Mission Accomplished

Because yes, you're allowed to fulfill a calling and move on.

When is a calling finished or fulfilled?

Sometimes that decision is out of our hands — I doubt there is a person alive who hasn’t had the trajectory of their life altered again and again by thwarted or reshaped dreams and ambitions.

You can be called to do something and not get to do it the way you imagined.

Because how many of us are doing exactly what we planned with our lives? Comment if you are because you’re a unicorn and I want to pet you.

But what about the callings that have been successful — however you define success — and now you are ready to be done?

Ready to walk away.

There seems to be an assumption that if a venture is noble or going well, you have to keep doing it forever.

No matter how dearly you love your dream or how much the world still needs your work, you get to stop when you want or need to.

Let me offer an example. Lauren Fleshman is one of the most decorated American long-distance runners in history and yet her pro-running career was marred by injuries, eventually stopping her from making the Olympic team.

Lauren’s injuries could be traced back to her borderline disordered eating which was a result of how girl’s and women’s running is coached — the general environment in Lauren’s case more than an individual coach.

Lauren made it her mission to prevent what happened to her from happening to others. To change the industry’s pathologizing for puberty and the natural changes in girl’s bodies.

“I'd tried advocacy through the Board of Directors at USA Track and Field, I'd tried writing a blog, I tried social media, and it just felt like it wasn't moving the needle enough. Writing a memoir seemed like a way that I could take my specific story and try to tell a propulsive sports story that also helped solve the problem… It ended up being a good instinct…because it's worked pretty well. Lauren Fleshman listen to the full interview here or wherever you get your podcasts.

I was lucky enough to coach Lauren in writing her first draft of Good for a Girl: A Woman Running in a Man’s World. I told her it would become a NYT’s bestseller and it did!

But after the book was published, even as she was experiencing incredible success and having the impact she wanted to have, Lauren realized she was done.

“I felt like, okay, if I can finish this book and I can do my best on it, then it's up to everybody else. They can be impacted by it or not be impacted, they can take action or not take action, but I can't carry this anymore. I need to move on. I felt like it was really taking over my life for many years, my concerns about my peers and the future generations of peers.” Lauren Fleshman from our interview

I need to move on.

Such a simple sentence and yet, when you’ve said it to yourself, it sure can make your heart pound.

Of course, we are good at moving on in certain areas of our lives. If green peppers give you indigestion, bye-bye. High heels? Long gone. Small talk? No, thank you.

But moving on from a calling? Not quite as easy as embracing Birkenstocks.

We fear disappointing people, we fear being selfish, we fear that our work won’t be continued, we fear being irrelevant, we may have money concerns about leaving — all legit.

And perhaps, most of all, we fear the death of a cherished identity.

Because who am I if I’m not ______________?

Yet we must pay as much or more attention to the costs of staying put.

Because our brain wants to avoid any threat to our identity, we aren’t always aware of those costs until they become truly dear.

• Like aches and pains, even chronic pain. (Did you know the brain is more comfortable sending you physical pain signals than emotional ones?)

• Like lots of stress eating, drinking, and spending. I always know it’s time for a change when I’m having a nightly cocktail while shopping for shoes I don’t need and will probably never buy.

• Watching endless dog videos on Instagram even as I think, “I’m so bored.”

• A pervasive feeling of why bother, who cares, what’s the point?

• And, of course, depression, anxiety, and burnout.

I would argue that one reason we can believe it’s too late for a new calling is that we are holding on to the current one and it’s time to let go.

We’ve got to create space for what wants to come next without knowing what’s next.

Our success, our service, our love of our calling, these are all such beautiful things.

And so is our desire to grow, to evolve.

Have you ever let go of a calling and declared it done? Or is there something calling you now, even vaguely, that you don’t have time or energy to listen to? I’d love to hear about your experience.