Episode 774 What Do You Need to Let Go of
[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 774 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm David Smith author of who's got your back making and keeping great friendships among men. I encourage you to invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talents and your treasures to live out your calling.
[00:00:24] Having the ability to build real lasting friendships as a man is vital to doing this. And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this. The inspired stewardship podcast with the leadership provided by Scott Mayer.
[00:00:50] How can we do it? Here's a few tips around how to let go. Number one, you have to stop blaming others. You have to take responsibility for yourself for [00:01:00] your own actions, for what happens for your own emotions. You have to take responsibility for those things and begin to work on yourself. You have to make a clear decision that you're going to let go of something.
[00:01:12] Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.
[00:01:45] In today's episode about impacting the world through stewarding your talent. I talk with you about letting go of things from the past and able to find your future. I gave you some tips on how to actually let go of these things. And I share what happens when you [00:02:00] don't. You've heard me talk about developing your talent and what are the best ways to do that is through books.
[00:02:07] But if you're like most people today, it's hard to find the time to read. And that's why today's podcast is brought to you by audible. Go to inspired stewardship.com/audible to sign up and you can get a 30 day free trial. There's over 180,000 titles to choose from. And you can pick one and listen your way to developing your talents via audible.
[00:02:33] That's inspired stewardship.com/audible to get your free trial and listen to great books the same way you're listening to this podcast. Coming up on the end of the year, looking at 2020, I think there's a lot of things that have happened to a lot of us this year that really could be described as trauma.
[00:02:55]We're dealing with a lot of emotions, we're dealing with a lot of frustration. There, there's all [00:03:00] sorts of things that have gone on in the news and in our own personal lives that have created just an, a feeling of things being out of control. A feeling of frustration, a feeling of fear. And what I wanted to talk a little bit about today is about letting go of things from the past, whether this is the immediate past or whether this is the distant pass.
[00:03:28] One of the things that we have to do to be able to move forward effectively into the future is let go of things that we maybe were holding onto. That aren't the most positive of. Of things to hold on to. I think that's advice that you've probably heard before, where you've been dealing with something or struggling to let something go and people tell you, you just need to let it go.
[00:03:50] You just need to get over it. You just need to move on, but that's a lot easier said than done because the truth is we [00:04:00] have a tendency as human beings. To really try to control things, to really try to hold on to things. We have attachment issues, we get attached to things and let's talk a little bit about attachment.
[00:04:13]This is a mental and an emotional fixation on something that we need or want, or at least something that we think we need our want. No, sometimes there's things that we get attached to that really are a need quite frankly, eating, you need to be attached to eating. You do need to eat to survive.
[00:04:32] But the truth is we often then will turn that into a want where it's no longer about eating. It's about eating out. It's about getting things the way that we want them when it comes to food. It's about eating well in a certain way. And I'm not talking about eating healthy or not healthy. I'm talking about.
[00:04:52] Putting some sort of value statement around eating where eating becomes something that we [00:05:00] think creates happiness for us. We get attached to people. We get attached to beliefs or views or outcomes. We get attached to stuff and we get attached to them because we're afraid that we'll lose them. And if we lose them, therefore we'll now be unhappy.
[00:05:18] Or maybe we won't survive. The problem is that oftentimes that happiness feeling that comes from people and things and stuff is a temporary happiness. Anyway, real deep happiness is something different. Happiness is not about you got a new car. Happiness is about the more permanent feelings of satisfaction.
[00:05:45] The more permanent feelings of recognizing that your life is good. Your life is free from suffering. Your life is happy. You have gratification, not in the temporary, [00:06:00] but in the permanent. So if we let go of our fixation on things and our fear that if we lose these things, we'll lose our happiness. If we develop enough faith that we will get the things, we need an abundance mentality, then in a strange way, you actually are happier.
[00:06:21] You're less attached. You're more able to let go of things. And the truth is it's really hard to do this because in our culture, in our mindset and our belief holding on to things is the way that we put forward. That is the route to happiness. That is the route to success. Getting more, having more holding onto more loving, forever, finding the one perfect thing.
[00:06:49] Or person, our belief, our relationship that from now until the end of time will create happiness. We're afraid of losing those [00:07:00] things because we've romanticized these as a permanent way to happiness. But holding on to things is also a habit. Fear of change is also a habit and we begin. To worry about letting go of these things, because it affects our identity affects who we see ourselves to be in the world.
[00:07:21] The image that we project to other people, everything becomes tied up in this feeling. And we have this illusion that if we hold on to all of these things, if we control them, if we Cate control of other people, if we take control and material things, then we'll be happy because we'll able to make all the circumstances be exactly the way we want them to be and they'll stay that way forever.
[00:07:50] But the truth is the only thing that is constant is change. It will change. The only thing you have control over is yourself. And you [00:08:00] have to begin to learn to let go of these things that you don't have control over, which is pretty much everything else. As you learn to let go, it gives you a sense of freedom.
[00:08:10] It gives you a sense of happiness and allows you to have better and deeper relationships with people because you recognize that they are free to grow as well. And it allows you to continue to grow. So if letting go is hard, How can we do it? Here's a few tips around how to let go. Number one, you have to stop blaming others.
[00:08:32] You have to take responsibility for yourself for your own actions, for what happens for your own emotions. You have to take responsibility for those things and begin to work on yourself. You have to make a clear decision that you're going to let go of something. I like to write that decision down. I've decided to let go of this, whatever it is I realize it's holding me back and I am making a commitment to letting go of it and then post that somewhere.
[00:09:00] [00:09:00] But the idea is to make that decision and make it very emphatically in clearly with yourself. And you also have to begin to trust and have faith that the future. We'll be okay. That letting go of some of these things will actually allow you to be better. And if something has gone wrong, you need to learn the lesson and then move on.
[00:09:26] So that you can continue to grow. You need to leave it behind you, meditate, develop other sorts of ways of looking at things, create some physical distance between you and the person or the place or the thing, create a mantra or something that you repeat to yourself that helps you move on and quickly find that.
[00:09:50] And you need to be gentle with yourself. Find the things that you're grateful for and focus on those. It's okay. To feel negative. It's okay to [00:10:00] feel angry. It's okay to feel hurt, but recognize that feeling again, knowledge it, and then let go of it and move on. Because when you don't do that, then you have the opposite of those things.
[00:10:12] I shared early. You have less freedom, you have worse relationships, you have more stress, you have more anxiety, you have more pain. And those are the things that don't lead to happiness and longterm growth. So learn to let go so that you can move on and grow. Thanks for listening.
[00:10:41] thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you liked this episode on the [00:11:00] stewardship of talent, you can go over to inspired stewardship.com/talent and sign up for our five week series on the stewardship of talent.
[00:11:12] Or if you're in the U S you can text four, four, two, two, two talent tips. That's talent tips to four four, two, two, two, and get those tips until next time. Invest your time, your talent and your treasures, develop your influence and impact the world. .