How do you begin the process of letting go when you can see what’s not working but can’t seem to move forward into something new?
One of the most frustrating aspects of change is feeling stuck in place even when you know your current life no longer fits. You can see what’s not working – the job that drains you, the city you’ve outgrown, the version of yourself you’ve left behind. Perhaps the way forward has closed of its own accord. Still, you can’t seem to move forward.
It’s hard to move forward when we are carrying baggage from our past. That’s why pretty much every description of transformation that exists in the world includes a process of release. Caterpillars dissolve into “imaginal cells” before becoming butterflies. Snakes shed their skin to grow. Otto Scharmer calls it “letting go to let come” – releasing old mindsets and ways of being to create space for something new.
We let go of many things during transitions. Habits that don’t serve us. Roles that we’ve outgrown. Relationships that feel stagnant, or even toxic. Attachment to places that feel like home. But perhaps the hardest thing to let go of is the stories we have built up around us as scaffolding to make sense of our lives. Sometimes these stories are liberating – they give us a vision to follow. But all too often, they become limiting, preventing us from seeing other possibilities that don’t fit into the narrative we’ve written.
My own story of letting go
For years, I lived in the story of the expat – that I don’t fit in in the US, and that life was more exciting ‘overseas’. I built a life in Dubai that revolved around adventurous travel, extravagant living, and a diverse group of friends. I told myself that this was where I could truly be me, and that I wouldn’t find that feeling anywhere else. But over the years, I felt a growing sense of dissatisfaction that I tried hard to ignore. In the story I’d built for myself, leaving wasn’t an option. I wouldn’t find the opportunities, community, or lifestyle anywhere else.
The thing about letting go is that we only know whether it was a good decision once we’ve taken the action. By 2016, my life was completely out of whack as I tried to hang on to the Dubai story. I was travelling at least two weeks of every month and on calls until 11pm most nights when I was at home, juggling the eternal time zone conundrums of a global role. My role at McKinsey was eliminated and I either had to find a new one or leave the Firm. With an amazing offer to join one of the best teams at McKinsey in London beckoning, I let go of the Dubai story and chose to start building a new one.
And what an amazing choice that has been. Nine years in, a whole new version of me has emerged that may have never come out in Dubai. I’ve moved beyond my identity as a consultant to step into a new one as a coach, facilitator, and writer. I treasure my friendships here and the communities I belong to – people and places I can turn to for both inspiration and support. And I met my husband here. None of this would have happened had I clung to the old version of me.
Untangling what’s keeping you stuck
For big life transitions, letting go can take months, or even years. One of my coaching clients needed a year to grieve the loss of a role that she had cherished, as her company took a strategic direction with which she didn’t agree. A friend toyed with the idea of leaving her consulting role for a few years before finally taking the plunge last week.
There is a lot of disentangling that comes with letting go. When working with clients, we typically explore this idea from a few different angles.
Real vs. imagined constraints
We can come up with MANY reasons not to let go. The need for financial security. Family members who depend on us. Not wanting to abandon the people with whom we work. Time invested in our career to date that would otherwise be wasted.
I always ask my clients to write a list of all the reasons they can’t let go, which we then sort into real vs. imagined constraints. One of my clients didn’t want to leave his job because “what would I do about my dental insurance?” I asked him to go out and research the cost of paying for bi-annual cleanings out of his pocket, which, as it turns out, was not nearly as expensive as he thought. Another said she couldn’t leave because she really liked her co-workers: we made a plan for how she would stay in touch even if she found a new job.
Even things that feel like real constraints typically have an imaginary component to them. For example: most of us are not independently wealthy and need to earn a minimum level of income. But is this job the ONLY way you can do that? Is it true that your partner is absolutely INCAPABLE of contributing in a more meaningful way? Do you HAVE to live somewhere with a high cost of living, or is there a way to create more breathing space? It helps to separate out the non-negotiable needs you have from the various strategies you can deploy to meet those needs.
Rewriting your limiting beliefs
Typically, when we sort through real vs. imagined constraints on the surface level, we can still find reasons to hold on. These are the stories we tell ourselves about what we are and are not capable of. I don’t have the experience to transition into this line of work. I don’t have the network to become a freelancer. I’m too old to make friends in a new location. I don’t have the time to devote to this side project that keeps calling me.
At this point, we make a list of these stories and start to unpack them, one by one. There are many ways to do this – all the way down to identifying and working with the Part of us that holds this story – but a simple and effective way to loosen the grip of these stories is Byron Katie’s process The Work. This approach invites us to take something we believe to be true (”I don’t have the time for this”) and unpack it through five simple questions (sample responses for the “I don’t have time for this” story in italics):
- Is it true? Yes, absolutely.
- Is it 100% true? Well… when I really think about it, I spend 2-3 hours every evening watching Netflix and scrolling social media. And there are those weekend catch-ups with people I don’t even really enjoy. So I guess I do have time – I’m just not using it for this.
- How do you behave when you believe it to be true? I keep putting it off. I talk about wanting to do it, feel guilty that I’m not doing it, then distract myself with something else. It’s this endless cycle that makes me feel stuck and frustrated with myself.
- Who would you be without this belief? I’d actually try. I’d feel lighter and more focused. Maybe even excited and a little proud of myself.
- How can you turn around this belief? The truth is: I’m choosing not to make time for this. And if I can choose that, I can choose differently.
Believing our limiting stories causes us to suffer. The more we can name them as stories, and give ourselves permission to write new ones, the more we can free up our energy for the next chapter of our lives.
I discovered that when I believed my thoughts I suffered, but when I didn’t believe them I didn’t suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. I found that suffering is optional. – Byron Katie
Honouring what you’re leaving behind
At an even deeper level, we must acknowledge that letting go almost always involves a process of grieving. When we complete significant chapters of our lives, like a meaningful job, our culture often encourages us to simply “move on.” But when we rush toward the future without honoring the profound impact of what we’re leaving behind, we rob ourselves of the deep wisdom and closure that comes from conscious completion.
When you make a career transition, you’re leaving behind more than just a job. You’re saying goodbye to the relationships you’ve built, the impact you’ve had, and the challenges you’ve overcome. Taking time to grieve and honour this transition allows you to fully receive the gifts of your experience and cut the energetic ties with your old organization, freeing up your energy and attention for new opportunities ahead.
There is no one right way to grieve. Here’s a simple approach that many of my clients find helpful:
- Reflect on the chapter that is completing through journaling. What were the gifts from this chapter? What have I learned? What am I taking with me? What am I ready to let go of? The article “You’re leaving…Are you quitting or completing?” from the Conscious Leadership Group has a great list of additional questions.
- Collect physical representations of what you’re letting go of. This may be statements written on a piece of paper. It may also be business cards, an employee badge, or other physical reminders of your old identity.
- Find a way to release them, with intention. Say a prayer of gratitude for the chapter that is closing, and then “release” what is ready to let go. For written statements, some people burn them or release them into a flowing river (or the wind). For physical objects, you can hand them back to your employer or dispose of them responsibly. Clear out the energy you are ready to let go of, to make space for something new in your life.
Letting go is never easy. It asks us to release the familiar, to grieve what was, and to trust that something better awaits – even when we can’t yet see what that is. But I’ve come to learn – both from my own experience and from working with my clients – that the very act of letting go creates the space for something new to emerge. Not immediately, and not always in the way we expect. But when we finally release our grip on the old story, we give life permission to write us a new one. And that new story is almost always better than anything we could have imagined while we were still clinging to the old.
