Happy Tuesday!

My friend, JJ, recently sent me a post from entrepreneur Steven Bartlett.

In the post, Bartlett argues that knowing when to:

• Move on from something that isn’t working
• Demand more from life
• Leave a situation
• Change direction

is an important skill to have.

Interestingly, JJ thought that these things are “common sense”.

But common sense is not common practice.

Personally, I’ve stayed in unsuitable situations—longer than I should have.

I now rely on these 3 questions to gauge if I should quit an endeavor:

• Does it align with my values and principles?
• Does it disturb my health and my peace?
• Does it give me room to grow?

1) Does it align with my values and principles?

To use this question, you need to know what your values and principles are first.

Then, you’ll have to look out for symptoms of misalignment. Common symptoms include:

• Struggling to find purpose and direction in your endeavour
• Living days on autopilot mode, causing time to fly by quickly

Personal example: I lived my days mostly on autopilot before the age of 15.

• I value autonomy over my work, and wanted to study tech stuff
• But: I had no agency over the subjects I could study before the age of 15
• I went to school like a zombie, trying to float amid the tsunami of uninspiring homework

While I can’t quit school that early in life, I wished I’d “woken up” earlier and semi-quit:

• Care less about academics
• Learn how to study more efficiently
• Make more time for deliberate experimentation and acquiring monetisation skills

2) Does it disturb my health and my peace?

You’re going to be with your mind and your body for the rest of your life.

Protect your health and your peace.

Be your own best friend.

While “health disturbances” are easier to spot, “peace disturbances” can look different for each individual.

• Some people experience it as feelings of frustration.
• Others have a sense of impending doom—a heavy anxiety in their chest.
• It could also be something mild and physical: insomnia, fatigue, and tension.

Unfortunately, we tend to dismiss these feelings.

Compartmentalise them until they can’t be contained anymore.

Or numb ourselves with substances.

To regain your awareness about how you feel, you need to practice listening to your body.

I don’t have a solid process for this yet, but I’m currently practising how to:

1. Notice when I feel “off”
2. Sit still and let myself feel the feeling(s)
3. Turn off my Inner Analyser so that I can intuitively interpret the feeling(s)
4. Thank my body for letting me know what I need to know
5. Tell myself that I’m safe, and let the feeling(s) go

3) Does it give me room to grow?

A shark in a fish tank will only grow 8 inches, but a shark in the ocean will grow 8 feet.

A lot of people scoff at the idea that “you’re either growing or dying”.

“I just want to maintain where I’m at,” they’d say. “I don’t have to grow all the time.”

However, since change is the only constant, “maintenance” actually leaves you vulnerable to obsolescence:

Of course, you need to water your own lawn.

Nurture your current opportunities so that they can flourish.

But if there’s a ceiling on your growth, your efforts might be best used elsewhere.