How to let GO

1. Make the decision.
The hardest thing about letting go is making the decision and feeling okay about it. The ‘what-if’s’ will kill you and talk you into tightening your grip every time. That doesn’t mean they’re right. Set a time limit (‘If I’m still unhappy in six weeks …’) or a condition limit (‘If this happens one more time …’). There are some questions to ask yourself to sure up your resolve:

• Do I feel bad more than I feel good? If yes, it’s time to let go.
• What has to change for me to feel happy and secure? Have I ever seen this before?
• Is this person, job, relationship is capable of giving me what I need?
• What do I get from staying? Is it something real? Or something long gone. When was the last time I got this?

2. Change ‘Can’t’ to ‘Won’t’.

There’s a difference between giving up and knowing when to let go. Giving up is ‘I can’t’. Letting go is, ‘I won’t.’ The difference is subtle in sound but enormous in impact. Giving up comes from a place of defeat. ‘I don’t have the capacity or the ability to do this. I’m spent.’ 

Letting go, on the other hand, comes from a position of strength. It’s a decision to cut yourself from the things that weigh you down. Fight for them, and fight hard, but know when to stop.

3. You’re not doing something wrong. You’re doing something brave.

If you’re questioning whether or not to let go of something that’s been there a while, it might feel risky and it might feel wrong. It might even feel selfish. But it’s not any of those things. It’s brave. Really brave. If you’re at the point where you’re hanging on to something that doesn’t feel right any more, or that’s hurting you, one of the bravest and strongest things you can do is to listen to that, especially in the face of the clamour that keeps giving you reasons to hang on tighter. There’ll probably be a few of those reasons, but that doesn’t make them good ones. It probably makes them habits – and you don’t want to ruin yourself over a habit.

4. Know what’s stopping you. Then move it along.

What’s holding you back from letting go? Are they your reasons or someone else’s? If you’re stopping yourself from letting go because of ‘shoulds’ and ‘should nots’ and ‘what will they think’, stop right there. Some people will might have a problem with you letting go and 

moving on, it’s true, but it’s most likely because you’re doing something that they themselves are too scared to do. Taking flight by letting go of the things that weigh you down can have a way of triggering those who are weighed down themselves. But don’t let that stop you. When you’re flourishing there’ll be nothing left for them to say. For the most part, people tend to be generous and want to see others happy. They either won’t care at all about what you do, or they’ll have great respect for your courage and will be willing you on.

5. The three choices.

If you’re unhappy, you have three options:
• change what you need (sometimes that means letting go of expectations – not always easy to do);
• change the environment in which you’re trying to have your need met (either by leaving the one you’re in or by looking elsewhere); or
• accept that you just won’t be happy (but be honest – can you really live like that?).

That’s it. There’s no other options. The only person who can make that decision is you. If you’re at the point where you feel unhappy more than you feel happy, it’s likely that one option will be a stand out. Make the decision that your days of wishing for more than you have are over and decide that nobody will limit you. If you’re not getting what you need where you are, the only way to change that is to move on. And that’s completely okay.

6. Don’t expect change.

Your best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. Though people change over time, they change according to their own path, not someone else’s. People can change but only if it comes from them. If it comes from you, it will be temporary. 


The energy it takes for anybody to change is enormous and can’t be sustained long term unless the motivation comes from within.

7. It’s okay to fall apart for a while. It really is.
Letting go can feel like rubbish – not always – but mostly. If it was easy to let go you would have done it ages ago, and it wouldn’t have felt like a letting go, it would have felt like a ‘transition’. 

Accept that the road might get bumpy for a while but that’s not a sign to turn back. Sometimes the only way through is straight through the middle.

source http://tasboy.com/how-to-let-go/