This week has got me thinking about the importance of endings. I\u2019ve recently experienced a number of endings and it\u2019s interesting to reflect on why they matter and what constitutes ending something well. In the space of the last month, I\u2019ve finished a contract, ended a year-long mentoring relationship, had my last coaching session and graduated from an 8-week training course. It\u2019s been intense, but here\u2019s what the endings have taught me:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can have the greatest time, but you need to end it well to do the experience justice. In the same way that you safeguard time at the start to do introductions for events, team building and social contracts for new groups and project plans for agreed outputs, timelines and checkpoints we need to give the same time and space to how we close events, relationships and work. Without doing that means an ending can feel premature, rushed or unsatisfiying or worse there\u2019s a risk it can taint your whole experience. We need to honour our endings as well as we do our beginnings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some endings don\u2019t have to be complete endings. In our final mentoring session, my mentee and I agreed we\u2019d try and meet for a real-life coffee when he was next my way to see family. While the mentoring relationship is officially closing down via the charity we were matched through, we both want to stay in touch. A year of conversations means we\u2019ve got to know each other fairly well, I\u2019m invested in his charity\u2019s progress and I\u2019d consider him a friend. I\u2019d love it if I could help again in the future and so with this particular work, it\u2019s only an official ending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A core part of doing your ending justice is reflecting and feeding back on the journey \u2013 was it what you expected? How did it help\/support you? How did it challenge you? What have you learnt? What would you change? Would you do it again\/recommend it? Unless you (and all those involved) take the time to genuinely and honestly think over what happened, it\u2019s so much harder to celebrate on the successes, acknowledge the challenges and cement the learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The author Mitch Albom wrote, “all endings are also beginnings. We just don’t know it at the time,” and it\u2019s a great way to frame an ending. Some endings leave us sad, some leave us relieved, some leave us inspired and some leave us unfulfilled, but all are a line in the sand for the start of something new. Stepping over the other side might be easier for some things than others but it\u2019s necessary for all. How can we take what we\u2019ve experienced, felt, learnt, loved, hated and wondered about into the next phase? We need to understand how to make that experience count.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s no doubt that endings matter. We need to give them the credit they deserve, for providing the educational, emotional and developmental pause that keeps us moving forward well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Photo by Georg Arthur Pflueger<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This week has got me thinking about the importance of endings. I\u2019ve recently experienced a number of endings and it\u2019s interesting to reflect on why they matter and what constitutes ending something well. In the space of the last month, I\u2019ve finished a contract, ended a year-long mentoring relationship, had my last coaching…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[37],"tags":[13,11,12,21,10],"class_list":["post-494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-personal-development","tag-charity","tag-consultant","tag-freelance","tag-non-profit","tag-start-up-2"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t