A jubilee is when debts are forgiven, so people have a chance to start over fresh.
Though this is most powerful and functional when it’s coordinated on a society-wide level, you can also do this for yourself, by letting go of the emotional weight of obligation.
The main idea here is that, for tasks that you’ve been putting off for a long time, any sense of burden or “behindness” is likely getting in the way. Releasing that weight will make it easier to connect with what you want and actually do the thing, OR find clarity around letting it go. (Surfacing Shoulds and Grieving & Letting Go may also be useful here.)
And either way, you’ll have so much more spacious energy available for new intentions!
Let’s get started:
Emotional
Try closing your eyes for a few minutes, considering a particular overdue task, and asking: as valuable as it might be, hypothetically, to do this task… is it worth the burden I’ve been carrying for so long?
In general, for most things, it isn’t, particularly since continuing to carry the burden doesn’t actually mean that you’ll ever do the thing. This is especially true for something you’ve already been putting off for a long time. If you don’t put the burden down now, you might just carry it for another decade, without actually achieving anything by doing so.
Behindness: Are there things you’re feeling excited to do, yet also you feel like you’re somehow BEHIND on them?
The idea of “behind” is a mental debt, and it doesn’t help anything for you to pay its interest (by feeling guilty/frustrated).
Philosophical/Spiritual
You may have a belief that without the guilt or the obligation or the judgment, you wouldn’t do anything. This may be true on one level if you’re living in constant rebellion against your shoulds… but ultimately anything you want—anything worth doing—is still worth doing even with the guilt out of the way.
If you’re not sure whether you’ll still do stuff, if you drop guilt and obligation… is there a way to find out? Can you approach it as an experiment, maybe for a certain period of time, and see what happens?
(Note that if you’ve been feeling especially burnt out, it often takes some time to recover, so you may not notice all the emotional benefits right away. It’s kind and practical to set up some task scaffolding for yourself while your intrinsic motivation grows back.)
Do it 🔥
Take a moment right now and ask yourself
“do I want to be free of these old debts?”
Then do what you need to do, whether archiving tasks, emailing people, etc.
If you’re nervous to get started, talk with the coaches (or if you’re looking at this outside of a Beyond Goals event, talk to a friend or fellow goal-crafter about your concerns).
Logistical
Archive or delete your unread emails or your overdue tasks. Optionally, you can tag everything with something that could let you find it later.
If there’s a sense of internal conflict, you can acknowledge that one part of you wants to look through it, that there are things in there you care about, and that at the same time you’re letting go of any sense of grasping, that it “must” happen or “has to” happen. Maybe give yourself a timer of 10 minutes to go through and save a few key ones.
Projects that have been on hold for months… declare them closed. There might still be something to be gained by resurrecting them, but you can be free from the idea that you *should*.
You don’t have to do those projects before you can start new ones!
Relational
To anyone you have an outstanding (esp overdue) deliverable for, send them 1 of 2 messages:
- “I’m letting go of past obligations, so let me know if this is still important to you”
- “I’m letting go of past obligations, but this is something I’m still hell-yeah about” 🚀