Letting go of the outcome in any situation is easier said than done, for most of us. Let me be clear, though - letting go of the outcome does not relieve you of your responsibilities in life. Letting go of the outcome means that you do your part to the best of your ability, understanding that you are not the only factor in the equation, therefore the outcome is outside of your control.

I said yesterday that setting personal boundaries is not the same as manipulating others, and it is the letting go of the outcome that makes them different.

So, how do you let go?

Here’s a really simplistic analogy for you: the same way you bake a cake. You mix the ingredients according to the recipe, pour it in the pan and put it in the oven. The moment you close the oven door is the moment to let go. You’ve done your part and now you’re at a decision point: you can fret and stew about whether the cake will turn out right, hover around the oven the entire time, or you can go about your day and do other things while the oven does its job.

If you choose to stew, you’re not letting go of the outcome. Choosing to go about your day assumes a trust or faith in the oven, the knowledge that you did your part and the awareness that the rest of what’s involved in creating the outcome (the yummy cake) is outside of your control.

So letting go is really about detaching yourself emotionally from the outcome. That is our responsibility, remember. We’re responsible for our thoughts (which create our feelings), our words and our actions.

When letting go, trust and faith are required, as are knowledge that we did our part and awareness that the rest is out of our control. These things - trust, faith, knowledge and awareness - are what make it possible for us to detach and let go of the outcome. If that all seems rather circular to you, that’s only because it is! But that’s good news.

It’s good news because it means you can acquire trust, faith, knowledge and awareness by letting go, or you can learn how to let go through trust, faith, knowledge and awareness. Wherever you’re at, it’s possible to “get there from here” and that means you don’t have to stay stuck where you’re at.