New Beginnings After Final Endings

One of my favorite, impactful quotes is …”insanity is trying to move forward while continuously looking back.” This was inspired by Luke 9:62 TPT “Why do you keep looking backward to your past and have second thoughts about following me? When you turn back you are useless to God’s kingdom realm.” As we enter the "back-to-school" season, we all have this incredible opportunity to enter into new beginnings. August is the month of new beginnings. There's a commercial that welcomes students wishing them a "Happy School Year!" However, past experiences, disappointments, pains, self-doubt, insecurities, obscurities, or whatever lurks in our past distracts us from embracing our new season of possibilities. We become ineffective and we weaken our ability to lead confidently.

Three Key Areas that are Barriers to entering New Beginnings:

I. Identity Crisis - recently while in Atlanta, I was speaking about the impact of not knowing who you are. When we don’t know who we are we are susceptible to believing lies and making poor decisions. You would be amazed at the number of people who merely exist in life. They are what is often described as "walking dead!" These are the ones who struggle to live fulfilled lives because they don’t know who they are and therefore don’t know where they’re going. Or, they know where they’re going but are moving in wrong directions, ending up in wrong places, existing in bad relationships mainly because they don’t know who they are.

II. Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt Syndrome (FUDS) all have a way of showing up in one form or another and if left unchecked, will block your ability to enter new beginnings. I talk about this frequently because this syndrome is the absolute BIGGEST obstacle that must be dealt with on an ongoing basis. This is not a one and done fight. Fear, uncertainty, doubt, worry, anxiety, and the like cannot be ignored because they are prone to debilitate and can cause you to be operate beneath your full potential. Take authority over these emotions by acknowledging them and then addressing them. Identify the triggers and determine how to disarm them.

III. Inability to Discern Your Season - “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;”

Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 ESV

Do you know the season you are in? Do you recognize when to switch from doing the old and embrace the new? An organization cannot grow or move forward when leadership is stuck in an old antiquated mindset and holding onto inadequate operating systems. Perhaps there are team members resisting change even though everyone agrees that the change is necessary to move forward.

In the book, Necessary Endings, Henry Cloud, Ph.D. stated “without the ability to end things, people stay stuck, never becoming who they are meant to be, never accomplishing all that their talents and abilities should afford them.” Sometimes people become immobile in seasons. It’s summertime, but you’re wearing winter clothes because even though it’s uncomfortable, it’s convenient, its familiar, and it requires too much effort to change clothes. After all, winter eventually is coming back around so why bother? Illogical right? Organizations keep employees who are draining resources and depleting the energy everywhere they turn. Managers say it’s easier to send them to training or move them to different areas than to hire and train a new person. They allow misfits to create rifts and toxic situations because of convenience. The culture is sick therefore the company is sick and stagnate. There is a time to prune, a time to pluck, and a time to purge. But if we don’t know when something needs to end, we will keep a dead situation on life-support ignoring the no resuscitation sign.

New beginnings are times of new opportunities. For a lot of us it allows for a “do over.” The challenge, however, is determining how to overcome the barriers. You want to change but you struggle. Cloud suggested letting go of what is not good in order to find the good. Good cannot begin until bad ends (Cloud, 2010). You have options. If you need assistance with transitioning from where you are now to your new beginning, contact me at info@dremichellemickens.com.

RESOURCES:

Order resources here: When Purpose Exceeds Profits

Bust the FUDS

E. Michelle Mickens, DSL, is CEO of Live 4 Change, LLC, a Christian-based, global strategic leadership development consultancy that brings transformational change in the lives of leaders and their organization. Live 4 Change, LLC equip C-suite executives, managers, emerging and experienced leaders with the right tools to: