Let go

6 December 2010 1 By Viv McWaters

This year I let go of work that I no longer wanted to do – work that was sucking the life out of me, work that was unfulfilling and sometimes dishonest. This doesn’t include work that was hard, or complicated, or unpredictable. It does include work where there were unrealistic expectations of what I could achieve. It was quite late in 2010 when I decided once and for all to let go of the complicity between facilitators and clients – each agreeing that outcomes could be reached when everyone knows that’s not always possible. I let go of telling lies to myself and others, saying what I believe to be true about what it IS possible to do in a facilitated workshop.

I developed some guidelines to help me decide what work I would do. I soon discovered that this was the easy part. The hard part was living by these – actually applying them to jobs as they were offered to me. Four, or more, and it’s a yes.

  • Can I make a real contribution? Is there a need for my skills? Will I make a difference?
  • Will it stretch me? Is it edgy? Will it contribute to my continued learning?
  • Is there an opportunity to build capacity, and transfer my skills, knowledge and enthusiasm to others?
  • Will it enable me to make money and provide for the future?
  • Is there an opportunity to travel to new or interesting places?
  • Will I be with cool people, especially friends? Will I potentially make new friends, and build existing relationships?
  • Will I have fun?
  • Am I excited by the prospect?

The hardest part has been to let go of the expectations – my own and others’ – of what I should be earning. I am letting go of the need to be characterised by the money I make, or don’t make. I wrote this in March and it’s even truer today: “I may be poorer (in a money way of measuring) but I am much richer in every other way.”

I’m taking part in a 31-day blogging challenge called #reverb10 to reflect on the past year and explore hopes for the coming year. You can read more about it here. Each day there’s a new prompt. Here’s Day 5: Let Go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?