10 Signs It's Time To Let Go

1. Someone expects you to be someone you’re not – Don’t change who you are for anyone else.  It’s wiser to lose someone over being who you are, than to keep them by being someone you’re not. 

2. A person’s actions don’t match their words – Don’t listen to what people say; watch what they do.  Your true friends will slowly reveal themselves over time.

3. You catch yourself forcing someone to love you – We shouldn’t beg someone to stay when they want to leave.  That’s what love is all about – freedom.  And the end of  love is not the end of life.  Sometimes it takes awhile to find the right person, but the right person is always worth the wait.

4. An intimate relationship is based strictly on physical attraction – Being beautiful outwardly shouldn’t be what defines you. True love sees into the depth of your heart, and values the person you are inside. It loves all the things that make you unique. People who are only attracted to you because of your pretty face or nice body won’t stay by your side forever.  But the people who can see how beautiful your heart is will never leave you.

5. Someone continuously breaks your trust – Love means giving someone the chance to hurt you, but trusting them not to.  When you completely trust a person you’ll automatically get one of two results - a friend for life or a lesson for life.  Either way there’s a positive outcome.  Either you confirm the fact that this person cares about you, or you get the opportunity to weed them out of your life and make room for those who do. 

6. Someone continuously overlooks your worth – When you give yourself to someone who doesn’t respect you, you surrender pieces of your soul that you’ll never get back.  Sometimes it’s better to let go of someone and accept the fact that they don’t care for you the way you care for them. Let them leave your life quietly. 

7. You are never given a chance to share your views – Sometimes an argument saves a relationship, whereas silence breaks it. Life is about being honest and sharing your happiness with others.

8. You are frequently forced to sacrifice yourself – If you allow people to make more withdrawals than deposits in your life, you will be out of balance.  Know when to close the account. 

9. You truly dislike your current situation, routine, job, etc. – The best thing you can do in life is follow your heart.  Take risks.  Don’t just make the safe and easy choices because you’re afraid of what might happen.  If you do, nothing will ever happen. 

10. You catch yourself obsessing over, and living in, the past – What matters most is not the first, but the final chapter of your life. That unveils the details of how well you wrote your story.  So let go of the past, set yourself free, and open your mind to the possibility of new relationships and priceless experiences.

TJ

Aviodance or Attraction

Some people are motivated more by doing things, whilst others are motivated more by avoiding things. 

Attraction

People who are driven towards doing things tend to have positive goals and seek to achieve specific things. They are forward-looking and see the world as being full of opportunity. They generally have a passion and desire to succeed in order to gain either specific rewards or general recognition. To achieve this, they are more open and ready to explore new experiences.

They focus is largely on the future and when they have achieved something they may even forget about it in the headlong charge into further challenges.

Some people have problems with this in that they are attracted to too many things. They dart from one opportunity to another, seeking gratification all over the place. They may be looking for something and they may not yet know what they want.

Avoidance

Those who are driven to avoid things something look like they are attracted to the things they are actually doing, but they are actually looking more over their shoulder than in front of them. For example people who are very energetic at work may be driven more by a worry about failure or criticism than by an attraction towards achievement.

Those who are avoidance-driven focus more by their fears than their desires (which may well be fears in disguise). They may also be more prone to disgust. They may well also be more closed to the world, avoiding problems simply by keeping the doors to their world closed.

Avoidance can be a high-stress preference. We may be generally driven by attraction when things are going well, but when we are threatened or otherwise experience high levels of stress, we may use an avoidance strategy to get away from that discomfort.

A problem with avoidance when compared to attraction is that there are many directions in which to run away from something, yet only one way you can run towards something. Motivating a person by triggering avoidance is not necessarily a helpful approach.

Discussion

Attraction and avoidance are related to the fight-or-flight response, where attraction and fighting lead to moving towards a target, while avoidance and flight are about moving away from it. The major difference is that fight and flight are immediate and unthinking reactions to threat. Attraction and avoidance often have cognitive elements and may well be both slower and more persistent over time.

In a similar way, attraction and avoidance are related to pleasure and pain. In particular, we are attracted to pleasurable activities and avoid painful experiences. 

 
Therefore:

For those who are driven by attraction, seek their passions and lay opportunity in their path. They will swoop towards what you are offering.

For those driven by avoidance, point out the problems of the past and the dangers of the present. Show them a future where they can at least avoid the worst of the problems they face.

When you have a choice, be a shepherd. A sheep runs in any direction to get away from a sheepdog, making it work extra hard, whilst it runs towards the shepherd who stands in one place and calls them.

TJ