When to Let Go of Your Vision: Pivoting Without Giving Up

Hello and welcome my friend. I am happy to report that my voice sounds. So much better than the last two episodes. Thank goodness I am finally getting over this cold thing I’ve had for what’s lasted for like two and a half weeks. You might hear it a little bit, but it’s nothing like it was. So, I am so grateful that I am back and able to record. And today what I wanna talk about is. Something that I have been asked about often, which is when do you know that it’s time or right to actually let go of a goal? Or is it ever okay to actually let go of a manifestation like. First of all, is it okay? And second of all, like when is it right to do that? Right? And when does it make sense to let go of it? And my answer to you is yes, 100%. Not that you need my permission, by the way, but it is a hundred percent okay and right. To let go of your vision sometimes. In fact, I actually believe that every vision that we have and hold and every desire and every single manifestation is not all meant to come to completion. Right? I actually believe that sometimes we are given a vision or a desire or something that we, you know, wanna move towards for a reason that is not. Just completing it that is not actually getting there or getting it. Sometimes we have a vision for other reasons. Sometimes it is to make it manifest, which happens a lot of the times. Right? But other times it was always meant to just. Lead us somewhere else, right? Or it was meant to be a season of our life where we lived out, that we started, you know, growing into that version of us and started embodying that version of us. Right? Or maybe it was always meant to build a foundation for what is next, right? Maybe you, in the pursuit of it built characteristics within yourself. Maybe you develop new qualities. Maybe you learned new skills. Maybe you created a whole new foundation that you hadn’t had previously by going for that desire, which is going to support. The next desire or the next thing that you’re meant to move towards. And um, so 100% I do not believe that you need to push and force and strive and fight to make every single vision happen. Right. And I think you’re gonna know when it’s right to keep going and when it’s time to let go. And I’m gonna talk about the differences within that and kind of how I see it and how I’ve personally experienced it and I’ve, how I’ve coached people through this, but. Let’s start by talking about when it might be the right time to let go or pivot, right? When is it? The time to release a vision or let go of it, or let yourself just edit it. Or evolve it. Or pivot it. Right. Which I’ve done so many times and if you think about it, that is normal, right? Like the vision that you had when you were 10 years old is probably very different from the vision you have now, right? Because we evolve and we change and we grow and so, so do our visions. They are meant to. We are not supposed to live one life this whole lifetime. We are meant to have so many different seasons and so many different experiences. That is my belief. But I think some of us think that we’re supposed to go on this one path, and if we get off of it, it’s not right, or something’s out of alignment. Right. But I actually think life is more full when you let yourself let go sometimes when you let yourself pivot or even give up on something, right? So how do you know it is time to let go? Let’s say you’ve been going after a vision for a while and you are in that place where, let’s say it doesn’t feel like you’re making progress or it’s not feeling. Very lit up within you, and maybe you feel like, I have been at this for a long time, right? You’re like, is this a sign from the universe that this is something I’m not supposed to do? Or is this a sign I’m supposed to pivot or am I supposed to keep going? Right? And just keep believing and keep believing in the unseen, and you’re asking yourself that question. Well, I’m gonna give you a few signs that. I would encourage you to just look at for me that, no, let me say that again. So I’m gonna give you a few different signs that you could kind of identify if it’s the time to pivot, because for me, these are sure signs that it probably is time number one, if you’re constantly feeling exhausted. Uninspired or out of alignment, right? Like out of alignment is a big key for me that this is probably time to shift or pivot or let go of this goal if it no longer feels aligned. And the truth is something that felt aligned for you in the past. May not feel aligned anymore, right? It’s like you may not be the same version of you who actually set the goal, who actually created the vision, or who created the vision board. You might have evolved from that version of you. Like I said, the vision you set when you were 10 years old or 20 years old is probably so vastly different from what it is now, and I think it’s so important that you give yourself permission to shift if it doesn’t feel in alignment anymore. If you’re not lit. Up by it, right? If it’s not pulling you, if you don’t have a desire to make it manifest anymore, I think it might be time to give yourself permission to shift or to let go. Another sign is if you feel like you’re absolutely forcing it, but the results are stagnant or draining, right? If you feel drained by it, if you feel like it’s stagnant, if you feel like no matter what you try or ho how hard you try, it’s just. Not working and it is draining the heck outta you. It might be time. To either let go or to pivot and really just let go energetically of trying to force it. Trying so hard. And sometimes, right, whenever I’m talking about letting go, it can mean a number of different things and you gotta tune into what feels right for you. Letting go can mean literally dissolving the vision and saying, this isn’t what I want anymore, right? And letting go of the goal and saying, this isn’t the goal of my. Next chapter or right now, or of my life and letting that be. Okay. Another form of letting go is letting go of the attachment. Letting go of trying so hard, kind of moving into the space of, I still want this thing, but I gotta let go of the grip that I have on it, and I gotta let go of the. Force that I’m applying to it and I really need to energetically move into surrender around it because I know I want this thing, but the forcing and the striving is not working and it is burning you out. So in that way, it is time to. Energetically let go and move yourself into surrender. And it might be kind of expanding the vision of like, universe, show me the way, what’s in the highest good for me? Like, help me, just lead me towards what is for the highest good. I let go of attachment to this exact. Outcome and letting go of the attachment to it is another form of releasing and of letting go. And for you, you just gotta tune in and see what feels right for you. But you can tell that it’s probably out of alignment if you’re trying to force it, because that just typically doesn’t work. Another one, like I said, is if you feel like you’re just no longer the same person who set the vision in the first place, right? If you’ve evolved and you’ve grown and your vision has evolved, you have to give yourself permission to let things go, and that’s totally. Fine. I believe we’re supposed to have so many visions in this lifetime, just like we’re supposed to have so many different people in our lives, so many different mentors, and sometimes some of those come to completion. Sometimes they just naturally fall away and it’s like our karma’s complete there. Our karma was complete with that vision. Our karma was complete with that person or that mentor, and they were there for us. Season and it was significant, just like the vision. That vision was significant for a season, but it no longer feels like where my energy is moving, right? It no longer feels aligned or the desire’s not there. I’m not lit up by it anymore. I just wanna, again, l like encourage you to give yourself full permission to just. Let it go because why hold onto something that doesn’t feel in alignment. It’s not gonna work anyways. Right, and I’m gonna talk about. Why sometimes we do hold onto visions for too long and how to, um, shift those things because sometimes we can get just caught in the momentum of like, we’ve been going for this thing for so long. Who else am, who else am I without this thing? Right? So we’re gonna talk about how to shift that, but another sign that it might be time to let go or to pivot is if you feel called towards something else. I mean, that’s a sure sign if you’re, and not in the way of like you’re always looking for the next thing and the next thing and the next thing and the next dopamine hits the next thing. This is not for you if you’re the type of person who tends to. Avoid discomfort by picking new things and jumping around and changing the goal all the time. That’s not who I’m speaking to. I’m speaking to the person who has been on one trajectory for a while, has had one vision for a while, but is noticing that there’s something else in your life that is lighting you up and that you are feeling called towards or magnetized towards. That’s what I’m talking about, right? Not just like, let’s go get the next dopamine hit, but more like, gosh, something else is calling me or pulling me in my life. Let yourself explore that. Let yourself follow the joy. Follow the fun. Follow the love. That’s what my husband always says. That’s like his advice, his life advice. And he is a very wise person, but he always says, you have to follow the love. Right? That’s never wrong. And like I have seen and witnessed that in his life, I’ve witnessed it working in my life. And when you are. Following something that you’re no longer in love with or no longer aligned with, it can sometimes feel like an uphill battle that you could just decide to let go of, right? Another one is, um, it’s a sign to let go if you are just moving towards that thing, out of momentum or the fear of change. So what I mean by that is that if you have been going towards that thing for a while, and it’s just that you’re so used to it, that that’s what you do, that’s what your habit is. Is to work towards that thing. Even if that thing isn’t working, it’s not in alignment, you’re not feeling lit up by it. It doesn’t feel like. What you wanna be doing, but it just feels like there’s been so much momentum and you’re afraid of starting over. That is not a reason to not shift. Right. So I wanna get into that. ’cause I talked about some of the perspectives and some of the ways of holding our visions that can get in the way of letting ourselves be loose with it, of letting ourselves. Pivot and let go if it is the time to do it. And one of those is if we’re moving towards it out of fear of like, who would I be without that? Right? Or maybe you’ve been going towards that vision for so long and have gained some momentum and have made progress in it, but it just doesn’t feel right or it’s not working like it used to, and it, it doesn’t feel like what is pulling you anymore. But you’ve had an identity around it for so long that your ego’s saying, who would I be without that vision? Who would I be without that goal? Who would I be without working towards that? Right. And there’s like a fear of like. Who is the version of me without that Right. Which I’ve totally experienced in my life so many times. ’cause I have made a lot of pivots, right? I used to have a dream of, you know, being a makeup artist for, uh, film TE television celebrities. And I moved out to LA to do that and. Started that career. I went to makeup school after college. I worked for Bobby Brown Cosmetics and worked my way up in that company as a freelance artist. I worked on movies, I worked on, um, so many different amazing projects. Video, uh, music videos, fashion shoots. I did celebrity makeup and I felt like God, I reached. Like the vision that I had, I wasn’t there financially, but I was getting the jobs that were like my dream. And I remember like the closer I got to it, the more I was like, this is not what I actually wanna be doing day to day. Right? Like, this isn’t what I want for my life. I don’t wanna be driving. All over, not just LA but Southern California and then traveling and like feeling like I kinda had to be in the whim of when these projects were coming. And I had to say yes. And I know a lot of that was a mentality, but that was the mentality that I was in. And I was on set for 12 hours a day and sometimes it was like. Working on a male actor who just needed to be powdered every couple of hours, and I was just sitting on set eating craft services. I’m like, this is not it. This is not why I got into this. And that was my dream. But I had to like, I had to come into acceptance that the dream that I had is different from the reality. Right? And I had to let my dream evolve and I had to be willing to go through this like. I don’t know what’s next, but I know it’s not this. And to be with that and to let go of the dream first, I kept doing makeup, I kept doing it, but I let go of that being my everything. And I let go of trying to work up towards something and I let myself start exploring new careers. And that is actually how I found coaching. Because I eventually hired what was, I thought was like a career coach. I thought like a career coach could help me find the right career for me. But it was actually a life coach and she did a whole like, um, evaluation on me and we went through my Myers-Brigg and all this personality tests. And I remember like, she was just asking powerful questions and I was like, wait a minute. Like this is a life coach. Like, wait, tell me more. Is this, and I got so interested in it. It didn’t hit me that I wanted to become it, but it opened me up to personal development. And then I started going to retreats and I started going to community events. When I lived in Venice Beach, there was a lot of spirituality and different community events in the personal development and spirituality space, and that led me to coaching, but I had to be willing to. Accept that my original dream of becoming like this big celebrity makeup artist was not what I actually wanted. I had to courageously accept that and tell myself the truth in order to find what was next. Right. So again, I’m gonna come back to this. I’m talking about the different fears that get in the way. And sometimes I think it is number one, like we’re identifying too much. If I thought, oh my God, but who am, if I’m not a makeup artist, right? And I didn’t let myself explore other options. I’d still be stuck in that and it would still be stagnant because that’s not what my soul wanted to do forever. That was meant to be a season of my life and I can see like that taught me to be an entrepreneur because I went out and I freelanced and I created my own freelance makeup company, right? All of those jobs I was getting on my own, and I learned the skill of doing makeup and lighting and camera, which I bring to this, which is like. So fun, right? But anyways, so thank goodness I didn’t say, but wait a minute. I went to school to become a makeup artist. I like was literally paying off loans for makeup school at that time. Whenever I decided it wasn’t my dream and I didn’t say, well, just because I invested all this time, energy, effort, and all this, I moved out to LA for this. I didn’t make that mean I couldn’t pivot, although I have to say it wasn’t an easy decision and it normally isn’t right. It can be very challenging if be hard on the ego. It’s scary, but I let myself open up to something new and that is what led me to something a million times better than I couldn’t have ever expected. Right. So another thing is I think a lot of people say, well, oh God, I put so many years of my life into this vision and I invested in it. Or like from, you know, a lot of the people that I work with that I have coached through pivots and accepting that they don’t want vision. One of them is becoming a life coach. Right. I’ve coached a lot of people on this because I used to work, um, at a coaching school and I trained life coaches, and so of course that was their dream for a while. And then a lot of them, not a lot, but I’ve coached several people on this where they started getting into it. And while they liked it, while they loved the personal development and the coaching piece, they didn’t feel fully aligned or it just didn’t feel like it was landing or working, actually starting a coaching business. But maybe they had a different career trajectory or path. Like a lot of ’em had had full-time jobs on the side and they noticed like, hey. It’s so weird as I apply the coaching skills to my full-time job, I’m really thriving over here and I’m really growing over here. And they gave themselves permission to let go of that vision of I have to be a life coach ’cause I invested in coaching school, or I put all this time and energy into it. And what I’ve helped them see is, oh my gosh, that’s. Such a beautiful foundation that you can literally bring into anything. Anything you do like you’re gonna be a million times better employee. You’re gonna grow so much more because you have that. So maybe you went to coaching school just to lead you somewhere else, right? Just to help you thrive in another area or with another business. So I’ve seen that happen a lot and it takes a lot of courage to do that, especially whenever you think you want one thing and then you get in it and you’re like. Hmm. It’s a little different than I thought, or, Hmm, okay, maybe this isn’t what I actually want for my life or my day to day. And it takes a lot of courage to let yourself let go of the goal and just say, maybe this isn’t my goal. Right. Um, so I don’t recommend holding onto it just because you’ve invested a lot of time or money or energy or even years into it. Like no matter what you’ve invested in, you will take that with you in some way, shape, or form, right? Just like we, me with my makeup career, like so much of that, I have been so grateful that I had had. I’m like, wow, I learned that. I never thought I would use it over here, but I’m so grateful that I let myself let go of it, and I didn’t say, well, I went to makeup school and I moved all the way out to LA from the Midwest. I can’t not make this happen. I cannot not reach my ultimate goal. Right. Okay. Another one that is sticky for people and why they’re not willing to let go of a goal is because sometimes they’re holding onto the past, so. Let’s say you’ve held a vision for a long time, right? Or not even a long time. It doesn’t matter how long, but you’ve had a vision, and let’s say that you were making a lot of progress on it, right? Years back, you made a lot of progress and you’ve moved towards it and it was working really well, but it kind of has stopped working, right? It feels like God, it used to work or it used to be good, or, I love the way it used to be, and you’re holding onto. What it used to be, how that vision used to feel, how it used to feel to work towards it. And you’re not letting yourself evolve. You’re not letting yourself realize like, that’s the past. It worked really well, or it felt really good, or I was really magnetized towards it in the past, and it has slowed since then. I no longer have the same desire. Right? So. Just be careful that just because something was good in the past, you don’t just hold on to what was good. You have to be honest with yourself and say, what is it now? Is it still good? Right? And this goes for a career. This goes for relationships. This goes for. So many things, right? Any kind of vision that you have, if it’s no longer good, you’ve gotta be honest with yourself. Where are you now? Are you aligned with it now? Yes, you were aligned with it then, but look at now, right? Let’s not hold onto the past because that can hold us stagnant. That can hold us in misalignment. Okay? So. I hope that’s helpful in terms of, um, kind of noticing if there’s anything coming up within you that makes it challenging or that’s stick that’s been sticky for you to let, let yourself let this go. Okay. So the next thing I wanna talk about is what does it actually mean to let go? And I touched on this a little bit, but a lot of people ask me, Jamie, what’s the difference between letting go and giving up? Right? They’ll say, I’m. Thinking about it, but I wanna make sure that I’m not giving up. And here’s the thing is honestly, I don’t think it’s bad to just let go because something’s really hard. Right? And you don’t feel motivated anymore. I think that’s totally fine. Right? So even if it is. I’m giving up on it. I think it’s about the self-talk that happens afterwards. Sometimes I think letting go and giving up can be the same thing, and that’s totally fine, and you can decide it’s okay to give up on something. It’s okay to complete something, right? If something is really hard and you’re not motivated enough to keep going. Give up. Right. But the way that I see traditional kind of the differences though, in terms of when people ask me like, how do I know? How do I know if it’s in alignment to let go or if I’m just giving up too early? Here’s what I will say, it’s really about how it feels within you. Letting go is gonna feel like this deep whisper within, it’s gonna be quiet, it’s gonna be a, yeah. I really don’t feel like this is. My soul’s work right now, it’s gonna be a, i, I don’t really want this, but maybe your ego is scared, right? Maybe your ego’s like, but what’s next? And that’s scary, right? That’s a letting go is like your soul is whispering and it’s saying. No more. This isn’t in alignment anymore, right? This isn’t what I actually want. That’s what it’s going to kind of feel like when you’re letting go, when you’re giving up or giving up too soon. That might feel more like an impulse. It might feel like just. Frustration and an impulse. Like something happened, you’re frustrated by it, you haven’t quite processed it, and you’re like, screw it all. This is never gonna work. I’m not enough. I’m never gonna make this happen. Right? It’s more of a primitive egoic response, right? And in terms of letting go, it takes a lot of courage to do it because again, it does feel scary to the ego, right? Because it is gonna be a deep whisper within that you just have to trust. Whereas giving up is just gonna feel impulsive. And usually when it’s just the giving up too soon, it’s more of, okay. I after like this, you know, your brain says, I wanna give up. I’m done with this. Screw it. You tend to process it and realize, no, I actually do really want this. This is just an obstacle that I need to work through. Right? Here’s another thing that helps me realize if it’s time to let go or if it’s just giving up, right? Is that, um. If I feel like I have worked through the obstacles so much and I’ve been hitting up against obstacles, and if I feel like I have nothing else in me to keep going, like there’s no part of me that wants to overcome another obstacle, that means it’s time to let go. Right? If I’m like, I have no more energy in me, like I am done, I am burnt out with this, I’m over it. I am burnt and I have nothing in me to keep going. Excuse me. That’s how you tend to know it’s time to release and it’s time to let go. Right. So those have been some ways that I have discerned it because I’ve made so many different pivots throughout my life, whether it was the makeup artist or even changing my niche as a coach was huge. Um, also supporting my husband in a huge transition in his career, and I really supported and kind of coached him through this, talked him through this change, and, um, helped him discern. Was that change and that shift that he wanted, was that as. Soul calling. Was it in alignment? Was it a letting go or was it a just giving up because of frustration and No, it was, it was like it was complete. It was time to let go of it and move on to what’s next and now. He is so glad he did. And I will say typically on the other end of it, when we let go of something, it makes space for something even better. And I think that is the most important thing to remember because a lot of times we don’t let go because we don’t have anything to fill the space. And we are scared of that. We are scared of being bored. We are scared of being lonely. We are scared of not having purpose. We are scared of not having an identity. It feels. Very uncertain. It feels very shaky to the ego, and I know firsthand, right? And so we are scared of that. But here is the truth on the other side of sitting in that space. It is always better. I’ve never heard of a time where someone has made a soul aligned shift or pivot or let go of something where they say, God, I really wish I didn’t do that. You know, it’s always like. Oh my God, I’m so glad. And so I think it’s really important to keep that in mind that on the other side of it is. Something even better. So one of the things that I often give to my clients as a homework assignment for those who are ready for a pivot or ready to let go but are scared is I say, okay, well, even though you don’t have a clear vision of what you want next. Let’s just use manifestation and cultivate a vision for how this transition gets to be. You get to write that story in advance, so I’ll always have them, instead of letting the brain do the work and the primitive ego saying, oh no, what if it all goes, you know, goes to hell and it’s gonna be terrible. And what if it’s the worst decision of my life? We don’t wanna let that part of the brain run the show. So on purpose, we take our conscious brain, we take our higher self, and we write this story of how a pivot gets to be. And I like to use what I call ideal scenario that I teach, um, my clients. And it’s all about just writing it as if it were best case scenario, right? Writing it out. So this is how my pivot is going to be. Oh, and right from the future, right from the you who’s on the other side of it, right? Writing back even to past you, thanking you for having the courage to let go. Talking about what your life is like now, what it feels like to actually be aligned, what it feels like to actually have a goal that you feel magnetized towards, that it feels like things are actually flowing. You don’t have to force it ’cause it’s all so aligned that it just feels. So much better. And it’s not that there’s not obstacles, but you have the energy and the excitement towards the goal to overcome any obstacle you love overcoming obstacles because you know you are magnetized and being called towards that new vision, right? That’s what you want it to feel like. So write that out. That can be so helpful. And if you wanna record it, it can be so helpful to listen to that. But you are gonna wanna thank your past self for having the courage to let go if it feels aligned. So I really hope this episode was helpful for you. If you are someone who is. Considering this, thinking about it, I just hope it really gave you some more clarity. And what I just wanna leave you with is that, you know, I just wanna impress that idea that pivoting is normal. It is okay to change. We have so many evolutions of ourselves in our life, and change is a beautiful thing. And while it is scary for the ego. We’re supposed to change and we’re supposed to evolve. We’re not supposed to hold the same visions and the same goals all the time. Right? And so I just want to leave you with the, lemme say that again. So I just want you to feel good about the idea that change is okay, change is positive, and you know, if you wanna come, let me know what has come of this episode. You know, follow me on Instagram, Jamie Burman underscore, send me a message. I would absolutely love to hear again, hope this was helpful and happy to be on this journey with you.