Everything has a ‘product lifecycle’.
Everything comes to an end.
Campaigns, friendships, work projects, training plans, marriages, lives.
When something finishes you have two choices:
- End well
- End badly
This week I had to email two different individuals to finish some projects that we were working on because they have no further life left in them.
I was just clearing out the cupboard a little bit, trying to save everybody time and effort on things that no longer needed time and effort.
I kind of knew how this would pan out but it panned out that way anyway.
Individual A has been an absolute joy to work with from day 1.
From the first time I met them they’ve been nothing but kind, honest and realistic.
We both knew it was time to draw a line under the current thing we were working on and I did, and they did, and we are great friends and I’m sure we’ll continue to work together moving forwards.
(That’s how I always start a project, whether it be taking a boy into my football team or appointing a dentist).
Individual B, on the other hand, was not quite so magnanimous.
Sometimes when a project (whatever that project might be) comes to an end for one individual, it isn’t quite coming to an end for another.
It’s up to the individual who feels there is still life left to understand that it only works, if it works in both directions.
We must remember this in one way and remember it in another.
So, on this occasion I was finishing things and the other individual wasn’t quite done.
They did not react in quite the magnanimous way of individual A.
It’s worth remembering here that when you start to write the list for your wedding guests, sometimes you have to leave friends out because you don’t have space.
If you explain to your friends that you have to leave them out because you don’t have space and they are your friends, they will understand and continue to be your friends.
If they fall out with you for being left out, they weren’t quite your friends in the first place.
Recently, someone in the clinic decided that they have a better opportunity elsewhere.
I found myself on the other side of the divide.
I felt we weren’t quite finished with the project we were working on with that individual, but they felt otherwise.
Time for me to learn my own lesson and to end well and to wish them well and good luck and a chance to come back later if ever that opportunity arises.
Blog Post Number - 3084
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