Letting Go
Making space for what serves you now
I have a closet full of clothes that I never wear.
These clothes have moved across the country with me—lovingly packed and unpacked, organized by type and color.
Some don’t fit anymore. Others do, but the cut or fabric or color isn’t quite right. They’re too casual for work, too stuffy for play. Some don’t go with anything else I own.
Whatever the reason, these clothes no longer serve me, but I’ve carried them for many miles and years.
Or at least, I did … until last week, when I decided I needed a change and did something that felt ridiculously extravagant: I hired a stylist.
In less than two hours, the stylist had me try on nearly everything I owned and held a mirror up to me—both literally and figuratively.
“How does this make you feel?” “What do you think of this color, this cut, this fabric?” “What about this do you like/dislike?”
She helped me name why I gravitate toward some things and not others, and why they worked—or didn’t. She flagged worn or dated pieces: “We’ll find another one like it, but this jacket has to go.”
At the end of the session, I had a lawn-bag-sized pile of clothes and shoes to get rid of—things that I hadn’t been able to let go of for years.
It was freeing. Liberating.
Standing there, staring at that pile of clothes, I realized: it’s not just our closets that get cluttered. Our professional lives do too. We carry around …
Old habits that no longer serve us.
Behaviors that once were appropriate but are no longer a fit in new organizations or roles—like a new manager learning to lead, not do.
Perceptions about co-workers and how we interact with them. Perhaps they’ve changed, or we have. Either way, are we engaging with who they are today, or who they used to be?
Ambitions we once held. It’s okay to change our minds or evolve what we want—but often it’s hard to admit that we have.
Sometimes we need someone to hold a mirror up to us and help us put words to why things no longer work for us, like my stylist did for me.
When we finally let go of what no longer fits—whether it’s an old jacket or an old belief—we make space for what does. And that’s freeing.
So I ask you: what things in your professional “closet” no longer serve you?
It’s time to let them go.
Bonus read: Making a change can be scary. Let that fear fuel you instead of being the reason you stay with the status quo.
