Necessary Endings

Have you ever have something in your life that felt like it had to work? A job, a partnership, a plan that you poured time, energy, and maybe even a little of your identity into?

And then it ends.



Not in a clean, tied-with-a-bow kind of way. More like a door slamming shut, and you’re left standing there thinking, Now what?

That’s where Necessary Endings comes in. Dr. Henry Cloud argues that sometimes the best thing that can happen to us is for something not to work out—especially when that “something” was never meant to last.

I had a client like that. It wasn’t working, and deep down I knew it. But I still felt that pressure to keep pushing, make it work, hold on. And then, it ended. Not dramatically—just… over. And what happened next surprised me. Almost immediately, I had an outpouring of new leads. The kind of clients that fit. The kind of work that energizes me instead of draining me.

Dr. Cloud calls this pruning. Just like in a garden, we have to cut back the dead or unhealthy parts of our lives so something stronger can grow. Sometimes the ending is your choice. Sometimes life makes the cut for you. Either way, it’s often the start of something better.

So if something recently ended—and it felt like a loss—you’re not alone. But maybe, just maybe, it was necessary. And maybe it’s making room for something far better than what you had the courage to imagine.

I’d love to hear your story—have you ever had a loss or ending that unexpectedly led to something better? Drop it in the comments. You never know who might need to hear it.