The last day

Today is my last day at TMP Worldwide. It hasn’t been a long run, but it’s been an interesting one filled with tons of learning. Last days are always filled with mixed emotions, melancholy over leaving something known and excitement about starting something new.

The thing is, we go through personal “last days” all the time. Some can be life-changing and others quite mundane. It can be the last day at a job or the last day of the week, it can be day you stop giving in to The Flinch or the day you decide to stop using the same old nail polish. Sometimes it’s the “last day” of some long-standing thing like a 12-year stint at a company or really short, like the last minute of a half hour meeting. And you can, no…should, learn from all theses “last times”. Granted it’s not possible to reflect on every minute gone by, but reflection time is a must. Some people hold daily diaries to look towards the next and others take the end of the year to plan for the next. But if you don’t learn from past failures and successes, you’ll never move forward.

Things I’ve learnt from this past experience

Some of the things I’ve learnt during this past experience include:

Honesty
Trust
The importance of self-improvement
Leadership
Expectations
How easy it is to go from top to bottom

The end of something (big or small) can be scary. It leads to the unkown (big or small) so the greatest thing one can take from something that’s ending is its lessons.

It’s rarely OK to delay the end of something because of fear of what’s next.

(Photo credit: Richard Taylor)