In this article, you’ll discover How to Not Let Things Bother You, five things you should let go and be happier in life.
There are moments in life when you need to take a decision: are you living in the past? Or, are you letting it go and move on?
“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.” Carl Jung
“No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories.” Haruki Murakami
More and more, for the past few years, we hear almost daily: “don’t ever give up”. However, many times “don’t ever give up” can mean not to let go of things that harm you. Is it not? Don’t give up on the cake in front of you? Don’t give up on a friend that is poisoning your life? Don’t give up on a dream that turned into a nightmare? Don’t give up on trying to satisfy everyone?
Here you have How to Not Let Things Bother You (5 things you should let go and be happier in life).
1. Overthinking
Overthinking and analyzing have a covert power: to turn your accomplishments and what you want to achieve into a sand castle because nothing is perfect in this world. Overthinking is forcing you, sooner or later, to be consumed by your flaws, shortcomings, and mistakes. The many weaknesses you notice, the many you imagine having even if they are not there.
Overthinking comes from fears, anxieties, and guesses, not facts.
Discover who you are and allow yourself to flourish, improve and grow. Strive to be, not perfect, but the best you can be.
Accept yourself as you are and when you make mistakes, have compassion for yourself – you are doing the best you know how.
2. Beating yourself up
Are you searching for things not to like about yourself? If you do, most likely you find some because no one is perfect. Even if you are a rarity and you are perfect, when you search for flaws, you might invent a few because you need to be right. Is it not?
Being too self-conscious has the gift of making your life a misery. You find faults that are not there; you might emphasize imperfections that, normally, would have no negative impact on your life – for example, until you don’t give importance to the color of your eyes that is not affecting your life, nor positive, nor negative.
Let go of beating yourself up. Don’t let things get to you. Let it go! Instead, praise yourself for the things you’re doing great, notice and pay attention more to what you like about yourself. That gives you the incentive and drive to improve and change yourself for the better. That makes you curious about how much more can you achieve in life.
3. One single success or failure from the past
What I’m about to tell you, might be a surprise: let go of that one big success from the past and move on. Why? That one success is getting you stuck in the past and does not allow you accomplish other things in the present or future.
Have you heard people telling you over and over and over and over again about something amazing they did twenty plus years ago? Having nothing else to share about themselves? They got stuck in that success, living in a perpetual nostalgia about it.
Your life is a journey, not a one-time event. Let go of one single success or failure from the past. Move on because life is not about one success or one failure; life is about a succession of successes and failures. Take your teachings from each experience, good or bad, and keep up the pace building a happy and prosperous life.
How to let go things that bother you and hinder your progress? Move on from that one big success or failure that keeps you on the spot.
4. Imaginary friends
If you have friends that make you feel used, not accepted as you are, not good enough, asking you to change, they might be imaginary friends. Oh, they are real, you’re just imagining being your friends. No real friend puts you go through fire to prove yourself.
You deserve to be surrounded by positive people; friends that love, appreciate, and care for you; people that are proud to know you and be your friends. There are 7 billion people on this planet; therefore, there is no reason to settle for imaginary friends. Let them step out of your life and make space for those who deserve you.
As you let go things that bother you, do the same with imaginary friends; let them go!
Pay attention, not all the toxic people in your life harm you intentionally or out of lack of love. Nevertheless, if they are toxic to you, you might have no other choice but let them go. Oil and water, separately, they are both good but don’t mix.
5. Worrying about the future
“Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.” – Corrie ten Boom
Worrying about the future makes you live disasters that never happened and probably never will.
The harder you try to control things, the more you worry. Worrying about the future can give you the false impression you’re on top of things. It feels like, as long as you worry, you control things just by being aware of what can happen. That is the main reason why it’s so hard to stop worrying. Right? Yet, agonizing about things that may or may not happen, doesn’t make more prepared to face life. On the contrary, it takes your energy and mental power to deal with the unexpected and life in general.
Let go of worries and take every situation as it comes. Deal with the present moment with the confidence that whatever life throws at you, you are capable of facing it. You have done it so far; you’ll do it in the future as well.
Next time when you feel that something is holding you back ask yourself:
- Is it a wise thing to keep on trying to make it work?
- Put in balance – what are the benefits and losses of holding on compared to letting go?
- What makes you believe that shouldn’t let go?
