First of all, don’t worry–it’s a personal-growth metaphor! (No, I didn’t radically change my blog’s topic–even if it might have increased my readership!) And this metaphor relates to all sorts of relationships, as well as to business and almost all other areas of life. So, let’s consider it and see if it applies to anything in your life.

Even if you’ve never been in this situation yourself, maybe you’ve known a couple that broke up but then continued to, um…(insert your euphemism of choice here: “hook up,” “get together,” “hang out,” etc.).

If both people are OK with this situation, then there’s no problem. But what if one of them wants to move on? What if they’re looking for someone new–someone with all the qualities they’d like in a partner…without the drawbacks that caused them and their ex to (supposedly) break up? Chances are, it’s going to be hard to start a healthy, new relationship while still semi-attached to an ex.

What other people do in their relationships is none of my business, but if someone in this situation asked for my honest, non-sugar-coated advice, I’d have to say:

Stop sleeping with your ex!

It seems pretty straightforward in the dating world; but, like I said, the dynamic of this situation applies to many areas of life–including business, which is how I’ve experienced it recently.

For the past 8 years, my wife and I have run a handmade-gift business. We started off focusing on crafts, such as handmade journals, but gradually evolved to focus more on the journals’ contents (writing prompts and inspiration).

This made sense, since inspirational writing is our passion and the direction we want to keep moving in. That’s why we’ve spent most of the past few years writing (writing-prompt journals, as well as books, blogs, and ecourses).

But even while we moved into a new “relationship” with writing, we never completely broke it off with our “ex”–handmade journals. Each time a new journal order came in, we’d reluctantly stop whatever writing project we were passionately engaged in, put away our laptops, and pull out the journal-making supplies.

Long after we realized that crafting was not the vision we held for our future (or present), we kept going back to what we knew. We knew we needed a clean split with this past in order to move forward, but we never managed to break it off with our crafty past. The pseudo-relationship stayed in this limbo-state for years. (My wife even said it felt like the most prolonged break-up ever!)

Why did we let it drag on for so long?

Truth be told, we liked the “easy money” of the status quo–even though it always felt like a step backwards. (Like one of those dreams when you’re taking a high-school exam, only to suddenly realize that you’ve already graduated–thinking, “What am I still doing here?” Except this wasn’t a dream!)

But last week we finally broke it off!

We did the crafting equivalent of burning our bridges: we sold all the handmade lokta paper we had used to make our journals. We eliminated our path of retreat. Now if someone tried to order a lokta journal, we could no longer make it even if we wanted to.

Even though it’s a bit scary to break from the safety of our past, it’s also exhilerating to know that we’re fully committing to our future–that we believe in the strength of our vision more than the tug of the known.

(Well, to be perfectly honest: in the spirit of “Halfway up the Mountain,” we’re not 100% there yet–we still sell notepads and spiral-bound journals through our Etsy shop [which we plan to sell ASAP]. But the lokta journals were by FAR the most time-consuming tasks, so stopping those has immediately freed up a ton of energy–and countless hours–for us to devote to our “new relationship” of writing!)

Taking the Next Step

Another way of looking at this dynamic (using a more PG-rated analogy) is to think of it like climbing a flight of stairs: You start by putting your left foot on the first step, then you put your right foot on the second step. But when you want to move to the third step, what do you have to do?

You have to take your left foot OFF of the first step!

(OK, if we’re being hyper-literal, you could probably keep your left foot on step #1 and still manage to reach step #3 with your right. You might even be able to stretch all the way to step #4 [or even #5, if the steps are very small and/or your legs are very long] while keeping your left foot on step #1. But you’ll NEVER be able to reach the top of the stairs if you keep one foot on the first step!)

Gratitude for the First Step–Gratitude for Moving On

The beautiful thing about this perspective is that you can see each step as part of your process of moving toward your goal: the “top of the stairs,” your dream relationship, a more rewarding business, or whatever your vision may be.

There’s nothing wrong with a first step, a less-than-ideal relationship, or a business that isn’t your ultimate career goal…as long as you know when to let go and move on.

And yes, making a clean break is often painful. Saying goodbye to the past can be difficult–especially if it means letting go of a “sure thing” (no matter how imperfect) and moving into an unknown future. In truth, however, the only sure thing about remaining stuck in an unsatisfying holding pattern is that it will keep you from soaring toward your higher dreams.

And aren’t you excited to see what dreams await you…once you let go of the unfulfilling past? Aren’t you ready for a clean break? Aren’t you ready to take the next step?

Aren’t you ready to move on?

…

Have you outgrown any area of your life, yet find yourself having a hard time “breaking up” with it? What’s stopping you? And what (or who) might come into your life if you free yourself of this (figurative or literal) “ex”?