Why do we struggle with letting go?
Letting go is often easier said than done. Even when the decision to let go is made, it often doesn’t feel easy or possible to let something go. One of the reasons for this struggle is the simple fact that change is hard. Switching from working towards a goal to stopping the work can feel wrong. Overall, changing direction can be difficult. Other reasons for why letting go can feel inherently difficult are external others hold, but even more often, internal expectations you have of yourself. Some people also might struggle with changing existing routines and sometimes rules they have. Breaking out of them can feel like a step back or even a loss of control. We might also struggle to relinquish ourselves from things, because we feel emotionally attached to them. Finally, our identity can make this hard too. For example, if you consider yourself as someone who sticks with things, letting go of goals or other aspects of your life can feel like you are losing a part of yourself. With the latter, it often goes along with a feeling of disappointment in ourselves. You can find a blog post about how to move on after experiencing disappointment here.
Why letting go is giving you freedom
While it is difficult to let go of things, there are good reasons for you to put in the work.
Not only will you finally not have to think about it anymore, you won’t have to continuously experience the effort of deciding that you won’t do it “this time”. This will lower your mental load, decreasing decision fatigue (Pignatiello, Martin & Hickman, 2020). Finally, you will be able to focus on something more important and enjoyable instead, because you freed up the resources (read; time, energy).
What this means is that you probably have pretty good reasons to struggle with letting go, but let’s not give up quite yet. There are things that can make transitioning from “holding on to” to “letting go” easier.
What to do to help yourself
This is all good and well, but how does one do it?! I’d be lying if I said it was always easy, but there are things that can make the process easier.
One way is first figure out what exactly your expectations are. What is it that you want?
After you have done that, you can make the decision on what you would like to let go of.
Decide, or figure out what changes based on this decision could be. What is inadvertently changing and how would you do things differently once you decided what will be different.
Now, once you have made the plan, you must execute the plan. Simple (“irony” on).
Don’t worry if things don’t go smoothly right away. Self-compassion needs to be part of the journey. Slip-ups and mistakes will happen. Try not to beat yourself up about it. Rather: Ask yourself why the slip-up happened and what you can do to prevent this next time around.
Extra tips:
Become extra clear of what your expectations are.
Make the decision to let go.
Think about what would change after the decision is made.
Live the decision (to learn that it’s ok on an emotional level)
If you are still struggling, decide whether time will establish it, or whether there are still (emotional, others’ expectations) factors tying you to it
Part one:Emotions: name, and address
Part two: Others’ expectations: communicate and align your own behaviour with
them; set more boundaries if the external expectations continue
I hope you found this blog post helpful. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have additional questions. You can contact me through my website, and even reach out so we can plan a free 15 minute get-to-know call
References:
Pignatiello, G. A., Martin, R. J., & Hickman Jr, R. L. (2020). Decision fatigue: A conceptual analysis. Journal of health psychology, 25(1), 123-135.
Photo by Simon Migaj on Unsplash
Margaretha Madoures 