I was working with a senior leader who had been fighting a decision his organisation had made for nearly ‘eight’ months.
He wasn’t fighting it externally, but internally he was exhausted. Every conversation kept circling back to why the decision had been wrong, what should have been done differently, and who should have listened when he raised it.
The decision wasn’t changing. The organisation had moved on. But he hadn’t.
I asked him what holding on was costing him.
The grip wasn’t strength. It was suffering in disguise. He’d convinced himself that letting go meant agreeing with the decision. That releasing it was a form of defeat.
But the fight he was maintaining wasn’t changing anything out there. It was only consuming him on the inside.
Letting go isn’t giving up. It isn’t saying the decision was right. It isn’t pretending you didn’t care. It’s recognising that the grip was never actually in control of anything. The outcome had already happened.
The only thing the grip controlled was how much of his energy went toward something that was already done.
The moment he truly understood that, he let go. Not of his values. Of the weight!