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How to let it go by letting it grow

 This one is about letting go and, specifically, learning how to let go.

This lesson comes courtesy of Aliza Grace - thank you.  The imagery below applies mostly to grief, but the feelings and grief and failure share a good deal of overlap.  To be clear - I am by no means equating failure and grief.  I just believe that "lower case" grief can be "grieving" a situation or scenario - often re-playing a failure of yours, over and over in your head.  "Upper case" grief is a whole other ball of wax and maybe we talk about the intersection between failed opportunities and lost loved ones (a scenario that I unfortunately have too much experience with).

So what does this mean?  This imagery means something significant to me:  failure is relative to your growth and experiences.  When we allow the failure to represent a significant share of our identity, then it will seem like there is little room for anything else.

However, as we grow and progress, that failure becomes part of a larger story.  It may even be the thread that holds together different parts of our life together.  What do I mean by that?  Well, how about an example.

At work, have you ever struggled with an employee, or colleague, that seemed intent on producing quality work but didn't?  And your guidance and advise - as well meaning as you thought it was - did nothing to yield positive results?  That has happened to me regularly.  This person, I will call Sandra, would give me nothing but affirmation in the moment.  I figured Sandra understood exactly what I expected - why else would I get semi-vigorous head-nodding?  Well, when it came time to review the deliverable, there was a sizable gap between what I expected and what I received.

I view that as my failure - not hers.

So how does this connect to something else in my life?  I do a bit of coaching - mostly baseball and basketball.  I've reflected on my failures with Sandra - and others, frankly - to learn how to become a better communicator.  I've learned to harness my delivery.  I have learned to be as clear as possible about the discrete tasks.  I have stripped out of my dialect most of the idioms and unhelpful sayings that we use with other adults.  From there?  I wound up bringing that back to my subsequent conversations with Sandra.

Did it fix everything?  No, but it represented a thread connecting me from a failure to a success.  Let it grow.



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