Filed Under: Intrinsic Branding, Leadership
By Emily Soccorsy
October marks the beginning of the ending season in the calendar year.
Since I think of my year as beginning in August, I also think of the end of October as the ending of the beginning season.
Have I completely confused you?
Whether you begin the year in January, or you begin in August like me, this time of year is an ideal time to reflect on what you’d like to bring to an end.
While endings happen in our lives all the time (as I wrote about in my previous post), we also have the ability to draw things to a close as we see fit. There’s no need to wait for something to happen to call it to an end.
You can just call it. That “it” might be an effort you are making, it may be a mindset that is a limiter, it might be a way of being in the world that you’re feeling stuck in or with.
For me right now, I want to end my addiction to efforting. Efforting, or over-efforting, is the way I try to make the world bend to my will through sheer diligence and grit. It is rooted in the idea that I have control.
It’s deeply connected to my desire to know what’s going to happen next in my life and work.
It is a manifestation of my tendency toward perfection.
But how do you know it’s time to end something?
There are always signals.
- I feel numb or drained doing them. This happens to me on occassion with things I must do (ie, in-depth business or personal financial review) and things I am trying to delegate. Recently, a team member suggested a new project he was thrilled to take on. As the conversation continued and got more detailed, I felt myself go numb. Instead of powering through and digging deeper into the details, like I usually do, I suddenly said, “I trust you with this project,” set an expectation of the time he would spend on it and let it go.
- Momentum is nearly impossible to reach. I am a big believer that what is meant to be will roll forward with a flowing interia. Momentum. I love when it happens. While we can’t always be full of easy momentum, when you consistently can’t find that feel of movement, alignment and ease with something you are doing, question whether you are supposed to be doing it.
- It’s a struggle to articulate the struggle. This comes up a lot in my brand work. Firms approach me wondering if now is the time to do a re-brand. One of the signals I tell them to look out for is if the people on the team have difficulty articulating the brand message, audience and differentiators. If they do, or if different teams have rather disparate ways of talking about the brand, it’s likely a good time to rebrand.
Lastly, intuition.
Your intuition will tell you when it’s time to create an Ending. If you have a practice that gives you the room to tune into it, daily, weekly, or whenever, this will be supportive of finding an Ending. To help build your intuition, start by acknowledging (in an outward way) when it has shown up to support you. The more you recognize the accuracy of your intuition, the easier it is to tune in and trust it.
Endings, as I wrote about earlier, have gifts built into them.
They teach us so much about ourselves and how we interact with others. How we give, how we receive, how we avoid, how we connect.
They give us peace.
They allow us to view our lives through a new lens, a new beginning in the form of an Ending.
