Are you waiting for life to change, but you don’t know how to make it change?
Change starts with releasing what no longer serves you.
So many of us don’t even realize how much we are burdened and dragged down by expectations that we were never given a choice about.
Make space in your life for the good that’s coming to you by getting rid of these 3 habits that are holding you back and draining you dry.
Following are from Amy Waterman's [1] advise:
Habit #1. Accommodating Others
The first habit I challenge you to release is the habit of accommodating others.
We are utterly terrified of saying or doing the wrong thing. We don’t want to scare a guy off. We don’t want to be a bother or make a fuss. And so we hide everything.
We hide it when we’re upset.
We hide it when someone does something that hurts us.
We even hide it when someone makes us uncomfortable.
We tell ourselves that it was nothing. It will only hurt their feelings if we say anything. There’s no point in creating conflict. Besides, saying something might put the relationship at risk, and we don’t want to lose this person from our lives.
And so we keep the peace, but we pay a price.
We sacrifice ourselves so that no one else will be put out.
I see this in new relationships all the time.
We find it so hard to talk to a guy when something he’s doing is upsetting us. Because we just KNOW—or we think we know—that it will end up badly.
Guys perceive everything as criticism. If you ask him to change, he might very well decide the relationship is too much work and walk away forever.
Yes, that is a real risk, but it’s a risk you’ve got to take.
Because good guys, the kind of guys who aren’t going to run away, want to know how to make you feel good. They care about you. They want this to work.
And they won’t know how to make it better if you refuse to tell them when things aren’t okay.
For example, you’re upset, and your guy asks you, “Are you okay?” And you answer, “I’m FINE.”
He can react in one of two ways.
First of all, he might sense that you’re not telling the truth. You’re hiding something from him, and he’s got to decide whether it’s worth pursuing.
Maybe you lied about how you’re feeling because you didn’t want to talk about it.
Maybe you’re ashamed of how you feel and you don’t want it to be a big deal.
Or maybe you’re acting like everything’s okay because you’re testing him. He’s supposed to know that you’re not okay (even though you said you were). If he doesn’t push you to talk about it, you’re going to guilt-trip him for being oblivious to your pain.
Do you see what that does to him?
It messes with his head. It’s SO stressful. It’s much more stressful than if you just told him the truth.
Now, the other way he can react is to believe you.
He asked if you were okay, and you said you were. Great. He can continue on doing whatever he was doing, and he doesn’t have to worry about you.
But how does that make you feel?
You feel unseen and unheard, right? Yes, you said you were okay, but he should have known better. He should have read your mind, not listened to your words.
You end up feeling unsupported and resentful, which poisons your relationship.
We are so afraid of scaring people away with our honesty. We think we’re doing the right thing by hiding our pain.
But if you want lifelong love, you need to stop hiding.
Other people CAN handle your feelings.
And if they can’t, then maybe they’re not your people.
Habit #2. Trying to Be What Other People Expect
The second habit I hope you release is the need to be what other people want you to be.
We are swimming in a sea of advice telling us everything from what to eat to how to decorate our homes. And everybody—EVERYBODY—seems to be doing life better than we are.
We have a natural desire to want to learn how to do things right. It’s so inspiring to see all these ideas and feel like you can do it all.
But the fact of the matter is, the way you do things is 1000x better than the way other people do things.
Because the way you do things reflects YOU.
It reflects your life, your background, your idiosyncrasies.
Trying to do things the way other people do them just makes you lose some of that uniqueness that makes you who you are.
I grew up reading women’s magazines. We always had stacks of Ladies Home Journal and Good Housekeeping. By the time I was 18, my head was filled with all sorts of advice on how to be a real woman. I was supposed to cook new recipes and know how to clean every kind of stain and choose the right sofa cushions and satisfy my man.
Looking back, I can see how useless much of that advice was. It may have worked in an ideal world, but that world doesn’t exist anymore.
Those standards that you cannot possibly live up to don’t serve you.
They serve other people.
They serve commercial interests. They serve to sell you things. They serve to keep you hustling after what everyone else is doing…
Rather than asking yourself what YOU really want and doing that.
Walking away from other people’s standards is hard. It can feel like a cop-out when you’re not trying to lose weight or garden or decorate or do Instagram whatever the current fad is.
But eliminating other people’s expectations from your life is a magical thing. It sets you free.
If you’d like help with this, that’s what the Pleasure Principle is all about. I created this program to help you discover what sets you alight.
When you make friends with your Inner Bad Girl, you take back your power.
Habit #3. Avoiding the Possibility of Making a Mistake
Finally, the third habit I hope you release is the habit of avoiding mistakes.
The biggest problem with taking risks is knowing that you could fall flat on your face. That’s why perfect people don’t take risks. They stick to what they’re good at, so that they’re guaranteed to succeed.
But loving your mistakes makes you SO much more attractive.
Research has actually found that we warm to people who own their mistakes, because they’re so much more relatable.
They’re more trustworthy, too. Someone who’s up front when they’ve made a mistake is a better friend and a better partner than someone who can’t make mistakes for fear of not being seen as perfect.
I grew up in a culture where making a mistake was proof you didn’t measure up, and it put a target on your head. Everyone made fun of you, and they remembered your mistake. They never let you live it down.
It took me a long time to get that training out of my head.
When you don’t feel like you’re good enough, every mistake you make seems proof that you aren’t good enough and you’ll never be good enough. Every time you make a mistake, you’re just waiting for someone to say something or kick you out.
You end up paralyzed, because doing anything new or different is bound to result in mistakes.
Learning is messy. Change is messy. Getting better at anything is messy.
So make peace with that messy part of yourself who never seems to get it right. That’s proof that you’re trying.
Those are the 3 habits I’d love to see you let go of—accommodating other people, trying to be what other people want you to be, and avoiding mistakes.
But what do YOU want to let go of?
What habits are dragging you down?
[1]Amy Waterman, M.A., is an international speaker, author, and love expert. Her work has appeared in over a dozen online courses, including The Pleasure Principle, Save My Marriage Today, Connect & Commit, and How to Be Irresistible to Men. With over 15 years of experience in love advice, she knows that the search for love is at the heart of the human experience.
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