Lots of advice tells you how to start. How to launch. How to build momentum. How to begin.
Nobody talks about how to stop.
And yet stopping; abandoning the project, ending the relationship, quitting the job; is often the most important decision you’ll make. The things draining your energy right now aren’t usually the things you haven’t started. They’re the things you haven’t ended.
Why we avoid stopping
We avoid endings because they feel like failures. We’re wired to see quitting as weakness and persistence as virtue. “Winners never quit,” we’re told, as if grinding through misery is somehow noble.
But staying in the wrong situation isn’t persistence. It’s avoidance. You’re not being loyal to the relationship, the job, or the project. You’re being loyal to your fear of change.
Uncertainty about your decision. What if you’re wrong? What if it gets better? This uncertainty keeps you frozen, waiting for a clarity that never arrives.
Fear of hurting others. You don’t want to disappoint your boss, your partner, your team. So you stay. And you slowly disappoint yourself instead.
Lack of skills. Nobody taught you how to have that conversation. How to abandon a project without losing credibility and momentum. How to fire someone with compassion. How to break up without destruction. So you delay indefinitely.
At the core, all these fears point to the same thing: we overvalue avoiding short-term discomfort and undervalue the long-term cost of staying stuck.
How to think about what needs to end
Look at your work, your relationships, and your commitments and honestly assess the situation:
Lost causes. Some situations are clearly beyond saving. The project that’s burned through every deadline. The relationship where trust has been destroyed. The investment that only loses money. Stop pouring resources into sinkholes. The best thing you can do is free up that energy for something else.
Mediocre and unlikely to change. Assess honestly: based on past patterns, will this improve? Not “could it theoretically improve if everything changed” but “given actual evidence, is improvement realistic?” If you’ve been telling yourself “things will get better” for years and they haven’t, you have your answer.
Good but not great. This is the sneakiest category. The job that’s fine. The friendship that’s pleasant but shallow. The hobby that fills time but brings no joy. These “good enough” situations are dangerous because they’re comfortable. They don’t hurt enough to force action, but they steal the space where something great could grow.
How to actually make endings happen
Knowing something needs to end and making it end are different skills. Here’s how to close the gap:
Schedule it. Put “work on ending X” on your calendar. Difficult situations are easy to ignore, so make them impossible to forget. Set a deadline: “By March 1st, I will have this conversation.”
Get accountability. Tell someone what you’re planning to do and when. Choose someone who will push you, not comfort you. Friends can be too kind; sometimes you need someone who will call you out.
Prepare for the conversation. Write down what you want to say. Rehearse it. This isn’t about scripting every word; it’s about knowing your core message so emotions don’t derail you. Focus on the situation, not the person’s flaws. “This role isn’t working” lands better than “you’re not working.”
Balance empathy with firmness. Be kind but clear. Gentle enough that they feel respected. Direct enough that there’s no ambiguity about what’s happening.
For example: I once kept a project alive long after it stopped showing results yet funding it in a kind of “zombie” state. I kept tweaking scope, teams, and expectations, hoping something would eventually click. Nothing fundamentally changed. In the end, the kindest move for everyone was to end it. It was a year overdue, and I burned people out by waiting.
When a situation involves factors outside your control, like market conditions or other people’s choices, it’s easy to feel powerless. That powerlessness leads to paralysis.
Counter this by deliberately focusing on what you can control. You can’t control the economy, but you can control your response to it. You can’t control another person’s behavior, but you can control your boundaries.
Agency doesn’t remove uncertainty. It removes paralysis.
After the ending
Endings hurt (even the happy ones). Don’t skip the grief.
Take time to process what happened. Reflect on what went wrong and what you’d do differently. This reflection is what transforms a painful experience into wisdom you’ll carry forward.
Avoid the temptation to immediately fill the space with something new. A rebound job or relationship often recreates the same problems. Sit with the emptiness long enough to learn from it.
You can only say yes to the right things if you’ve said no to the wrong ones. Every mediocre commitment you maintain crowds out the great ones waiting in the wings.
The most productive people aren’t the ones who start the most. They're the ones who end what isn't working, or never start it in the first place, what isn’t working; quickly, cleanly, and without guilt.
As the year closes, look at your life right now. What’s draining your energy that you’ve been avoiding ending? What’s “fine” that’s blocking something great?
Endings don’t close doors. They return time, attention, and energy to you - often all at once.
Here’s to all you quitters out there. May your endings make room for better beginnings in 2026.
So so good! Beautifully articulated.