that persisting in something that isn’t working is "busy work," while stopping unproductive efforts is a sign of sanity. He encourages a "fail fast, fail forward" mindset, learning from unsuccessful attempts and iterating. The video concludes with a call to action: a downloadable assessment worksheet (linked below) and an invitation to join a three‑day "Meaningful Revolution Challenge" designed to help viewers define a vision, build a plan, and develop supportive habits for a fulfilling transformation. He invites comments and questions, positioning the framework as a community‑supported tool for achieving meaningful personal revolutions.
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When do you know how to grip through something, quit something, or pivot on something? As a coach, I get asked this question all the time because so many times, you know, our lives change. The things that we are going after, that we have aspirations for that we really want to put out in the world. Sometimes change, right? We have a new child that's born, we have a big life event, we move across the country, we switch jobs, we switch businesses, we start new businesses, we stop old businesses. The listing list goes on. And really, we need a process to really assess how do we make these changes, right? When is it time to change? When is it time to really just see it through? And if you don't have a process for that, I have a quick one for you in today's video. So continue to watch. Right. Hey, everyone, I'm Sean Buttner, certified high performance coach. And today we're talking about when you should grit through something, quit something, or pivot something, right? And there's so many different ways and reasons why we need to have a process to go through this. Because when you get this right, you are effective with your resources, which is time. It's money, it's attention, it's this feeling of progress that we all want and feel in our lives. And when we get it wrong, we are. We waste a lot of that. And we can feel miserable, we can feel stuck, we can be taken away from really enjoying other things that are going really good in our lives, all because we're holding on to something that's no longer serving us. So as we're talking through this today, I want you to think, like, what is something in your life that. That maybe you need to let go? Or what is something in your life where you need to be thinking about, you know, how do I assess if I continue going on forward with it or not, or when do I give it up? So, again, you know, those are kind of three different decision points that we all need today. But before we get into that, there's a couple of things that we need to keep in mind. Is, you know, the first very important framework that I was taught years ago when I was thinking about leaving my first corporate job after college, was a gentleman by the name of Jeff Hayes pulled me aside and he's like, hey, I heard you're going to start a business. And, you know, it sounds like it'll probably work because everyone is always either moving towards something good or away from something bad. And the thing is, is when you are running away from something bad, like a bad manager, bad work Bad habits, bad people, those tend to show up at the next thing, right? But if you're going towards greater service, greater abundance, greater connection, greater fulfillment, you know, things that are more positive in your life, that those are the changes that stick. And so it's very simple. Framework of what am I moving towards and what am I moving away from is super important. So that we need to understand that that's kind of gonna, that's going to be the framework that we'll go through and I'll give you a couple of ideas on things to think about. Are you moving towards or away from. Also, we need to be very aware of ourselves. Like we need to know when we need to make a decision, you know, and that could be because you're feeling unmotivated, you're feeling miserable, you wake up and you have to do something and you get that sense of despair or you just are consistently feeling exhausted or overwhelmed. So if you have any of those feelings in your day to day, then it might be time for you to do an assessment on and change something, right? Each of those feelings. When I'm coaching a client, I'm looking for those things and how people are reacting to it. And a lot of times as humans in general, we avoid trying to deal with that, those feelings. So. And the people that are the most productive or the most high performing tend to be able to recognize that quick and then enact a change in themselves. And I'm saying this too for myself, like I had this show up in my life for too long at times in my life as a high performance coach. So it's not that anyone gets a free ticket or anyone ever really has it figured out, but you need to be have that self awareness of oh, I'm feeling this. This might need some thinking through to see if I need to change or if I'm just at a weird spot in this project or task. Right. Also, what I really love about this framework is it's an objective tool, right? So you could rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 on the factors that we're going to talk about here in a minute. And when you add those up, if you had to choose between two different career options, right, I could get promoted to director here or I could go to another company and get promoted to director or CEO or whatever it is, but two different jobs run through this assessment. What are you running towards? What are you running away? And you should have one that takes a clear lead, right? If you don't, then you're in a really good world where you just choose what feels right. But having that, that analytical kind of number behind, should I make a change or should I, you know, this or that? Oh, this one scores a little bit higher. Maybe I'm going to be a little bit more fulfilled, a little more connected, or feel a little bit more authentic while doing that. I should do option B over A or whatever. So. And if that's you, I do have in the link below where you're watching this video, a file like download for you to go through an assessment, to go through the different things that we're going to talk about real quick, right? And then the final thing to really think about, and you really have to believe this if this is going to work, and that is that stopping something that isn't working is called sanity, right? And respecting or repeating something that isn't working without change is just busy work. So a lot of times the things that we hold on to turn into this busy work thing where we're just expending energy and effort and resources and sweat and tears and blood and time with the family and all these different things that people find important and, you know, we're not effectively moving things forward or at the pace that we need to, or in a way that even matters anymore. So it's, it's really important to think that, you know, sometimes the best thing you can do is fail. And, you know, having worked in Silicon Valley for a while, there's this phrase of fail quickly and fail forward. And so that is just, you know, figure out if it works or not, learn from it, do the next iteration and move forward. And sometimes the best thing you can do in that is like, this isn't working, so let's abandon this and try something completely new. So that's a couple of mindsets and things to keep in mind as we talk about this to from framework, right? So now, what is this framework on a sheet of paper, you know, if you have a blank sheet of paper, draw a line down the middle, you're going to go, what am I running to? And what am I running from in each of these different areas? And I would, you know, so we'll start there. So the first thing is, you know, financially, are you running towards higher pay or away from not being paid enough? And there's a distinction in that even though they're both kind of the same thing, and then in that, that if you're running away from not getting paid enough and running, you know, what you're really doing is at some point maybe you didn't negotiate your salary or you didn't ask for what you were worth. And so you need to make sure that you're aware of that. So when you go to the next job, you are running towards what you're worth. Right. So it's a diagnostic tool. I'll give you another example. Right. So if you are running towards, you know, a place where it actually pays you less, but you have more flexibility in your schedule to work from home, to be with the kids and manage their, and work into their schedules, like that's you're running towards more time with your family versus away from, you know, not having that time with your family. So that all kind of goes into how you, you frame it, but that's kind of the exercise. So like financially, number one, you know, what are you earning towards or away from in the different options that you have? Right. Number two, like time wise, Right. Are you running, you know, towards more control over your day? Are you running away from being overloaded or having no control over what you're doing day to day? Because again, like if you're running away from not feeling like you have control over the work that you do hour by hour and your workday and you're going to move laterally to another team or to another company, maybe if you don't have great time management or you're not able to set boundaries or there's an inherent problem that, that prevents you from focusing, that's just going to follow you versus, you know, are you going to a place where you can manage your time effectively but it'll afford a little bit more flexibility structurally? So it's kind of identifying that part of it. But are you running towards more freedom or you're running away towards bad habits that you have? Right. That's another way to frame that up. Third thing to think about is quality of life. Are you running towards feeling more fulfilled or running away from that idiot co worker that annoys you all the time? You know, and we all, there's always that guy on every team. So, you know, being really clear on, on again where you're moving forward or away can help you pick when you know which option to choose. So fourth option, you know, is relationship wise, is it going to help you be in the community you want, have the support that you want, help you be around more people that have similar values to you, or are you running away from those types of things? You're running away again, running away from a bad teammate, bad management, bad leadership, bad direction of the company. Is it the industry that's kind of Going the whole, you know, wrong direction, or is it just this particular organization, those kind of conversations to think through, and then, you know, finally, you know, you talk about, you know, what's really important, and that is values. Right. Are you running towards something that'll help you feel more authentic or not? Are you running away from something that is not as preventing you from doing that? And I know, again, this sounds like it's like two sides of the same coin, but if you're listing more things in the what you're running away from column, it might be time to hire a coach. It might be time to engage your networking, your network, your mentors, your close friends that can give you an honest opinion and have a conversation and be like, is there something that I'm missing, that I'm the common denominator here? Or what is going to follow me in this potentially new opportunity? I think that could be really, really impactful. If you're more in the things that you're running to, you're probably in a better space to follow through, to stick through it, to end up in a better spot. So. All right, I hope you enjoyed that. A couple more things to keep in mind that you know, for thinking about when to pivot, quit, or grit through something, if you're, you're thinking through that in a business context, another set of times when you might want to do it is when you double your team size. That's a random metric. Not a random metric. It's this weird thing where, you know, if you're in business and it's just you, you have all your processes, when you hire an assistant to help you, you have to update everything because there's another person to communicate. And then when you have four people working in your company, that's when you kind of go through your processes again to see, does this process work? Is it that you. Do we have to change it? Do we have to ditch it? Do we have to do something new? You know, that type of thing? This should be fun. Like, I find when I'm coaching someone and we get into this type of assessment and we're trying to suss out what the best option is for them, people generally know and have a good idea of what they're going towards and what they're going against and what feels right. Right. And, you know, you can't always base things, base decisions off of feelings. You know, you have responsibilities. And this isn't to say that if you feel like another opportunity is great, you just, you know, flip the switch and off you go. But it is important to have some type of process, some type of framework, some type of way to think about it. So if you are trying to, to quit something, pivot something or grit through something, this is a really, really great framework again to decide if you should stick with it again. If it's something you're considering and it's all mostly in the positive, you could grit through it. If it's something that you're running away from, maybe you need to quit it or you need to change it to where it's something where you're feeling a little bit more positive about it. So that's our video for this week, folks. If you are looking to be around a community where you're trying to really live into your best life, when you're really trying to feel fully engaged, right, this tool that we were talking about, the moving towards or away, is really about being engaged in your career or being engaged in not avoiding a decision. And sometimes the best way to get the support you need is to be in a group of people that'll cheer you on, that are really trying to live into their meaningful revolutions and, you know, live into their big visions for themselves. And so a meaningful revolution, if you're not familiar with that term, is just a fulfilling transformation or that purposeful impact we all strive for. It's something that I believe and that's why I coach, it's why I host a podcast. It's something I really love helping people do. And so we have a challenge right now, a three day challenge to help you define your vision, to help you build a plan and help you create the habits around it so that you follow through. It's called the Meaningful Revolution Challenge. So if you are looking to make 2023 the year where you have that big transformation, that meaningful revolution where you feel more fulfilled, you feel more engaged in all areas of your life, please check out this three day challenge. There's a link below this video for you to check that out. So check out the download for the two from Framework, check out the three Day Challenge. I'd love to support you. I'd love to hear from you guys. Please post in the comments where you're watching this video what you thought. If there's something, if you had a question, love to answer those for you. And we'll see you guys next week in this weekly video series. So take care.
