Someting's Got To Give
Have you ever reached the point where you felt like you were stuck at a standstill? As one of my clients said a while back, "Stuck between reverse and neutral." It's the point where you're drawing a blank and have no idea what you need to do to move. Or that point where it feels like you've tried everything and nothing worked, and now you're fresh out of ideas. If any of this sounds familiar, I don't need to tell you what an uncomfortable place that is to be in. I recently went through one of those periods in my life. What I noticed is that at those times when nothing seems to be working the way I intended, it's exactly the moment that I need to let go. It's the moment when a profound change that needs to happen in my life is about to take place.
The "letting go" that I'm talking about is, of control. It can sometimes be hard when you're an entrepreneur who is accustomed to taking care of everything yourself--or mostly everything--to relinquish the reins to someone else, or seemingly worse yet, to unseen forces. Actually, this isn't just limited to entrepreneurship, it happens in life in general. When you're independent-minded and a go-getter who doesn't just wait for life to happen, but who happens to life, it can be a hard thing to sit by and patiently wait with your hands tied. Yes, it can be an excruciating wait to see what pans out, but sometimes that's the lesson that we need to learn in order to grow: Everything is not in your control, nor should it be.
The thing is, worry and the need to control every single thing, and every moment of your experience is based on fear. It's that pesky fear of the unknown and trying to batten down "all" of the hatches so you don't get any nasty, unwelcome surprises. Then again, what would life be if it was all predictable? What would be the point of doing anything you do if you already knew how it was going to turn out? On the other hand, the ability to let go of things that you know in your heart of hearts are not in your power, is an act of faith. No, I'm not talking about blind faith, and I'm not talking about resting on your laurels expecting that everything is going to magically work to your advantage without you putting some effort. No, that's not what I mean. To my mind, there are two kinds of faith operating here--faith in a power greater than yourself (if you believe in that) and faith in yourself. And if you don't believe in a divine power, it's especially critical that you have faith in yourself, which is based on self-trust. You need to know and affirm for yourself that you have all that you need to get through the rough patches in your life whether it's personal or to do with your business. I know you do have it because you wouldn't have gotten this far in life if you hadn't.
So that brings us to the question of how do you let go when it seems like doing that would lead to your world falling apart? In other words, how do you let go of worry? It's simple, yet complex--you just decide to let it go. Trying to account for every possible permutation, and attempting to figure it all out before it happens trying to catch the wind in your hands. You just can't. So yes, it is a choice, just like everything else in your life. If you're insisting on holding onto what you know instead of opening the door to something new, you need to decide which is getting your farther--worrying and keeping absolute control or giving yourself a new opportunity because you've allowed enough space for something greater than anything you could have imagined to happen.
I'll leave you with two quotes to ponder that I read recently, and which sum things up nicely: "Worrying is carrying tomorrow's load with today's strength--carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worry doesn't empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength." (Corrie Ten Boom); and "Worry is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but gets you nowhere." (Wayne Bennett).
What are you holding onto so tightly that it's doing you more harm than good? What would it be like if you loosed your grip just a teensy bit?
