How are you with endings?

How are you with endings?

Are you good at recognising when it’s time to move on?

To acknowledge what’s been, and what might be next?

To close a chapter?

And when you do, are you able to make a graceful exit?

I find endings hard - especially when there are people involved. And I know I’m not alone.

And yet I have done it a number of times, to change roles, to move forward.

But it has often taken me SO long to get to the point where it felt like I could do it.

And that’s absolutely fine.

Because we all come to endings in different ways.

Some people jump, some people build a bridge, and some people need to gradually disconnect until they can snip the final thread.

So, if you know it’s time to move on and can’t quite find the words (always my challenge!), there are 3 things I’ve learned over the last 15 years that can help:

  1. Find your ‘I’ | Often it can be much easier to feel like it’s someone else’s fault that something doesn’t feel right anymore, rather than look inside. For me, this has always been the most important step, and one I’m incredibly grateful to Ruth Gibson and Nicola Jones for introducing me to back in 2009. When I’ve dug under the surface of each situation, it has pretty much always been that I had changed in some way, and ‘they’ had stayed the same or gone in a different direction. It really has been me, not them.

  2. Share your ‘I’ | Knowing this you can share where you are, and where you are going. It can be a simple as you like - that to create the space for something new it’s time to move on.

  3. Say thank you | Just because it’s time for something to end doesn’t mean it wasn’t right at the beginning. Appreciating the journey, the learning, the growth, the challenge - it’s all important. We can say thank you for what has been and celebrate the chapter.

It can be hard to say goodbye, but it’s important to do it when it’s time to move on. And it doesn’t have to be painful. As the very wise Sue Belton said to me recently, a proper goodbye can unlock the possibility of a shift into something different.

Wishing you all a wonderful week,