Phase 4 - Letting Go

Now we’ve worked out the long term plan, we can start working out what you will need to let go of or give up in order to reinvent your career. Career reinvention begins with an ending or multiple endings. The ending of what currently is. This is paradoxical but true. You have to let go or give up the old thing before you can pick up the new one. To become something else, you have to stop being what you are now. To decide one thing, means to give up something else. In other words, for every yes there must be a no. “You cant have change without loss.”

For you, you have in fact “outgrown” the life you have now. It’s served you well. But now it’s time to let it go in order to start your next chapter. The more you leave behind, the more room you have to find something new. The ending and letting go process involves not just letting go of parts of your external world; the world outside you, but parts of your internal world; the world ‘in here’, which are in fact, harder to let go of.

Letting go, losses or endings of the external world include: job, career, family role i.e. breadwinner, achievements, accomplishments, professional prestige, power, successes, safety, security, wealth, status, lifestyle, relationships, family, colleagues, memberships, possessions, your house, mortgage, investment properties, cars, caravans, “keeping up with the Jones,” meeting the expectations of others, social media, social roles, the family system as you know it, the old you or the life you know.

Letting go, losses or endings of the internal world include: identity, self-image, mindset, habits, ways of thinking, the stories you tell yourself of who you are, your view of reality, expectations, assumptions, getting your worth from your work, “being wanted” by an employer, the person you used to be or how things used to be, the old way of doing things, some way you’ve always been or seen yourself, some outlook on the world or attitude toward others, your belief or value system, or your unrealised future hopes and dreams that were tied to your current life.

Resistance

But, your brain will not like this one bit. It doesn’t like letting go and the unknown and uncertainty that lay ahead. Enter “resistance.” Resistance will attempt to stop the reinvention, even if it’s necessary, beneficial and good for you, make you avoid change and return you to the safety of your familiar old life. Why? It has to do with your brain favouring familiarity over what is good for you. Resistance is the #1 factor that can stop the reinvention process.

Resistance and The Brain

There are two independent parts of the brain needed for change. But they compete with each other. Picture them as each having a stop-go sign. The first part, the prefrontal cortex (just above our eyes), is the rational brain. The rational brain can see the logic for change and can plan for a better future. The second part, the limbic system (directly between our ears), is the emotional brain. The emotional brain is not interested in long term plans; it just operates in the now. It evolved over millions of years with one thing in mind: survival. It works on the basis that, If what we’re doing means we’re still alive, just keep doing it. In other words, it just tries to keep us doing what we’ve always done. When it detects threat it sets off the inner warning system, “fight or flight.” It likes familiarity and maintaining the status quo. It likes to keep things the same, even if that’s not great for us.

But we’re using a primitive tool for a modern-day world. The emotional brains inner warning system, “fight or flight” perceives moving away from the safety of the familiar and venturing into the unknown, unfamiliarity and uncertainty of reinvention like it was venturing into a dark forest containing a potential hidden sabre tooth tiger.

In other words, it perceives change like it was a threat.