I Woke Up in the Morning With a Plan.

I was going to take my paddleboard, paddle about two miles upriver toward the next creek, and do some crabbing. The water was relatively low, which meant visibility should be good. I hadn’t crabbed that particular area yet, and I was expecting to catch some big ones.

In my mind, I already had the morning figured out.

But nature had a different plan.

There had recently been an algae bloom coming out of the creek, and the water was so cloudy that I couldn’t see anything. Crabbing there wasn’t going to happen.

So, I turned around.

I didn’t get upset. I didn’t complain. I didn’t spend the next hour wishing the water were different.

I had a plan. I engaged in the plan. The conditions changed. So, I adjusted.

That’s letting go.

I could have paddled all the way home. Instead, I decided to crab my way back and see what happened. Maybe the water would clear up. Maybe I’d find some crabs. Maybe I wouldn’t.

Either way, I was going to enjoy the time on the water.

That’s a tiny example of something that is actually one of the most important skills we can develop in life: letting go of what we expected something to be.

Because we all have plans.

We have plans for our careers. Our relationships. Our health. Our families. Our finances. Our future.

We create a picture in our heads of how we think things are supposed to look.

And then life happens.

The relationship doesn’t work out.

The career changes.

The opportunity disappears.

Someone moves away.

Someone dies.

Your body changes.

A decision you made years ago doesn’t turn out the way you hoped.

And suddenly, you’re standing there looking at something that doesn’t resemble the picture you had in your head.

That’s where letting go becomes hard.

Letting Go Isn’t Giving Up

Letting go doesn’t mean you don’t care.

It doesn’t mean you quit.

It doesn’t mean something wasn’t important to you.

It means you recognize that reality has changed, and you stop wasting energy trying to make reality become something it isn’t.

That’s a huge point of recognition.

You can care deeply about something and still let it go.

You can love someone and let go of the relationship.

You can be proud of who you were and let go of the identity you no longer are.

You can regret a decision and still let go of the past.

You can want certainty and still accept that you don’t have it.

You can value possessions and still understand that they don’t get to own you.

Psychologists often point to several areas where human beings have the greatest difficulty letting go: relationships, identity, regret, control and certainty, material possessions, and perceived injustices.

And when you think about it, almost all of them come down to the same thing:

We are attached to the way we think things should be.

The Past Doesn’t Need Your Permission to Be Over

One of the hardest things to let go of is who we used to be.

Maybe your career defined you.

Maybe being a parent of young children defined you.

Maybe you were an athlete.

Maybe you were the person everyone depended on.

Maybe you had a certain level of physical ability, income, influence, or freedom.

But life moves.

You aren’t supposed to remain the exact same person forever.

There are versions of you that have served their purpose.

And sometimes the next chapter doesn’t begin until you’re willing to stop trying to live in the previous one.

The same is true with regret.

We can spend years replaying old decisions:

If I had only…

I should have…

Why didn’t I…

What if I had…

But here’s the problem: you are trying to use today’s knowledge to judge yesterday’s decision.

You didn’t know then what you know now.

Learn from it.

Take responsibility where responsibility is necessary.

Make amends where you can.

Then let it go.

You don’t have to keep punishing yourself for something you already learned from.

You Can Make a Plan Without Demanding an Outcome

This may be the biggest lesson from my morning on the paddleboard.

Make the plan.

Go after it.

Put in the effort.

But don’t become emotionally dependent on the outcome.

Because you can control your effort.

You can control your attitude.

You can control your response.

You can control whether you adjust.

You cannot control the water.

You cannot control other people.

You cannot control every circumstance.

And you certainly cannot control everything that happens to you.

So why make your happiness dependent on controlling things you were never going to control?

Plan.

Prepare.

Paddle upstream.

But when the water gets cloudy, recognize it.

Then adjust.

And keep going.

Maybe the morning won’t look like you thought it would.

That doesn’t mean it can’t still be a great morning.

And maybe your life isn’t going to look exactly like you thought it would either.

That doesn’t mean it can’t still be a great life.

Letting go isn’t losing.

Sometimes letting go is simply making room for what’s next.