I wrote about seeing problems as opportunities on the blog before. I wanted to progress with this thought by discussing the need to let go.Once you have accepted a problem as reality, and seen it as an opportunity to grow and change, the next step is to simply let it go.

To do this, you need to shift your focus to the solution and stop dwelling on the problem and the pain and the setback it’s caused. Remember, a problem only exists as long as you continue to make it one. There is a time to focus on what has happened in your life but then it is very important to learn the lesson and move on.

For example, say you don’t close that deal you’ve been working on. You really thought it would come thru but in the end, it didn’t. You may have needed that deal to help you get closer to your goals. You may begin to worry that you don’t have what it takes to really make it in your current form of employment.

If you stay stuck in thinking about what didn’t work, your focus lies on the problem. You keep thinking about what went wrong, so the next proposal is often muddied with these negating thoughts.

You start to feel pressure to close the next deal, because if you don’t close THAT one, now you’ll be reeeeeeeeeaally far off. That type of pressure will increase your stress and not allow you to perform at your highest level.

If a basketball player continues to focus on that last free throw he missed, his focus is not on the current task at hand. You need to bring ourselves into the present.

Ask yourself – What did I learn from that experience? What will I do differently next time? And then you must decide to move forward. See the opportunity for the future and put your focus on this new opportunity….not on the past.

Something I do when a job doesn’t go quite the way I had hoped is to picture that meeting or proposal as ribbons trailing behind me. Because whatever didn’t go well REALLY is behind me now. As I get into my car, I picture those ribbons being snipped off as I shut the door. As I drive away, I have left the ribbons there. I am NOT taking them with me to the next meeting or into the next day.

Reliving the past will not change it, but learning what you can improve in the future and then keeping that as the center of your focus, opens all sorts of doors for success today and tomorrow.

There are lots of variations of doing this visual release of your problems. Some people write down the problem, burn the paper and see the smoke (and problem) blow away.

Find whatever works for you but the most important thing is to find SOMEWAY to truly let it go.

Do you have a visual technique you use to let go of your problems? I would love to hear it. Post a comment below.

Be Free (of your problems)!!

Lauri Sompres