What’s holding you back?
I mean it, quite specifically.
If you are on the brink of a new adventure, but are having trouble stepping into it, it can help to look square in the face of what’s stopping you. For real.
It might be something very practical, like you want to go on a life-changing trip but don’t have enough funds squirrelled away to pay for it yet.
But often it’s something more related to our mindset — a habit or fear or a story we’re telling ourselves that’s getting in the way. We might be reluctant to go “off brand.”
And if we are brave enough to dig one layer deeper, that fear is often about loss — loss of an identity, of a dream, of a chapter we are not yet ready to close.
This quote by Brianna Wiest stopped me up short recently:
“All you are going to lose is built for a person you no longer are.”
I’m honestly not sure if it’s true. But in the spirit of Chris Helder’s Useful Belief, I do suspect it’s useful, and in this case that might be even more important.
Spend some time considering the “person you no longer are.” If you’re like me, you may have barely noticed the shift. Introduce them to your future self — the person you are becoming. How strong is the resemblance? What does that future version of you most need right now?
It might be that they need you to get to know them a bit better. The more excited you are to meet the new you, the easier it will be to bid farewell to the old one.
(And for those of you reading this with as leaders with your team in mind, I suspect the same is true if you substitute “organization” for “person” throughout. Try it!)