Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward

by Henry Cloud

Life begets life. That is normal. But it can be too much, as well. This second principle will make pruning normal for you as you accept the reality that life produces more: • Relationships than you can nurture; • Activities than you can keep up with at any significant level; • Clients than you can service all in the same way; • Mentors who once “fit” but whose time has past; • Partners whose time has past; • Product lines than you can focus on; • Strategies than you can execute; and • Stuff than you have room for and can store.

Qualitatively, you can’t pour yourself into any of them with much depth. When the numbers are too high, quality suffers.

Also, they want a world where they have no limits. They want to believe that they have enough time and energy to gather people, products, and activities infinitely and never have to end any of them. They do not want it to be true that at some point, they run out of time and energy and have to make hard choices. They want a limitless life where time and space are not realities.

Her brain’s operating instructions saw hurt and harm as the same thing, which prevented her from moving decisively.

Those that have the greatest difficulty abandoning things are often those unable to face reality.

“According to the study, organizations make their greatest missteps when the senior managers’ mind-set throws off the firms’ perception of reality.

take the past performance of the person, business, or whatever, and project it into the future: • Do I want this same reality, frustration, or problem six months from now? • Do I want this same level of performance a year from now? • Do I want to be having these same conversations two years from now? If the answer to these is no, then it is time to ask some other questions that get you to the real anatomy of hope: • What reason is there to have hope that tomorrow is going to be different? • What in the picture is changing that I can believe in?

the difference between hoping and wishing is that hope comes from real, objective reasons that the future is going to be different from the past. Anything other than that is simply a wish that comes from your desires.

This is often the biggest error that people make in determining whether to have hope or not. They forget to think about whom they are depending on to get it done.

The mistakes come in a number of forms when they place hope in someone they shouldn’t: • The person who is not bringing results is really “sorry” and promises to do better. • The person who isn’t performing “gets it” and tells you that she is really committed “this time.” • You want the best for the person and want to believe that he can do it “this time.”

We wrongly put our hope in some promise, belief, or wish that the person expresses, but ignore the clear reality of who they actually are. I don’t mean this in a negative or pejorative way at all, but in a reality-oriented way.

Recommitment does not make a person who is unsuited for a particular position suited for it all of a sudden. Promises by someone who has a history of letting you down in a relationship mean nothing certain in terms of the future.

The reason that our stalled enterprise was able to gain steam was similar to a law of physics: entropy increases, or things get worse over time, in a closed system. But if you open the system up and bring in a new source of energy and a template or a structure of truth to give direction to the energy, things can turn around.

If you have energy without intelligence, it will be wasted and not go toward a direction or a path. But likewise, intelligence or a plan without energy is not going anywhere at all. Even the best-laid plans will stagnate without a force driving them.

Traits of Wise Persons Here are some traits of the wise:

The fool tries to adjust the truth so he does not have to adjust to it.

Just as wise does not necessarily mean smart or extremely gifted, foolish does not mean dumb or lacking talent. Ironically, a fool actually may be “the smartest person in the room,” or the most gifted or charming. Because of that, fools often keep us confused because of their many wonderful attributes. Our attraction to their talents and gifts keeps us hooked and makes it difficult to give up on them. So we continue to try, thinking that “one more conversation” will do the trick. But we get more of the same kind of behavior each time we try to solve a problem or give input, coaching, or correction.

Traits of Foolish Persons

Whereas talking about a problem to a responsible, wise person helps, talking about a problem with a fool does not help at all. Therefore, further talking about problems is not the answer. So stop talking. At least about the problem.

sometimes you have to lead, even when no one wants to follow.

Alignment and other issues notwithstanding, there are those instances when you sometimes have to grab the wheel and exercise the authority that you have. Sometimes urgency is created when the sheriff rides into town.

The clearer and kinder you are in your communication of endings and bad news to people, the better the people you will find yourself surrounded by in life and work. You attract what you are. So do this for them but also for you. You’ll be glad you did.

Many times people leave a little wiggle room or false hope just to soften the bad news. Do not do that if an ending is what you desire. Otherwise, you are just going to have to do it again. If it is over, make sure that at the end of the conversation, it is over.

The lesson: if you are doing something that is using you or your resources in a way that is depleting you or damaging you, you can’t keep it going. The reason? You are not just getting tired; you or your resource is getting depleted.

If you are doing anything that by definition cannot continue because the source itself is being depleted or damaged, an ending is not only necessary, it is vital and urgent.

Are you in a spiritual state right now that is not sustainable? In your spirit, is something causing you to be diminished? Is hope being deferred in some way that is causing a sickness of spirit? Are you losing a sense of meaning in life? Is something happening that is causing you to feel depleted of a sense of purpose, mission, transcendence, love, or other spiritual dimensions? A diminished belief in humanity or diminished faith? Is your ability to hope being affected?

Are you letting your strengths fall into disuse in a way that is not sustainable? Are you on a course where your strengths are not available to you? Are you being cornered, at work or elsewhere, in a way that requires you to be “not you” most of the time? Is the real you slowly going to sleep? Do you fear that it may not be able to be reawakened?

Do you find yourself in a situation where you are overextended in some way, one that began as an anomaly but now has become a pattern? Many times this happens with a person’s schedule or workload. What they thought was going to be a lot of work or extra hours or effort for a while has now become what is required to keep it all going, as the entity or enterprise has become shaped and formed around exactly that ingredient, all that effort from just one source—you. So what was supposed to be a season has now become a pattern, the new normal.