Relationships. Friendships. A conversation. A job. The way you're living your life.
All of these things affect different angles in your life. They all are consumed by a different piece of you or your daily routine, but one thing that you can do from all of these at any point when they take a turn for the worse and start impacting you negatively is just walk away.
Knowing when to walk away from something can be the most challenging part of deciding to actually do it.
Sometimes you're in a job for years and every time you're about to leave, you get drawn back in. You say you're unhappy or look for different jobs but never take the plunge of actually putting in your two weeks or leaving. You don't know why you can't leave or why you haven't gotten up the courage to leave, but you feel stuck. Maybe a 9-5 job just isn't cutting it for you anymore and you want to start your own business or change your career entirely.
In a friendship, you might be scared of the backlash of walking away. You might be scared that your friend will tell other friend rumors or lies about you, making you out to be a monster or disloyal. The same thing could happen in a relationship. You don't think you can walk away because this person consumes so many aspects of your life. Hell, you could be married and feel like you're stuck and unhappy and don't know how to handle the situation because no matter how hard you try, it's not getting better.
You could just hate the way you're living your life. You're not fulfilled or happy with where you're living or where you are emotionally, mentally, or spiritually. You want to change how you act, certain habits you have, or hobbies you have. You might want to explore different religions or try a new sport or completely change how you look at life as in moving to a whole new country and starting fresh.
It could be something so tiny, as a heated conversation, that you are standing there, getting angrier and angrier.
And with all of these, you need to know when to say, "I gave it my all. I tried and put every ounce I have in to this, and it's not fulfilling me anymore. It's not helping me grow. It's not making me happy." And you need to know when to just walk away.
This is so incredibly hard to do. This is something that people don't do because of how scary it is, and they turn around years down the line and wonder what would have been if they had taken that small leap of confidence - whether it be just dropping a conversation to calm things down, or changing their life entirely - and just walked away.
It can be so terrifying, especially when you live your life a certain way or have built a whole life around one thing. I've walked away from friendships, relationships, and certain directions I thought my life was taking me. It makes you feel uneasy. It makes you question if you're doing the right thing, which you may not feel like you did for quite some time. It makes you second guess yourself.
But when all of this self-doubt goes away, I promise you that one of the most mature, freeing and uplifting things you can do is learn when to walk away. It'll give you the confidence that you never knew you had. It'll lift you up and make you realize that when you know when to walk away from something, or know when something is no longer bettering you as a person and helping you grow and igniting the fire inside of you, you've truly begun to be yourself.
