Last December, I said goodbye to an old friend: the old Indiana tulip tree that’s been in my back yard longer than I’ve been alive. Since my husband and I remodeled and now live in the home where I grew up, this tree has has been a constant in the landscape of my life through the years. Sadly, about two years ago, we realized the tree was slowly dying. I waited as long as I could, until I realized that keeping the tree put the house in danger, and finally decided it was time to let go.

(So what does this tree have to do with your business? Well, you know by now that I can find business inspiration in anything from my travels to my chicken coop, so follow along with me and you’ll see where I’m going with this.)

As I watched the crew cut down my tree, I thought about all the things the tree had meant to me over the years. It provided the branch my dad hung my rope swing on, and offered shade in the hot Midwestern summers. It was large enough to provide just enough privacy from the street, while also keeping things open enough for a friendly wave to a neighbor walking by.

The tree had its drawbacks, too, I have to confess. As big as it was, there were a million leaves to rake every fall, but this year, all those leaves provided us with an absolutely wonderful, warm afternoon with our friends, talking and laughing as we raked and hauled leaves to the compost pile. There were the carpenter ants, who made their home in, around, and everywhere near the tree, plus the aphids who lived it the tree, dropping black residue on virtually everything underneath. And in recent years, there was the fear. As the tree was dying, it had a tendency to drop branches here and there, unexpectedly. I constantly worried that someone would get hurt or we’d have a big storm and the tree would fall onto my house (look at the picture and you can see just how serious a threat that was!).

My tree, with all the beautiful, sentimental memories attached to it, also came with some encumbrances, things that made it harder for us to enjoy our home and our life with the serenity you want to feel at home. Watching the tree come down, suddenly I realized  that as hard as it was to say goodbye to the tree, letting go of the tree meant I would have peace of mind and a calmness about many things, plus we were making space for something new. That space can be the home for a new flower or vegetable bed…(“Or, the place for my new pool!” says my hubby, who just popped his head in the office to see if I want a cup of tea)

Any time is a good time to look at your business (and your life) and ask what you’re holding onto that might be holding you back. For myself, as I examined my business, there were a few things holding me back that I’ve decided to let go of as I head into the future. Maybe you’ll discover it’s a product or a service that you’re offering that’s limiting you. It’s more likely, though, that it’s a mindset, an attitude, or a limiting belief that’s getting in your way.

Just as the aphids who lived in my tree dropped black stuff all over everything under the tree, limiting beliefs and a negative mindset will drop junk all over your business and your life. Just  as my tree created too much shade in some parts of my garden making it hard to get much to grow there, you may have too much “mental shade” in areas of your business, so you’re unable to see ways in which you could grow. And just as my big, beautiful tree threatened to fall over onto my house, you may have created some business structures that threaten to fall apart and damage your business.

Take a careful, close, and most importantly, honest look at your life and your business. What’s holding you back? What’s getting in the way of you moving forward? When you find the things that are keeping you from achieving your goals, take some time to appreciate what they’ve brought to your life and what those things have done for you, and then let them go.

And remember, letting go doesn’t always mean a complete severing of ties. It often means analyzing something closely enough that you can keep what is working, and throw out the rest. In my business, it meant keeping certain program elements and bringing them into my new programs, while leaving other elements behind. And for my tree, it meant having the crew chop my tree into firewood that will last us for the next several winters and leaving a full slice of the trunk for my hubby and me to make into a table in the spring.

One thing I’ve noticed in the last couple of days since the tree came down is that when I look up, where there was once a lot of branches and leaves obstructing the view, now there’s just clear, blue sky, filled with possibility. Let go of whatever isn’t serving you in your business and in your life, so that you can head into the future with lightness and serenity, with all the possibility of moving forward into real success.