You’ve invested a lot these past few years — in your tools, your skills. Now, at the start of a new year and in the uncertain times we find ourselves in, it’s worth pausing to ask what actually matters.
Sure, we all want to grow and reach our full potential. But sometimes we need to let go to get further. Drop the heavy ballast instead of just pushing it aside and pretending it isn’t there.
Letting go is often harder than picking things up.
So what if, instead of making a “strategic investment” (if I invest in X, I’ll get result Z in Y months), you tried strategically disinvesting? What if you asked: what’s no longer moving me forward? What if you let some things go — physically or mentally?
From experience, I know that’s not easy. But once you start and stick with it, it gets easier. You feel a lightness returning that you’d almost forgotten, and your head clears for the things that actually matter in life.
Most of the time, we already know what matters to us. We just don’t live that way. We betray ourselves by only ever investing, never disinvesting. And yet disinvesting is the simpler move — all you have to do is let it go.
This started life in German on reinergaertner.de, my blog since 1997. The English version was AI-assisted. My German-trained eyes may have missed a few things along the way. She’ll be right.