‘Pull your foot out!’

One of the challenges of making a transition is letting go of our previous world. 

This is the case whether we’re moving from one job to another, one type of work, industry or environment to another, from full to part-time work, from employment to self employment, or from working to not working. 

Or, as is so often the case in practice, some combination of the above. 

We step away from a familiar way of operating, in a familiar world, with familiar people. And even where that world, and perhaps those people, left us unfulfilled, disillusioned or even broken, it lingers on as a continual point of reference.

Indeed, one of the ways in which we may gear ourselves up for moving on, and ease our transition, is by telling ourselves that we will retain our connection with what we’re leaving behind.

Or we validate our decision to move - or soothe ourselves if it wasn’t our choice - by repeatedly cataloguing everything that was wrong with what we had before.

For these and other reasons, therefore, we straddle those two camps: past and present.

But straddling is an uncomfortable position to hold for any length of time. It also prevents us moving ahead.

And so there comes a point when we have to acknowledge what we’re doing and how it no longer serves us well. As a friend put it, when he realised he habitually referenced his former work world, we have to say to ourselves, ‘Pull your foot out. You’re not in that camp anymore.’

Because only when you pull out that trailing foot can you really engage with where you are now, with what it needs from you and, most importantly, with what it has to offer. 

When you can do that, it’s liberating. And it gives you two feet to stand on.

That’s not to say that the past has no relevance. But you do need to stand steady, in the right place, to look at it.

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If you're having difficulty moving on and want to explore why that's so, then come and talk about it. I can hold your hand while you shake loose from the past and find your balance again in your present and your future.

Photo: Tim Mossholder on Unsplash