#116: Get Unstuck: 15 Ways to Close Loops and Ignite Progress

Are you ready to break free from the loops that hold you back?

A ‘loop’ can be any unfinished business that consumes mental or emotional energy and prevents you from making progress.

In this episode we dive deep into the art of closing loops— powerful strategies to get unstuck and ignite your progress. Just like a glitch in software can disrupt operations, unclosed loops in life will hinder progress. Whether it's unfinished projects, unresolved emotions, or counterproductive habits, these loops keep us stuck. Learn how to recognize loops in your life and discover 15 simple ways to close those loops to create space for new opportunities and meaningful progress. It's time to unlock your potential.

ACTION STEP FROM THE EPISODE:
Download the free Closing Loops Reference Guide to identify and start closing the loops that are holding you back.

RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE

• Download your free Closing Loops Reference and Quick guide
•  Check out  Ben Hardy's video on Post Traumatic Growth
• Check out the Magic Monday Newsletter to read more on closing loops and other awesome topics to help you live your best life. 

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Transcript

Jeff Corrigan: 0:00

welcome back to Habit Masters. I'm Jeff. I'm Sheldon. And today we want to give you some tools to get unstuck. Now, what do we mean by that? I think that a lot of times when we have these goals and ideas and ambitions in our life, we have a tendency to get bogged down by all the other stuff going on in our life. Emotional trauma, unfinished projects, things we would like to do, but haven't ever started. Right? So we have all these goals, dreams, visions in our heads and things that we've done in the past we never finished and all those projects. And all those traumas and all those emotions can pile up and actually impede our path forward and stop us from progressing. If you like

Sheldon Mills: 0:42

John Acuff, I think he'd call these like negative sound trip soundtracks, right? These are soundtracks and loops that recur in your mind. It's the stuff that keeps you from completing the loop. Just like we said, closing the loop.

Jeff Corrigan: 0:56

Let me put this in an example that I wrote in my newsletter just recently that you can go back and read on our archive page. So if you haven't checked out our newsletter. Please do. It's getting better and better. And we're actually turning it into little actionable tools that you can use and put these principles into practice in your own life. So you can make progress towards your goals and towards living your best life. Yeah. Give us a story. Okay. So story is. My brother and I, we run a jewelry store, and a couple of years ago, we decided we needed to build a new internal system because the one we were using, our computer system, was from 1980. So it's okay, we gotta update this thing. So we hired a developer. We developed this thing. It took us a while to develop it. We finally pushed it live in 2021. And After we had started using it in the beta process, there's sometimes bugs and things you're working out. We came across an error that would actually shut down the entire system and we couldn't figure it out. We're like, what is happening? Someone would try to click a certain button and then the whole thing would shut down and it would shut down. Everybody's not just their one program. So became our first priority. So we dove in and our developer discovered. That it was a loop. In other words, there was a part of the code that would never complete a certain task. And it would just kick caught in an endless loop of trying to complete this task, but then reverting back and not completing the task and touch it over and over again, which he was able to fix fairly quickly. So once he found the problem, it was a simple fix. He just went in, adjusted the code and made sure that it wasn't looping anymore. And that allowed the whole program to continue forward. And the reason I use this example is because I think we get stuck in loops as well. Where if we have unfinished business in our life, it keeps us from making progress. So let's talk about, what are some of the loops that could be in your life? Right? Because we want to give you some practical examples of how this might show up. Let's give a couple

Sheldon Mills: 2:56

practical examples of like where these feelings of overwhelm and anxiousness and unmotivation might be coming from.

Jeff Corrigan: 3:05

Yeah, because there's no doubt we all have loops keeping us stuck in life, right? Let's talk about what they might be because identifying what the problem is sometimes the hardest part, right? If you're feeling anxious, stuck,, unmotivated, and just an overall lack of progress in your life, there's. Most likely somewhere in there, a loop or more that's holding you back. So here's six common loops that we talked about in my newsletter, but there's some others. So go ahead. Sheldon, you want to take some of these off? Yeah.

Sheldon Mills: 3:32

Yeah. Let's see. It starts with projects started, but never completed. This was a big one for me. I mean, you look at my computer desk every once in a while. I just have to close out the tabs on the computer and clean off all the things that I've been piling up.. Cause it's like all these things that feels overwhelming. If I look around and all the 27 tabs are still open. Cause I'm like, I gotta go back to that.

Jeff Corrigan: 3:58

Yeah. There's actually a tool I heard about from Warren Buffett that he does every day. If he has a to do list., at the end of the day, he just throws it away. He says, if it's important enough to actually do, I'll, it'll show up tomorrow. Right? And that's kind of his mantra. It's just I never leave a to do list item for the next day. I just say, wait, if I didn't get it through today, boom. If it's important enough to show up tomorrow, then alright. And I'm like, that's an interesting way. There's one little loop closer for you. Okay, the second one, Projects planned but never executed. I think this one, Is about those dreams or visions in your head of Oh, I was going to write this book or hey, I was going to do this and you just never make the time for it. And I say make the time because I think we use time as an excuse and it's time to stop. Stop using

Sheldon Mills: 4:48

time as an excuse. It's a hard pill to swallow, but ultimately we always have time for the things we put first, like in any given moment. You don't realize this. It's like life is a perfect ecosystem of whatever it is in this moment. We've decided is the most important thing for us. That's what we do. Whether it's , you the most important thing that I can be doing this second. Right? So we always have time for the thing we put first. We just haven't put first those things that. I still hanging in the background.

Jeff Corrigan: 5:19

So, and we'll give you some tips on what to do with those projects

Sheldon Mills: 5:22

or let them

Jeff Corrigan: 5:23

go. Exactly. Right. That's as simple as it gets. Yeah. Either make it a priority or let them go. Don't want them hanging around or put them on the list for a future date. Just because you can't do it now. It doesn't mean you can't ever do it. That's another way to think about it. Okay, three. Past

Sheldon Mills: 5:40

trauma never properly processed. Everybody has some trauma, whether it's big T or little t, trauma. Everybody has things that just we have to figure out how to process better. So there's a wonderful Ben Hardy. We'll just link it. I'll just find it and we'll link it in the show notes. Now he talks about becoming a master of your past and having it work for you instead of against you and using tools like journaling to transform your life. It is powerful. So powerful enough. I like wrote all these notes and rather than just try and regurgitate it all cause I won't do it near as much effective. I will put it in the notes because Processing your past trauma, becoming the master of your past is essential to letting it be a stepping stone for your future. Your past is not really the past. It's just how you see it in the present. You know what I mean? You can reframe your past and not be trauma that works against you. There's such a thing as post traumatic growth. There really is. So you can change post traumatic trauma, you know, post traumatic trauma, into post traumatic

Jeff Corrigan: 6:47

growth. There's an entire book that would help with this. If anybody I love that, Sheldon, definitely put it in the show notes, but there's a book by Edith Eger, who is a Holocaust survivor and. I mean, basically what you just said about post traumatic growth, that's what the whole book is. It's called The Gift by Edith Eager. It's amazing and will change your life if you read it. So please go read it. I think in essence, if I were to put this into one sentence, your past is always filtered through your current eyes, right? So it's like you see the past as you are, not as it was. And so what Sheldon is talking about is Ben Hardy's training can help you become the master of your past and transform it into something that helps you grow rather than keeps you stuck. So we definitely recommend that there.. Number four.

Sheldon Mills: 7:34

Okay. We're going more into depth on the things that are slowing us. Your progress in keeping you in the loop, but we've created, a guide and a printable PDF on the 15 ways to get out of the loop maybe we'll only go lightly on those and you guys can all just go download it and it's powerful. It's good.

Jeff Corrigan: 7:56

Definitely. We'll hit on them, but I also want you to go download that because once we talk about some of these. You're going to want to know more, ? And we have a quick reference guide that will go through each of them in a little more detail and then a, a printable pocket guide that you can basically have with you at all times or post it on your fridge or mirror or whatever that you can see it to remember. Okay. Hey. Not only where might I be stuck in loops, but what are some ways I can get out of them and continually remind yourself, because we want to give you action tools and tips. So these PDF tools that we're going to be giving for free with a lot of our episodes and newsletters, please download them, take them, share them. They're going to be awesome. And I hope that you guys use them and we would love feedback on how to make them better. So yeah, this

Sheldon Mills: 8:38

is the US by the way. Yes, this is the new us. We've always talked about putting the rubber to the road, but now we're trying to, it's still a lot more work if I'm honest, but I think this will be a lot more powerful, actionable tools that we don't just talk about, but literally a reference guide on how to put it into practice. And how did I keep it front of mind and actually see the change you're looking for

Jeff Corrigan: 8:59

and we're giving it all away for free because we really want this to change people's lives, right? We want it to help you do what you want to do, meet your goals. So let's go number four. Let's hit these real quick. Let's do it. Relationships that need closure or reconciliation. This one's pretty heavy on most people's minds. Right. And I guarantee you. The 99% of us, if not 100% of us, have relationships in our lives, whether at work, at home, with our family, with our friends, that need some closure or some reconciliation. So this one is something that is probably holding you back because it's taking mental and emotional energy. Because what I would consider a loop is anything that is requiring mental, emotional Or physical energy taking away from a better place. You could put it essentially. It's yeah, your creativity. Yeah. Yeah. That's sapping your energy, creativity, motivation. Yeah.

Sheldon Mills: 10:01

That's a big one. I don't know if we have, we're not even going to dive into it that much. We'll have to dive into that more in future episodes because you should get a psychologist to

Jeff Corrigan: 10:08

come on and talk about that. We should, because that's a big one. for all of us. And definitely a topic to talk about. And we have a few in

Sheldon Mills: 10:14

the back pocket we could probably bring back or find new ones. So this is good. Number five. Bad habits or addictions that sap motivation and confidence. Oh man. Jeff and I were philosophizing on what is an addiction? It's just a habit that's really bad for you, but we all have these habits that I mean, to be more gracious or maybe even a little easier to talk about, it's like we all have these habits that aren't helping us as much as we'd like them to, right? Those sap motivation, they sap confidence. You know, we all have done those things where it's okay, you beat yourself up and you hate yourself because I've done something that's like keeping me stuck. Right?

Jeff Corrigan: 11:02

Yeah. And these ones, sometimes you can handle them. Right with some deep work and with help from God and but oftentimes you need some outside help, you need a professional or somebody else to kind of help guide you through these because we get mentally stuck we start shaming ourselves as Brene Brown would talk about, right? Shame versus guilt. Guilt can be good, shame is never good, right? Shame is always keeping you stuck. So, you might need to get some help with these, depending on what it is. So just consider that. Number six. Lack of decision towards new opportunity. I would say, I would call this one indecision. And there's a funny story that goes along with this one about a donkey. Yeah, the story goes that there is a donkey who's standing at equal distance between a container of water and a bale of hay, ? And he keeps looking backward and forward. He can't decide whether he wants to drink the water or eat the hay and so he dies of starvation and thirst and thirst, right? So don't be a donkey, ? This is the key here is. You can always drink water first and then eat the hay, right? You don't have to do it all at once. And so don't get bogged down in indecision. Indecision is one of the things that holds most of us back in almost every day of our lives. So, I would say here, make a decision. What is it that you want to do? Do that first, and you can always change direction. You can always do something after, right?, you can't do it all at once. So pick the one thing you're going to do, ? Decision is so key. Well,

Sheldon Mills: 12:33

you get the paralysis by analysis. I mean, you've heard it said that there's the, there's a right decision. There's the wrong decision. There's the worst decision, which is to do nothing. You know what I mean? You'll make more progress toward your goals and dreams by making the "wrong" decisions. And I put that in quotes because it's really just failure, part of the process of learning and growth. You know what I mean? That is, that's part of the process you'll make a lot more progress by taking action and figuring out, well, this is 477th way to not make a light bulb Yeah. Do you know what I mean?

Jeff Corrigan: 13:03

Yeah. Well, no, and exactly. Action. Right. And there's a, the funny thing is I wrote in the newsletter, I was like, Hey, when you're stuck, There's one method that always works, decide and act. It's there's one method, this is the method that always worked, decide and act. Now, even if you move in the wrong direction, by deciding and acting, you'll figure that out, just like Sheldon was saying. So, just remember, indecision kills progress every time. And could kill the donkey, you know, okay, let's jump into ways to get unstuck and close these loops. There's 15 of them in our newsletter and these aren't all of them But I think we'll go through as many of these as we can in the next few minutes not to go overkill, but to give you guys as many tools as possible for closing loops in your life. So hopefully, you know, kind of what a loop is, anything that's sapping your energy. And taking mental emotional energy away from other things or projects or goals you would like to have it on. Yep. So what are some ways we can close those loops and move forward?

Sheldon Mills: 14:05

So like Jeff said, you can download the reference guide and the quick guide for all 15 of these. And then go read the newsletters, the blog posts to go more in depth than even the quick guide. So here you go. First one, set clear goals. Should we just go through all 15 and then pick a couple of top ones we want to

Jeff Corrigan: 14:22

go in depth on? Absolutely. I mean, if there's one that stands out, let's talk about it. But yeah. One, set clear goals.

Sheldon Mills: 14:27

Two, prioritize and delegate. Three, finish unfinished projects. Four, practice forgiveness. Five, declutter your workspace. Do the next five.

Jeff Corrigan: 14:41

Okay, six, review and reflect. Seven, closure conversations. Eight, journaling. And some of these we've already talked about. Yeah,

Sheldon Mills: 14:50

you'll see in the show notes for that one. Yeah, keep going.

Jeff Corrigan: 14:53

Nine, practice mindfulness and meditation. And ten, learn from failures.

Sheldon Mills: 15:00

Number eleven, seek professional help. Again, our garden metaphor, find someone who specializes in getting rid of this weed or growing the plant you want to grow. Number 12, ship work at 80%. What's the quote? Dan Sullivan? 80% is finished. 100% is still thinking about it. You got to ship your work. Get it done.

Jeff Corrigan: 15:22

You can't give feedback and improve something until it's shipped and someone sees it. Yeah.

Sheldon Mills: 15:27

I think most of life is more about reiteration than like a perfect polished piece. Yep. 13. Limit multitasking. 14. Say no to unnecessary commitments. And 15, practice essentialism.

Jeff Corrigan: 15:43

Shoot. And there's a lot more ways. I feel like we'd have to be like, this

Sheldon Mills: 15:45

would be like a two hour episode if we were to go through each one individually.

Jeff Corrigan: 15:48

Yes. It probably would. There's a couple though that I wanted to kind of dive in on. One is finish unfinished projects. Now that doesn't necessarily mean that you complete every project you've ever started. So let's talk about what this actually means. It says either finish them or consciously decide to let them go. And I'll use an example from my own life. Sheldon and I actually started a e commerce business a few years back selling neckties. And it was an attempt at Hey, we want to learn e commerce. You know, we're the type of guys that if we want to learn something rather than read about it in a book and go to school for it, we just decided to do it. And we tested out and refine and iterate.. And we did, we launched it, we had some success with it. And we just never really dedicated the time and effort that we needed to make it go fulltime. And along the way we actually decided, this isn't the direction we necessarily want to go, but I had kind of a hard time letting it go because we'd invested so much time and energy and focus into it that I wasted almost a year, I shouldn't say wasted, but I spent time and energy and mental focus for almost a year thinking about ways that we might still be able to make it go. Until I finally reached this point where I said to myself, I don't even want to make this go, this isn't what I want anymore. Right. It was a cool project to start and we definitely learned some things along the way, but it was time to let it go. And so I closed up shop and we, we moved on and we haven't really thought about it since. And we've been able to start a podcast and do all these things that otherwise creatively, probably wouldn't have been able to do because we were. Mentally being distracted by a previous project. So, don't be so afraid of the, what I like to call sunk costs. And you've probably heard of sunk costs. To, by, cause no matter what you've done in the past, how much energy, time, focus, that shouldn't prevent you from moving forward. And if it is, It's time to emotionally detach from that thing. Yeah. Or complete it, right? It's if you really do want to do it, then make the time and get in there. It can be, when you're letting something go, it can honestly be like losing an old friend. In a lot of ways and your past ego doesn't go easily, ? These past identities, they get your ego involved and it's kind of like you have to kill them off in a way is a little bit depressing in some instances, but I promise you it gets better if you open up your mind to the next phase next Project that is even more valuable to you.

Sheldon Mills: 18:17

I'm going to pick one review and reflect. This has been big for me. So if you want to go check out Jeff's blog, he actually has a link to a book called the gap in the gain by Dan Sullivan, Benjamin Hardy. We have probably a thousand digital copies, Kindle copies that we're giving away, so go read the book, but it's all this idea of you need goals, but if you're always focused on the gap between where you are now and where you want to go, that's like the perfect storm for misery . And so somehow the goal has to Focus your direction. And at the same time, you'll find more happiness and achievement by living in the gains by recording the progress you're making, not, how much gap there still is. Because at the end of the day, frankly, if you're listening to this, you're an ambitious person. Yeah. And once you reach that goal, you're going to set another one, right? Yeah. And the goalpost is going to keep moving and keep moving. That's not the happiest, most fulfilling way to live, ? And ironically, we've talked about this before in other episodes, the happiness advantage. Literally you'll find more success by learning how to be happy in the now. By learning how to enjoy the journey and not just be waiting, you know, let the happiness be on the other side of success, on the other side of the goalpost.

Jeff Corrigan: 19:39

Yeah. It's it's as if we define our self worth by some result. And whenever that's the case, we're going to lose because the results are almost never what we expect them to be. Sometimes they're better, sometimes they're worse, but we don't control that. All we control is the actions we take. And the progress we make in the process and progress should be measured more as far as who we're becoming and less about what we're obtaining.. And so I think that's a great way to look at it. And if you wanted to dig me, dig in more, right, we have a free digital Kindle copy of the gap in the gain. That is totally awesome. You can read it up.

Sheldon Mills: 20:17

Here's the thought. Okay. it's dawning on me that we could probably have an episode or get a specialist to come in and talk about. Every one of these 15 we'll put that out to our listeners. If that is something you would like, if there's one of these 15, you want us to dig into more. If you let us know, we will. So if it's important to you, if you think we need to bring somebody on to kind of expound upon any one of these, let us know and we'll do it.

Jeff Corrigan: 20:46

Hello at habitmasters. com. Send us an email. The other one that I think is interesting to touch on is declutter your workspace. The reason why I want to bring this one up is because I think it can easily turn into an obstacle versus a support in progress, like helping you progress. It can become an obstacle. If you have old projects and to do lists that are taunting you every time you sit down, like you have your whole desk just cluttered with like ideas and concepts. And I have that. So I went through the other day. And I just removed them from the top of my desk and I put them into piles. And it's if I ever want to reference them, I can go back. If I haven't referenced them in a certain amount of time, clearly it's not something that I'm going to keep touching on. So your physical space can be a representation of having open loops or even on Sheldon's computer earlier, he had a million open tabs, like he's

Sheldon Mills: 21:34

literally tidying up my desk as you're talking. Cause I'm just like, Oh no.

Jeff Corrigan: 21:40

So, but I think in a lot of ways though, decluttering can also quickly become an obstacle to progress where it can be like, Oh, you know, it's, what do they say? A clear path to a lesser goal. Don't waste time decluttering, but don't let it be a distraction either. If there's projects that are sitting staring you in the face that you aren't going to work on or complete or do. And instead. Clear that off and then make a short list of, Hey, here's my three top priorities for the day. That's really helpful. And so I, I just want to say declutter your workspace can be a help, but it can also become an obstacle. So

Sheldon Mills: 22:12

it's a close relative to multitasking, limit multitasking. I think all of us, we get called so many directions. He hears all the time. It's if you really want to dig deep and focus on something, put your phone on silent, you close the door, because you can't go deep , by multitasking. It's like you're flitting from one thing to this. My previous job, I used to be in a job where I was a project marketing manager. And it was such that I, it's not like I was like addicted to my phone and social media and dopamine hits here and there. But my job was literally rapid fire, this next, what? And I recognized over time, I was literally getting worse at concentrating. Because my day job was literally such, was almost like a splitting from one thing to the next quickly trying to respond to things while I'm in a meeting. Do you know what I mean? Like literally my job was like making it worse. That was one of the signs that I needed to change either the way I did my job or to find a different one.

Jeff Corrigan: 23:17

No, that's a great point though. It's sometimes a solution may be, Hey, this isn't the right job for me because it's causing me issues that way. Now we're not obviously condoning just abandoning your jobs, but

Sheldon Mills: 23:29

I found a new one before

Jeff Corrigan: 23:30

I got the time. Yeah, exactly. If the time is right, don't be afraid to move on. Yeah. Okay. The last one I want to talk about. Cause there's a bunch in here, but I think this one kind of bears talking about is say no to unnecessary commitments. I think you've heard this before, but I for one have had real trouble. Like I'm kind of a yes man. Like I love to please people. And to be honest with you, I just like a lot of stuff. Sheldon knows me by now. Like I'm really interested in a lot of things. Yeah. We're interested in a lot of stuff and I kind of want to do it all. Right? It's I'm the donkey. I've been the donkey many times in my life. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? And then I never do any of it because I'm so worried about which one I want to do. So don't give your future self a task you wouldn't do today. That's a good rule of thumb in this sense. It's Hey if I don't wanna do this today, it's highly likely I wouldn't wanna do it six months from now even. It's like we tend to think that, oh, in six months, my future self will be fine with this. No, your future self is gonna be just as busy and interested in the stuff they are as you are. And it's not gonna be this random task that you committed to six months ago. That doesn't mean don't ever serve or help or do things that you necessarily don't wanna do, but it's saying. Avoid taking on tasks or projects, responsibilities that don't align with Your main goals of who you want to become and it's identities you want to create in your life.

Sheldon Mills: 24:47

That's the key there It's not that we're saying no to everything. It's like saying no to helping somebody else get rich Described is like Every email you get is to help somebody else, you know, accomplish their goal, not necessarily your goal, right? I think say, you know, I could also say that say yes to the things that do align with your goals and values, even if you've been afraid to do it. But we all have stuff that's just,. It's a busy work. It's playing defense. It's not moving us in the direction we want to go.

Jeff Corrigan: 25:24

I gotta say no to those things. You labeled it perfectly. busy work of any kind, right? And it's not aligned with your goals and what you wanted to do in your life. Saying no to unnecessary commitments isn't about being selfish. It's about being focused. And one of the biggest enemies we have in our day is distraction. It's prevalent. It's everywhere. And if we can steal back just a little of our focus. You will see drastic improvement in your results and your success. Here's

Sheldon Mills: 25:55

the, for distractions, quit giving time and attention to anything that monetizes your attention.

Jeff Corrigan: 26:03

Amen. Okay. What do we need to recap here? What do we need to

Sheldon Mills: 26:08

recap? Okay. There's 15 things that we actually went deeper and we originally planned on onto some common loops that's keeping you stuck in loops Which I think was really actually quite good. You got to know why something's important before you care about trying to change it Yeah, but we didn't go that deep into all the 15 different things and there's more than this. These are like 15 big ones that we identified to help close these loops and to get unstuck. Again, let us know if there's any one of these, or two, or even three, that you say, hey, this is really important and I would love . to dive into it more because we want to help you guys with whatever is most relevant to you. So let us

Jeff Corrigan: 26:47

know. Yeah. And there's tools in the arsenal and professionals that we know, and people that could definitely help out all right, Sheldon, you want to wrap this up in a nice bow and remind them about the magic Monday?

Sheldon Mills: 26:58

Yeah. So again, you can find all these on our website. You can download it. A quick guide and a reference guide Thank you for being with us. Our show is growing and we appreciate all the reviews. And if this has been meaningful to you, please share it. That's how we grow. We actually don't do anything to market it and try and create something worth sharing. So if it's worth sharing, please share. If it's not, tell us how we can improve because we'd like that too.

Jeff Corrigan: 27:25

Yeah. And download some action tools. These are going to be awesome. And if they aren't awesome, tell us so we can make them better.

Sheldon Mills: 27:31

Yep. We'll put in the work.

. Jeff Corrigan: 27:34

It's time to start living your best life.