Every new level requires saying goodbye to something that once felt necessary.

Every genuine step forward requires letting something go, and usually it is something that was once useful or even essential. A role, a relationship, a way of working, a self-image that got you here. That is why progress is so often accompanied by loss rather than only by gain. The necessity of the old thing was real, which is what makes the release hard.

Ask what you would have to put down to move to the next stage, and name it specifically. Sit with the fact that it once mattered. Then decide whether the trade is one you want, since it is genuinely a trade.