As I move into my 50’s (and my 30th year as an entrepreneur), some things in life I have concluded as truths due to my own experiences and observation. One of this is the ability of letting go which to me is as important as the ability to embrace; be it opportunity or challenges.

When I was younger, with the vigour of youth, invincibility and energy, I focus on ‘pulling’ as many opportunities I can get in order to get as much a chance as possible. Therefore, drawing in opportunity and grabbing it become one and the same. It was never distinct; both are mutually inclusive. The truth is that both are mutually exclusive because there is also the choice of letting go of the opportunity/challenge that comes. Just because we cause it to come doesn’t mean we do not have a choice of what to do with it. Consider letting come as the picker and letting go or embracing it as the sorter. We need the ability to let come so that we have options to embrace or let go.

For me, the skills or let come and the ability is not embrace is easier compared to the ability to let go which is a harder being to develop because as a human being, our ‘default’ mode is scarcity which eventually crystallise into fear; what if this is the only opportunity? This might be the only time! etc, etc, etc. Therefore, in order for us to be able to let go, the most important criteria is … FAITH; complete trust or confidence that it will work out.

How do we built FAITH? Well, that would be whole new article 😉

So critiques might equate letting go as giving up. Well, it is a fine line in my perspective. For me, there are two ways to see if it is letting go or giving up. The first one is where the choice is made. If the choice is made before any action is taken, then it can’t be giving up because the word giving denotes we have it in our possession which in this case we have not. The second instance is a bit trickier. What is we have taken possession of the opportunity or challenge and along the way we decides to drop it (let it go or give it up). Well, in this instance, it is giving up… if, the energy we have around the drop is of a victim and not of empowered.

In conclusion, the ability to let come is just the first phase. Once it comes, we do need to choose to embrace it or to let it go. Both are genuine choices that you can make. So feel free to let go for you have the sole right to do so.