119. Why You Keep Quitting Things You Actually Care About

Do you keep abandoning projects, systems, or goals the moment they get uncomfortable—even when they align with your vision? You're not alone. Most entrepreneurs quit what they're passionate about because they've been taught a dangerous lie: if it's right, it should feel easy. In this episode, I reveal why alignment doesn't mean comfortable, how to distinguish between growth discomfort and misalignment, and the framework that helps you persist through the breakthrough instead of quitting right before it happens.

What You'll Learn:

• Why "if it's right, it feels easy" is costing you everything
• The two types of discomfort every entrepreneur faces (and which one to push through)
• The 5-question framework to determine if you should persist or quit
• Why most entrepreneurs quit right before the breakthrough—and how to avoid this pattern
• Real client story: How one entrepreneur almost abandoned the exact system that transformed her business
• The predictable arc of transformation (and where most people bail)
• How to tell if discomfort signals growth vs. misalignment

Featured Framework: The Growth vs. Misalignment Test

Run through these 5 questions when facing discomfort:

1. Can I clearly articulate why this matters to me?
2. Does this violate my core values?
3. Am I drained without purpose, or exhausted with purpose?
4. Would I regret walking away?
5. Have I given this enough time to actually work?

Apply This Week:

Identify ONE thing you've been avoiding or abandoning because it feels uncomfortable. Run it through the 5-question framework. If it's aligned growth discomfort—commit to 90 days. Track your progress and notice when you hit the Messy Middle.

Thanks for listening!

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Chapters

• 0:00 Naming The Real Problem: Discomfort
• 1:03 Why We Quit When It Gets Hard
• 2:52 The Maya Example: Building Systems
• 5:15 Alignment Does Not Mean Comfortable
• 7:04 Two Kinds Of Discomfort
• 9:04 Five-Question Framework To Decide
• 14:10 Give It Time: The 90-Day Rule
• 17:10 The Transformation Arc And Messy Middle
• 20:10 Put Your Project Through The Audit

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:16

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Create Your Day podcast. My name is Jen Cody. I am your host. So, today, what are we talking about? We are talking about something uncomfortable, and I mean literally uncomfortable. We are speaking about discomfort. Specifically, I want to talk to you about why you quit things that you're passionate about the moment that they start to get uncomfortable. And I know there's a lot of you out there that think I see things through to the end, right? That's not me that you're talking about. I am committed when I see something that I want to see through, I stay the course and I make it happen. I want you to really think about what I am talking about now. Think about how many times you've started something that you really did care about, right? It's aligned with your vision. Maybe it can transform your business, it can change your life. It has some, it has the ability to make a real impact. But the second it got really hard, you abandoned it. And we do this with systems too. So how many systems have you started to build? And it's exciting in the beginning, right? When you're building a system and you can see the future, you can see like what it looks like when everything is organized and clean, but then it gets overwhelming. So you stop halfway through. Maybe those are sitting in a Google Drive somewhere. How about conversations? Because a lot of us, there are difficult conversations on the horizon that we know need to happen, but we are fine avoiding them and waiting to see if those situations are going to resolve themselves. Only what happens when we do that? Nine times out of ten, they resolve itself in a terrible way. Those situations don't turn out good. So think about how many aligned opportunities have you walked away from because the discomfort made you doubt whether they were right for you. And I am willing to bet that it's probably more than you want to admit. So I don't want you to feel bad about this. I want to start to recognize that this pattern is one of the biggest things that is keeping you stuck. It's not a lack of strategy, not a lack of opportunity, and believe it or not, it's not even a lack of clarity. And you guys know I die on the hill of clarity. But what's happening is that you keep quitting what you're passionate about because you've been taught that if something is right for you, it should feel easy. And that's a lie. And that lie is really costing you everything. So I want to show you how this works in like practice. We're gonna just make up a person. So, in theory, there's this person, let's give her a name, um, Maya. So Maya has a clear vision. She is ready to build a business. Excuse me. She knows exactly what she wants it to look like. She knows what system she wants, she wants to build a team, she wants um those people to have autonomy, right? They're gonna operate independently. She has a business that is going to run smoothly without her. She can go on vacation, sit on the beach without picking up her phone. It's a vision she is passionate about, and it is very aligned with her values. It's so aligned that she has complete clarity around it, right? So the clarity is not missing. But now what happens? Maya starts building out this vision. She takes the processes and systems, she documents them, she creates the frameworks that are needed for this team to grow and operate without her. She establishes communication and the way that all of that has to happen. Um, she puts in the infrastructure for a business that she can walk away from, go on vacation, sit on the beach, right? And after like six weeks or so, this is what always happens. Maya will say, I don't think this is working. Maybe I'm meant to work by myself. Maybe I'm supposed to be a solopreneur, maybe I'm just not cut out for this. And if you ask Maya what is happening at that moment, what makes her say that, this is the answer you're going to hear. And I guarantee it's something that you have felt in your heart at some point. Maya will say, Everything feels harder right now. I feel like there are more questions than ever. Not fewer. Things are taking longer than they used to. I feel like I'm doing more work instead of lessening my work when my workload. So maybe this isn't for me. So pay attention. Do you see what happened there? Because Maya hit that middle ground, that middle part, the part where the old way, it stopped working. But this new way that she's developed, it's not finished yet. It hasn't clicked yet. So she's interpreting that this discomfort is a sign that maybe the path she's on is completely wrong. And she's about to quit. But you know what's happening is that she's about to quit right before the breakthrough. So here's something that I really want you to hear. Alignment does not mean comfortable. Alignment does not mean comfortable. It means that the discomfort is worth it. You know, I heard a quote not too long ago, I actually may have mentioned it on here already, um, about passion and what it means to really have a passion for something. And pat being passionate about something doesn't mean that it comes easy to you. It means that you are willing to put up with the pain that is necessary to see it through to the other side. So in Maya's case, of course, her team is asking more questions because they're trying to learn how to make those independent decisions and they need clarity on the criteria for that. And yes, things are going to take longer for a little while, but that's because you're building something and you're not just reacting. And that can and will feel harder. Because in that process, you are becoming a different person. You are becoming someone who is capable of being a leader, you're becoming someone who is not there to just do all of the work by yourself. But that version of you, it doesn't exist yet. So, of course, as you become that version, you know, like the whole butterfly analogy, it is uncomfortable. That discomfort is not a warning, it's confirmation that growth is happening. So here's a distinction that we have to learn to make if we're going to be successful. There are two types of discomfort in business. And the first one is the discomfort of misalignment. And this is what happens when we try to force something that doesn't fit. Maybe you're pursuing someone else's version of success. Maybe you're violating your values. And that misalignment discomfort feels like you're disconnected from why this even matters to you. You're drained all the time. You don't really feel like there's a sense of purpose, and you have a lot of relief at the thought of letting go of whatever it is that you're working on. And there's this constant sense of like, why am I doing this? What am I doing? If that's what's happening, then yes, there may be some misalignment happening. The second type, though, is growth discomfort. And this is the discomfort that comes from being stretched. It comes from becoming the person that you are not yet there yet. Um, when you're pursuing something that genuinely matters, but it requires growth. And that kind of discomfort feels like a clear connection to why something matters, even though it's hard. Your exhaustion is almost mixed with this like undercurrent of energy. You're exhausted, but you know there's more to come and you're ready to do it. When you think about quitting, you feel more regretful than excited by that thought. And you have a true sense of how hard this thing is that you're working on, but you also know that it is right. Both of these things do feel uncomfortable. One of them is worth persisting through. And if you can't tell the difference, you're going to keep abandoning what you're passionate about the second something gets hard because you will mistake that growth discomfort for being in unaligned misalignment. So I'm going to give you a framework today that you can use when you're faced with these questions, when you're feeling discomfort about something, when you're questioning whether or not you should persist, if you should quit. I want you to run your mind through these five questions. Okay. And this is really going to be helpful so that you don't wind up putting all of this work into something that really matters to you and then walking away from it because you don't want to do that, right? So the first question is can you clearly articulate why it matters to you? So, what do we mean when I ask you, why does this matter to you? I am not asking you why it looks good. I'm not asking you why other people do it. I'm asking specifically, why does this matter to you? Can you connect this to your vision, to your values, to your strategic anchors? How does how does that connect? And if the answer there is yes, this that's a sign that there's alignment there, even if it is difficult and uncomfortable. If it's no, if you can only articulate external reasons, then that's misalignment. Okay. Um for Maya, let's go back to Maya that we were talking about. She was able to articulate why building those systems mattered, right? She knew, she had complete clarity. She wanted a business that served her life, didn't consume it. She wanted to be present with her family, she wanted to prove that she could be successful without burnout. And the clarity told her that the discomfort was growth, not misalignment. That's what that should have done. Okay, question two. Does this violate your core values? And this is a non-negotiable line, right? Our core values, we need to be in alignment with them all the time. So if pursuing this thing requires you to abandon that, requires you to compromise on something fundamental. If it asks you to violate your values, it's a hard stop. It is misalignment, and you need to honor that about yourself. Um, if it is honoring your values, even as it pushes you to grow, then I say keep going. That is growth. So let's go to the third question. And that question is about being drained. So if ask yourself, are you drained without purpose? Are you exhausted but with purpose? And this is a big one because misalignment really will drain you. It depletes you of your energy, and there's like no sense of meaning, no sense of direction. You're tired and you can't even articulate what you're tired in service of. Growth also exhausts you, but there's that underlying current of energy that I was talking about. You're tired because you're stretching, not because you're forcing. So there's that difference in there. If you're exhausted but also energized by the vision of what you're building, you could feel the possibility, even in the hard moments, that's growth. Okay, question four. Would you regret walking away? So I want you to imagine yourself five years from now. If you quit what you were working on right now, how would your future self feel? And if your first reaction there is relief, there's a chance it's misalignment, right? So that's walk away. If you would feel regret, then I say stay, because if you know that if you quit, you would be right back where you started in six months, overwhelmed, burned out, wishing you had kept going. That regret is telling you to stay put and keep going. So that would be my advice there. Um, question five. Have you given this enough time to actually work? And the reason I'm saying this is because you've heard this before. Most people, they really do quit right before the breakthrough is about to happen. So they're giving new systems three weeks, they're giving new team members four weeks, they're giving new processes and procedures six weeks. And it's just not enough time for anything to take hold. Real transformation, we are talking minimum three to six months for something to stick, usually longer. So, in order to be really sustainable, I mean, you need to stick with something six, twelve, eighteen months in order to see change that's going to actually take hold. Because there needs to be that time to implement, to work through the learning curve, to refine what's not working, and to let the new patterns that you're laying down, they have to solidify. So if you're quitting everything or pivoting every six to eight weeks when things get uncomfortable, you're never actually giving anything a chance to succeed. So let's say you're building something and you're putting systems in place and you're six weeks in, you haven't even reached the halfway point. So of course, nothing is working smoothly yet. And we sometimes get to that point and think like, I guess this isn't for me. So, what I want you to do is the next time you are thinking this, the next time you find yourself with this kind of thought process, I will ask you to commit to 90 days and not forever, right? 90 days is not forever, but 90 days of persisting through that, you know, middle messy part, the messy middle. So here's what you can expect to happen if you do that. Obviously, you know, results will vary, but for the most part, if you decide to see things through and you commit to 90 days, probably somewhere around week 10, you will notice that things are starting to click. Um if we go back to the example that I used with Maya, that for that example, it would have been like those constant questions that the team was asking, that's when they would have stopped. If she would have just given it a little more time, because the frameworks that they were waiting for would have started to take hold. Um, processes start running more smoothly because everything is in the right place. Everyone knows the role that they have in the process. And that's when you can start to actually step back and allow your team and your company to run um more fluidly because your systems are working. If you think about um continuing from there, week 12, 13, 14, you can start cutting down on how much output you're putting into this process. So that by month six, you're able to think about stepping away, maybe taking that vacation, and the business can actually run. You've given everything, all of the energy that you put into it, you've given it enough time to take hold, work out the kinks, figure it out, and none of that happens when you quit at week six. This breakthrough that you're building towards, if you quit at week six, you're probably just like four or five weeks away from it happening. So you don't want to abandon it because you're mistaking that growth discomfort for misalignment. Now, there's a pattern here, right? And I said this in the beginning: this pattern is what is killing you. Entrepreneurs quit right before the breakthrough. They quit building email lists a few months in because they're like, why am I doing this? Nothing's happening, but you haven't given it any time for that compound growth to actually kick in. So these patterns of quitting anything difficult after a few weeks, the identity shift hasn't happened yet, right? The clarity hasn't emerged yet. You're quitting at the exact moment that um persistence would have paid off for you. So, why do we do that? Why do entrepreneurs have this pattern? And real transformation has a very predictable arc. Okay, we start with excitement. We think this is going to change everything. My business is going to look different, my life is going to look different, and so we start implementing. And when we get to that implementation phase, we're like, oh, hmm, maybe this is a little bit harder than I thought it was going to be. And then we get to that messy middle and we're like, oh no, this is not working at all. I think I should quit. But if we keep going, we will get to that breakthrough and that point that we're able to say, oh, it is actually working. And then once it's integrated, that arc continuing, right? Once it's integrated, then you've felt this before. I hope. I can't believe I almost quit. Look at what I would have missed out on if I had quit. So a lot of people, they never make it past that third step, that messy middle. They bail because they think that the discomfort means it's wrong. So it doesn't mean it's that you're on the wrong path. It's actually a sign that you're in the hardest part of the right path. So the discomfort isn't a warning, it's just a confirmation that you're close. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to think about something that maybe you've been avoiding, abandoning, discomfort that you've been like putting on the back burner. And again, could be difficult conversations, delegating responsibilities to other people, building systems that are going to free up your time. There's so many things, right? Like, what is the support that you should be investing in that would accelerate your growth? Um, what are the opportunities that you should be pursuing, but they are scary? There's so many things. So think of one of them that you've been putting it off, and I want you to put it through that framework. Can you articulate why that matters to you? Does it honor your core values? Are you exhausted with purpose or are you drained and you don't see the purpose anywhere? Would you regret walking away? And have you given it enough time to really work? If most of your answers there were yes, you are in the messy middle of something that really matters. That discomfort, I promise you, it is not misalignment. It is growth. And if you quit now, you are abandoning yourself right before the breakthrough. The things that you are most passionate about, they are going to be the most uncomfortable things you do. And that's not because they're wrong for you. It's because they matter so much that the stakes feel super high. And alignment doesn't protect you from discomfort. It makes the discomfort meaningful. So I want you to realize that learning to persist through that meaningful discomfort, learning to like tell the difference between this is hard, but it's right, and this is genuinely wrong, that is one of the most valuable skills that you are going to develop as an entrepreneur. If you keep quitting every time something gets uncomfortable, you're just going to keep getting the same results with different tactics, which what's the point of doing that? So you learn to recognize growth discomfort for what it is. It's evidence that you're stretching right towards something that matters, and then everything changes. You stop abandoning what you're passionate about, you stop quitting right before the breakthrough. You start building the business you actually want, even when it is uncomfortable. Those are the things that are going to matter to you. And that's when you're going to be able to say, I can't believe I almost quit. I was so close to walking away from the exact thing that I needed. Those are the moments that I want from you, want for you. So stop abandoning yourself right before the breakthrough. The discomfort that you're feeling is what you need to lean into and realize, is this misalignment or is it just something that really means a lot to you? And so it's going to be a little bit uncomfortable. Thank you so much. I hope that these frameworks, this um audit that you can do, those questions, put yourself through the paces. Let yourself understand, am I in the right place? Am I supposed to be remaining committed to this? Or is it time for a pivot? And if you do find that it's time for a pivot, that's okay. It's not going to hurt you. It's going to be beneficial for you to take that pivot because what you're doing is not checking those boxes that say that it's right for you. So I hope you found this helpful. Please share it with someone if you think that they would also find it helpful. The podcast grows the more it gets shared, the more reviews that we get. I would love for you to hit pause right now, go on to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever it is that you're listening to the podcast, leave me a review. Let me know what is it that you want to hear more of or less of. Um, and as always, I hope you're able to take this information, go out there today, and create the day that you deserve. The best day possible. Thank you so much for being here, and I will see you next week. Until next. Next time take care of yourself, take care of each other, and thanks for being here.