Letting Go – ElPropósito3 min de lectura

What are you holding on to today?

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It has happened to me, both personally and professionally: I held on to a goal I already knew wasn’t going to happen. Little by little, thanks to my reflections, or lessons learned as I call them, I’ve come to understand why letting go is so hard for us. The same thing happens in companies with that project that never ends and that nobody dares to stop.

One of the reasons is what’s known as the sunk cost. The more time, money and effort we’ve put into something, the harder it is to walk away from it, even though that effort can’t be recovered. It’s as if letting go meant accepting that everything we invested was lost, so we keep going, sometimes without realizing it, putting more into something that isn’t going anywhere.

Careful, I’m not talking about mediocrity or giving up at the first obstacle. I’ve also fought to exhaustion for something that comes from the deepest part of who I am, where I know I have to give and do everything in my hands, and if the result still doesn’t come, I keep the satisfaction of having done what I could. I believe that’s the difference. When I fight for something with purpose, the effort is worth it on its own, and I don’t experience it as a loss even if the result doesn’t come. When I hold on to a result that has already lost its purpose, the only thing keeping me there is what I’ve already invested. So letting go in peace is only possible when I know I gave everything that was in my hands.

However, not everything that weighs on us has to be let go. There are moments when the goal still makes all the sense in the world, and what’s really going on is that we’re overwhelmed (tired, with too many things at once, without clarity). In those cases, what we need is to stop for a moment and get ourselves in order. That’s why I think self-awareness is key: knowing how to tell whether I want to let go of something that no longer has a purpose, or whether I just need a breather to keep going.

In companies this gets more complex, because stopping a project involves budgets, people and, many times, the name of whoever proposed it. When I partner with a team at that point, I try to have them picture the other side before they decide: what resources, what talent and what time would be freed up for the projects that are aligned with the strategy, and what would happen to the team if it stopped carrying something nobody believes in anymore. It also helps them notice whether what they feel is relief or whether what they miss is the goal, because if it’s the goal, maybe the right move is to rethink the project instead of closing it.

Finally, I’ve had to learn that stopping in time is also a decision with purpose, because it leaves room for what’s worth it.

What are you holding on to today? Have you done everything that was in your hands?

A big hug and all the best,

Rodrigo Baccaro

Author: Rodrigo Baccaro

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