EVERY SPOKEN WORD
25 min read · 4,800 words- 0:00 – 0:14
Intro
- JSJay Shetty
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose. Today, I wanna start with something that may sound simple, but I think it explains why so many of us feel stuck in seasons of life we know we've outgrown. Here's the
- 0:14 – 2:30
Why Letting Go Feels So Hard
- JSJay Shetty
thing, most people don't struggle with starting over. They struggle with letting go. We think the hard part is beginning again, taking a risk, stepping into a new chapter. But more often than not, the real hardship comes from having to release the chapter that came before it. Think about it. Most of us already know when something in our life isn't working. We know when a relationship has become more draining than enjoyable. We know when a job no longer fulfills us. We know when we've lost excitement in a path we once thought we wanted. The challenge isn't usually recognizing that something needs to change. The problem is that every time we get close to moving forward, attachment pulls us backward. We're attached to the years we've already invested, the identity we've already built, the story we've been telling ourselves, and the future we once imagined so clearly that it almost feels impossible to move away from. We are attached to what we hoped our current situation would become, and that can be even harder to release because you're not grieving what happened, you're grieving what you thought would happen. This is why starting over can feel so confusing. On the outside, people might look at your life and say, "Just leave. Just quit. Just move. Just try something new." But inside, it feels much more complicated because letting go is rarely just about changing a circumstance. It's about changing the story you had about your life, and that story may be more central to your identity than you've realized. So today, I wanna talk about the psychology of letting go and how to start over in your life even when it might feel impossible. We're going to look at why your brain holds onto things you've already outgrown, how to let go of an identity that no longer fits, how to know when a risk is actually worth taking, and how to begin a new chapter the right way. By the end of this episode, I want you to see that letting go is not failure, weakness, or a sign of giving up. Instead, sometimes letting go is the bravest form of growth.
- 2:30 – 7:28
Why We Hold On Too Long
- JSJay Shetty
Let's start with why we hold on to things we've already outgrown. One of the biggest mistakes we make is assuming that if something is hard to leave, it must still be right for us. We think difficulty to move on is evidence we shouldn't. We think emotional attachment to something is proof it's a part of us, but the pain of loss doesn't always mean something is still meant for you. Psychologists help explain this through something called loss aversion. Loss aversion is a cognitive bias where the emotional impact of a loss feels roughly twice as intense as the joy of an equivalent gain. This explains why people strongly prefer avoiding losses, even if it means missing out on other gains, and it heavily influences decision-making under risk. In other words, when applied to real life, you simply aren't able to comprehend the awaiting joy on the other side of giving something up. This is why your brain may resist a decision even when that decision would make your life better. Your brain is not always asking, "How will this help me?" Sometimes it's asking, "What am I about to lose?" And when the answer is familiarity, comfort, approval, status, predictability, or a version of yourself that feels safe, your brain naturally becomes protective. It would rather keep you in a familiar place than lead you into an unfamiliar possibility. That's why people stay in relationships long after the connection has disappeared. That's why people stay in careers that drain them, because they don't know who they would be without the title. That's why people keep chasing goals they no longer want, because abandoning the dream feels like admitting failure. We tell ourselves we're being loyal, committed, or responsible, but sometimes we're simply afraid to lose the story we have already spent so much time building. This connects to another idea in psychology called the sunk cost fallacy. The sunk cost fallacy is when we continue investing in something because we have already invested so much, even when continuing may no longer make sense. You see this in small ways, like reading the rest of a book you don't enjoy because you already read the first 40 pages, or eating a meal you're no longer hungry for because you already paid for it, or staying at a concert long after you're tired because it was the hard-to-get tickets. But we also do this with our lives in much bigger ways, and the cost becomes much higher. We say, "I've already spent five years in this relationship," or, "I've already spent 10 years building this career. I don't know who I am outside of this, so how can I change now?" But the years you've already spent are not the only years that matter. The years you still have ahead matter more, and sometimes the most loving thing you can do for your future is stop making it pay for your past. So here is the first question I want you to sit with. Think about the relationship, job, friendship, goal, commitment, or situation in your life that you're struggling to let go of. If that exact thing walked into your life today, exactly as it is right now, would you choose it again? I don't mean the version of it from the beginning. I don't mean the version you hoped it would become. I don't mean the version you still find yourself reminiscing about when you're feeling nostalgic. I mean the reality of it today with everything you know now and everything you've experienced Would you willingly choose it again? Because that's often where clarity begins. So many of us keep making decisions based on who we were when we first said yes, instead of who we are now. We keep defending an old choice rather than evaluating the life that's actually in front of us. That question can be uncomfortable because it removes nostalgia from the equation. It stops asking you to defend what something used to be and asks you to look honestly at what it is. And sometimes the answer will be yes, you would pick that situation again. This means you may not need to leave, but you may need to recommit with clearer intention. But often the answer will be no, you wouldn't choose this situation today as it is if it were presented to you for the first time. And if the answer is no, then the work now becomes learning how to let go without turning the past into a present mistake. Letting go does not mean the chapter was pointless. It does not mean the relationship was a waste, that the job was a waste, the dream was a waste, or the version of yourself who wanted it was wrong. Something can be meaningful and still be complete. One of the greatest signs of maturity is being able to honor what something gave you without forcing it to keep giving.
- 7:28 – 12:48
How to Redefine Your Identity
- JSJay Shetty
The second thing I want to touch on is this. Once you've accepted what needs to change, you need to accept that you will have to adjust your own identity accordingly. This may be the deepest part of the conversation because often what we're holding on to is not the relationship, the job, the city, the dream, or the plan itself. We're holding on to who we got to be inside of it. We're holding on to the identity it gave us, and identity is one of the hardest things to release because it becomes the way we explain ourselves to the world. Maybe you are the person who is going to be married by a certain age, successful by a certain age, living in a certain city or working in a certain industry. Maybe you are the dependable one, the ambitious one, the spiritual one, the strong one, the one who never gave up, the one who was in a perfect relationship, and then life changed or you changed, and suddenly the identity that once helped you feel grounded starts to feel like a cage. It's natural for the brain to start wondering, "Who am I if I don't want this life anymore?" Yes, it can feel like betrayal to outgrow something you once prayed for, but growth will often ask you to disappoint an older version of yourself so you can become honest with the version of yourself that exists now. There is a concept in psychology called narrative identity, which is the idea that we make sense of our lives through stories. Human beings are meaning-making creatures. We don't just experience events and move on. We organize those events into a narrative that helps us understand who we are, where we've been, and where we're going. Without even realizing it, all of us are carrying around a story about ourselves. Maybe your story is, "I'm the person who had to work twice as hard as everyone else." Maybe it's, "I'm the person who always puts family first." Maybe it's, "I'm the ambitious one," or, "I'm the independent one." These stories are incredibly useful because they create a sense of continuity. They help us feel grounded. They help us answer the question, "Who am I?" But over time, the story that once helped us understand ourselves can start limiting us because once you've repeated a story enough times, it stops feeling like a story and starts feeling like an obligation. That is why changing your identity can feel so uncomfortable. It is not just that you are changing your schedule, your relationship status, your address, or your job. You are changing the explanation of who you are. You are changing the sentence you've been using to introduce yourself, to define yourself, and sometimes to protect yourself. Suddenly, you're left with a space between identities. This is the gap between who you were and who you are becoming, and it can feel frightening because nothing is fully formed yet. But the absence of an old identity does not mean the absence of self. It means you're in the process of becoming more authentic. We often think identity is something we find once and keep forever, but identity is meant to evolve. The version of you who wanted something five years ago may have been completely sincere, but sincerity does not require permanence. You can honor what you wanted then and still choose differently now. So the practice here is not to ask, "Who am I without this?" in a frightened way. The practice is to ask, "What part of me is ready to step forward now?" That question moves you from loss into curiosity. It allows you to start treating change as evidence that you're alive, that you're growing, learning, and becoming more aware. For anyone listening who feels terrified of changing, I want to offer you this. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is admit that the person you're becoming wants something different than the person you used to be. That's not a failure of commitment. That's the natural result of living, learning, and growing. Many of us secretly believe there is one correct version of our lives, one right career, one right relationship, one right city, one right timeline, one right path. And because we believe that, every ending feels catastrophic. If the relationship ends, then maybe I missed my chance. If the career doesn't work out, maybe I've fallen behind. If I change direction now, maybe I'm walking away from the life I was supposed to have. But when psychologists study happiness, fulfillment, and life satisfaction, they don't evidence that there is one perfect life waiting for each of us. What they find is that human beings are remarkably adaptable. We create meaning wherever we go. One of the most freeing realizations you can have is that there isn't one version of your future capable of making you happy There are many. The life you imagined at 20 could've been beautiful. The life you're building now can still be beautiful, too. These ideas don't compete with each other because sometimes what keeps us stuck isn't our attachment to the past, it's our fear that letting go means losing our only chance at a beautiful future.
- 12:48 – 16:40
How to Know a Risk Is Worth It
- JSJay Shetty
Now I wanna move on to something I think is very important to consider, especially when making very large life choices. We need to unpack how to know when a risk is worth taking. I wanna be very clear here because sometimes when we talk about starting over, people can mistake it for impulsivity. When I'm talking about letting go, I'm not saying to destroy your life every time you feel uncomfortable. Taking a risk does not mean you abandon wisdom, responsibility, patience, or discernment. Not every hard season is a sign to leave, and not every exciting opportunity is a sign to jump ship. So how do you know when a risk is actually worth taking? The first thing I want you to look at is the cost of staying. Most people only calculate the cost of leaving. They think about what they might lose, what might go wrong, who might judge them, how much money it might cost, or how uncertain the future might be, but they rarely calculate what staying is already costing them. Staying may be costing you confidence. It may be costing you energy, creativity, health, peace, self-respect, or time you will never get back. Staying may be teaching you to ignore your own instincts. Staying may be making you feel smaller, more resentful, or more disconnected from the person you want to become. And sometimes when you really calculate the cost of staying, you realize that the safe option is not actually safe. Research on regret gives us something powerful here. Studies have found that in the short term, people often regret actions more intensely because the consequences are immediate and visible, but over the long term, people tend to regret inactions more deeply because the mind keeps returning to the life that might have been. The change you made may sting for a moment, but the change you never tried can haunt you for years. Simply put, a risk is worth considering when the downside is survivable, the upside is meaningful, and the lesson would still be valuable even if it didn't work out. If the worst case scenario is painful but recoverable, and the best case scenario could expand your life in a way that deeply matters to you, then that can be a risk worth exploring. And if staying exactly where you are is dimming something important inside of you, then avoiding the risk may already be the risk. One of my favorite questions is this: What would I regret more five years from now, trying and failing, or never giving myself the chance? The question doesn't give you a perfect answer, but it changes the timeline. Suddenly, the pain of temporary discomfort becomes smaller than the pain of permanent self-abandonment. So let's say you decide the risk is worth taking. You're ready to let go of your past identity. You're ready to detach from the life you were previously living. Now we need to touch on how to start a new chapter from the beginning. One of the reasons people delay starting over is because they want certainty before they move. They want proof that the new relationship will work, proof that the new career will succeed, proof that the new city will feel like home, proof that the new version of themselves will be accepted, admired, and safe. But life rarely gives us certainty at the beginning of a chapter. So to start a new chapter, you need to deeply engage in a concept called psychological flexibility. Psychological flexibility is the ability to stay present with discomfort as you adjust to changing circumstances. It means taking action that aligns with your values even when you feel uncomfortable or afraid. It means you can feel uncertainty and still move in the direction of what matters. The first step in developing psychological
- 16:40 – 19:31
Develop Psychological Flexibility
- JSJay Shetty
flexibility is learning to stop treating your emotions as instructions. Just because you feel fear doesn't mean something is wrong. Just because you feel uncertain doesn't mean you're making the wrong decision. Just because you feel grief doesn't mean you should go back. One of the biggest mistakes we make during periods of change is assuming that our emotional state should determine our next move. Psychological flexibility asks us to separate the feeling from the decision. The second step is learning to get comfortable with the concept of both. Many of us believe we need to choose between fear and action, uncertainty and confidence, grief and growth, but psychological flexibility teaches the opposite. You can be terrified and still move forward. You can miss the old chapter and still know it's time for a new one. You can be unsure about how things will unfold and still be determined to try anyway. The goal isn't to eliminate difficult emotions. The goal is to expand your capacity to hold them while continuing to act in alignment with your future. This practice asks you to shift your focus away from certainty and toward values. When people are trying to make a big decision, they often ask, "What outcome can I guarantee?" But life rarely offers guarantees. A more useful question is, "What choice best reflects the person I wanna be?" One question is rooted in control, the other is rooted in values, and when you're standing at the edge of a new chapter, values tend to be a much more reliable compass than certainty. So how do you begin when you don't know how the future ends? You treat the next chapter like an experiment, not a verdict. One of the biggest mistakes people make is believing every decision has to be forever. We think choosing a new direction means guaranteeing the outcome. But some of the most successful people approach change differently. They don't ask, "What if I choose wrong?" They ask, "What can I learn regardless?" Instead of committing to a new career, experiment with one. Maybe this will be your job for life, or maybe it won't. Maybe this new relationship will be your forever person, or maybe they won't. Embrace the liminal space between identities and allow yourself to explore without attaching to the next set version of your life. The goal is not to be right 100% of the time. The goal is to learn, and oftentimes the information you need to make a life-changing decision only becomes available after you start testing possibilities. You can't know for 100% certainty that you are on the wrong path until you find yourself on a new one that finally feels right. This takes me to the final
- 19:31 – 22:46
How to Let Go Without Bitterness
- JSJay Shetty
thing I wanna touch on today. Let's go over how to let go of a chapter of your life without becoming bitter towards the time you spent there. This is important because sometimes once we finally move on, we try to make the ending easier by turning the old chapter into something that was bad. We convince ourselves the relationship was all bad, or the job was a waste, or the person we used to be was naive. We think if we can make the past feel wrong, it will be easier to detach from it entirely. But bitterness will only hinder you from further growth. You can let go with gratitude. You can leave without hatred. You can accept that something is complete without needing to destroy its meaning. This is one of the most healing shifts you can make because it allows you to move forward without carrying resentment as proof that you were right to make the choices that you made. Of course, sometimes a chapter ends because it was harmful, and in those cases, anger may be part of the healing process. Anger can be protective. Anger can help you recognize where a boundary was crossed or where your dignity was not honored. But even then, the goal is not to live inside anger forever. The goal is to let anger give you information without taking it into your new identity because the fact of the matter is, even as you grow and evolve and shift identities, you are still you, and you need to hold love for every version of yourself that you have been and will become. Changing your circumstances does not mean abandoning yourself. You are the same person you've always been. What's changing is where your values now align. I think this is one of those fears people have when they start over. They worry that changing means losing themselves. They worry that if they leave the identity they have now, their future self will become unrecognizable. But real growth does not ask you to abandon yourself. Real growth asks you to return to the parts of yourself that have been waiting beneath an identity you outgrew. You are not a fixed thing. You are not one title, one role, one relationship, one mistake, one achievement, one plan, or one season. You are a living, evolving person, and you will grow and survive through many different chapters. So instead of asking, "Who am I once this chapter ends?" Ask, "What parts of this chapter are coming with me into this new version of myself?" Maybe it's your kindness or your work ethic or your compassion for others. Starting over just means you are simply releasing what no longer belongs so that the truest parts of yourself have more room to breathe. Maybe the old chapter taught you resilience. Maybe it taught you what love is and what love isn't. Maybe it taught you what kind of work energizes you, what kind of people nourish you, what kind of pace your nervous system can sustain, or what kind of life you no longer want to build. If you leave with the lesson, then nothing was wasted. This is how you start over with wisdom instead of panic. You don't pretend the past didn't happen. You integrate it. You allow yourself to become someone more whole because of what you've lived through. As we come to the end of this episode, I wanna bring you back
- 22:46 – 25:41
Starting Over Isn't the Hard Part
- JSJay Shetty
to where we began. Most people don't struggle with starting over. They struggle with letting go. And maybe the reason that line feels so true is because deep down, many of us already know the next step. We know what conversation we've been avoiding, what decisions we've been delaying, what career we've outgrown, what truth we've been minimizing, or what chapter has been ending for a long time. The work is grieving the future that will no longer happen, so you can stop missing out on the future that still could. The work is loosening your grip on the version of life you expected, so you can receive the version of life that is actually meant for you. And I know that can be painful. I don't wanna make letting go sound easy because it isn't. Letting go can feel like loss even when it leads to freedom. It can feel like failure even when it leads to success. It can feel like uncertainty even when it's rooted in alignment. But I want you to remember this. The chapter you're leaving is not the only chapter capable of holding meaning. The version of you that existed there is not the only version capable of being loved, successful, fulfilled, peaceful, or whole. There is more life beyond the identity you built, more possibility beyond the story you planned, and more of you beyond the part you are being asked to release. Maybe for you, letting go looks dramatic. Maybe it's leaving a relationship, changing careers, moving cities, or finally pursuing something you've spent years talking yourself out of. But more often than not, letting go happens in much quieter ways. Maybe it looks like releasing the timeline you thought your life would follow. Maybe it looks like leaving behind a friendship that hasn't been real in years. Maybe it looks like letting go of the belief that success has to look a certain way, that love has to arrive in a certain way, or that family has to show up for you in a certain way. Letting go just means accepting that a version of yourself you've been trying to get back in alignment with no longer exists. I think that's an important one. So many of us spend years trying to return to a previous chapter of our lives. We tell ourselves, "I just want to feel the way we did in the beginning," or, "I want to get back to who I was when I first moved here," or, "I want my life to look the way it did before I lost that person." But life doesn't move backwards. We don't get our old chapters back. What we get is the opportunity to build something new from what we've learned, and that's why letting go matters, because every ounce of energy spent trying to recreate a chapter that's already ended is energy that can't be invested in the chapter that's trying to begin. The future doesn't ask you to forget your past. It asks you to stop living there. So this week, I want you to ask yourself three
- 25:41 – 28:37
Three Questions to Ask Yourself
- JSJay Shetty
questions. What am I holding onto only because it feels familiar? What identity am I afraid to release because I don't yet know who I'll become without it? And what is the next honest step I can take toward the chapter that is trying to begin? You don't have to change your whole life in one day. You don't have to know exactly where the next chapter will lead. You don't need to feel completely ready, completely confident, or completely fearless. You just have to be honest enough to admit when something is complete, brave enough to release what no longer fits, and willing enough to take one step toward what may be waiting for you next. Because here's what I've learned. Every person I've ever met who was terrified to take a leap is always ultimately grateful that they did. Every person who found the relationship, career, purpose, city, community, or version of themselves they were meant to grow into had a moment where they stood exactly where you might be standing right now, looking at an ending they didn't want facing, uncertainty they couldn't control, and wondering if they were making a terrible mistake. The difference wasn't that they had more clarity. It would all work out. The difference was that eventually they stopped asking, "What if this doesn't work?" and started asking, "What if there's more for me than this?" And that is the real invitation of every new chapter, not the promise that everything will work perfectly, not the guarantee that you'll never experience loss, disappointment, or heartbreak again. The invitation is simply the possibility that your life may be bigger than the story you've been clinging onto. The life you were afraid to lose was never the only life available to you. There are still people you haven't met, experiences you haven't had, places you haven't seen, and versions of yourself you haven't grown into yet. And that's what letting go ultimately makes room for. The possibility of what lies ahead may be even more meaningful than what you've been holding onto. When I look back at the pattern of my life, I notice so many moments where I took a leap when I didn't know what was next, whether it was leaving my career, changing countries, changing cities, relationships. And I remind myself that, yes, it was difficult. Yes, it was hard. Yes, it was excruciatingly painful. But you will always regret what you didn't do more than what you did. Remember this, I'm forever in your corner, and I'm always rooting for you. I'll see you soon. If you loved this episode, you're going to love my conversation with Matthew Hussey on how to get over your ex and find true love in your relationships.
- SPSpeaker
Make a list of the things that are truly important for you to find in a partner and then be that list.
Episode duration: 28:37
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