3 Powerful Steps: Learn the Skill of Walking Away and Not Being Afraid

We have all been in a similar situation before.

You’re either dating someone or in a relationship, and your feelings begin to fade. Yet you stay along for the ride.

I am not here to shame you; we have all been in that situation before unless you’re one of the lucky few who haven’t. The differentiator is, when was it enough to make you leave?

Love is a difficult thing to navigate. We all want to give and receive love from someone special. It is human nature.

The problem is that you want it so badly that you will tolerate inappropriate behavior until you have exhausted every avenue to achieve your goal.

When you don’t achieve your goal, you set yourself further back than when you started. Now you’re “hurt forever, not worthy of love, alone, and won’t find anybody.”

Let’s tighten up for a second. None of that is true.

The truth is you were not equipped with the skills to recognize when your needs and boundaries weren’t receiving attention. You also did not have the strength to walk away.

So, let’s hook you up with the skill set.

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The magic trick

Do you want to know the trick that helps you navigate your love life most efficiently? It is when you recognize love as a behavior and not an emotion.

You stay because you feel like there is room for growth and change or an opportunity to revive something slipping away.

You stay because you feel like there is something worth exploring with someone.

When you look at love from a behavioral standpoint, you notice that someone will show you who they are from the beginning.

You will notice when someone has repetitively displayed a behavior, and you no longer have to give them time to change.

Don’t put a magnifying glass on someone and pile every mistake into a collection of red flags.

Have a conversation about your needs and boundaries, and when they don’t get action and behavior, you know that the relationship no longer serves you.

At the core is knowing your needs and boundaries and being unforgiving about them.

Your needs and boundaries are about you, and when someone cannot meet those, you know that person isn’t for you. It is no indictment on them.

It is your truth. Live it.

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Men lie, women lie, numbers don’t.

So if you implement step one, then what?

Here is the stage where people panic. They feel like they are alone and won’t find anybody.

It might hurt your feelings to hear, even tho we are not here to talk about feelings if you retained the information from step one. If you haven’t mastered step one, go back until you do.

I say that because if you mastered step one, then being alone would be a positive and not a negative in your mind.

At the beginning of finding love with someone else is loving yourself first. It is not a cliche; it is a fact. Loving yourself is understanding your boundaries and needs.

Numbers don’t lie. While I don’t believe in the myth that there is “the one,” I also know there are few people in the range of your perfect match.

The result is being ok on your own until you find who that person is.

Have you gone on a date recently, and it “sucked,” and you don’t want to see the person again? GOOD.
Are you going on multiple dates and figuring out who you prefer to see? GOOD.

Let me give you an analogy to wrap this up.

You’re in the job market, and you want your dream job. Do you apply to one company, wait to hear back, and stay stagnant until you know if you got the job? No.

You apply to as many jobs as possible. Set up interviews with your top companies, and hopefully, there are multiple offers and choose the best fit for you. Right?

Your dating life works the same way. Keep your search open and stop waiting to see if one single person is a good fit for you.

You are not a player, and that is not trashy. You are single and navigating the dating market.

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The grand finale

I know what you’re thinking.

You’ve implemented steps one and two, and here comes the magical ending you’ve been waiting to see!

Don’t worry, it is still coming, but it isn’t all about you.

The power to walk away does not mean it is the end all be all and you’re dumping someone and never seeing them again.

That could be the case, but the power of walking away also shows someone you are not an accessory, and they have to see your value.

If they don’t respect you and your value, then they get to feel the void of having you out of the picture.

The behavior will not change until someone sees the consequences of that behavior.

Walking away is also not supposed to be used as a game. Mean it when you do it, or someone will call your bluff.

The piece that benefits you is that you will not feel the stress of being in a situation that is not serving you. You have the power to move on.

Once you practice moving on, you will gain clarity on the power it gives you in the dating market.

You will meet more prospects and realize the answer is that they are not bad people. They are not the right person for you.

It becomes less personal to you, and you realize that it is how dating works.

Watch how quickly people fade away when challenged with meeting your needs and boundaries. It is a fake number, but 80% of people won’t put in the effort to “get you back.”

It becomes laughable.

You will then see the value in the ones who stick around and do try.

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Walking away is about you.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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