How To Accept The Things You Don’t Want To

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Right, it’s time to get to the bottom of how to accept the things you don’t want to. After all, the older I get, the more I learn that life – actually – very rarely goes to plan. I mean how often does EVERYTHING you want to happen, really happen? And this isn’t about being negative, but realistic.

Your life isn’t a story that you get to write every step of the way. You choose how you deal with things, what you push for, how you make the best of bad situations and whether you fully embrace the good. But ultimately, there’s many elements that are out of your control.

So how do you manage this – particularly when life doesn’t go “your way?” In this article, we’ll briefly run through how to accept the things you don’t want to, how to change the way you see the situation and make the best of it regardless.

How To Accept The Things You Don’t Want To

If you want to know how to accept the things you don’t want to – and actually feel okay about it – you need to first come to terms with the fact that this is ALWAYS going to happen.

You have to build up that thick skin. If you get disheartened every time something didn’t work out the way you pictured it in your head, you’d actually be leading yourself to a life of misery!

In order to accept the things you don’t want to, you have to first accept that this is part of life. People aren’t always going to feel the same way back, someone isn’t always going to treat you right, things will happen that just aren’t frickin’ fair or quite simple, suck like crazy.

Burying your head in the sand and pretending it’s not happening won’t solve anything, okay? But look at it this way…

Just Because You Don’t Like It Now, Doesn’t Mean You Won’t Be Thankful For It Later Down The Line…

Think about it. How many times has something happened and – at the time – it felt like the worst thing in the world? Yet when you looked back, you were actually thankful for it.

It’s like the guy you fell head over heels for, who you thought was ABSOLUTELY GOD-LIKE, yet he messed you around, broke your heart, and moved on to someone else…

At the time, it hurt like hell. But as you grow, as you detach yourself from the situation and the wave of emotions you felt back then, you begin to realise that:

  1. You got swept away. You stopped seeing the guy for who he was and built him up to be so much more than that. So the loss that you felt was greater than what it really was. (I mean, he wasn’t THAT much of a catch and didn’t always make you feel as good as you should have felt… It was just part of a fantasy really.)
  2. It would never have worked. Fundamentally the two of you weren’t right. You can see that now, but only in hindsight – only when you see him for the person that he is, and have gone through the growth you need to become everything that you are right now. You outgrew him, and always would, you just didn’t see it at the time.

So when trying to accept the things you want to, ask yourself…

Is there a chance this could be happening for the best? Could I look back on this and actually be grateful that things have worked out this way?

Think about it… Imagine it. Try to see what it could be teaching you. This actually leads me onto my next point.

To Accept The Things You Don’t Want To, You Have To Change Your Perspective…

So things didn’t go to plan, right? But how could you still gain some value from this? How could you turn things around – spin it into a positive? Let’s go back to some questions again. Ask yourself:

  • What have you learnt from this? Or what could it be teaching you?
  • How has this actually benefited you? Or how could it benefit you in the short / long term?
  • What COULD be the good things about this?
  • How have you grown – or could grow – from this experience?
  • What outcome could you push towards instead now?
  • What should you do next? Or what could you do that would feel like a positive step forward in the right direction?

Find the lesson. Take what you’ve learnt on board. And use this to shift your perspective.

You’ve Got To Take Things In Your Stride More, Try Not To Feel Things So Deeply…

One of the best things you can do if you want to learn how to accept the things you don’t want to, is work on becoming more emotionally stable. Here, click on over to this article now as it shares 10 strategies to building emotional stability.

This will help you deal with almost any situation, far easier – because you won’t let your emotions get the better of you. There’s also this article with some badass relaxation techniques. Again, super helpful.

Strong Women

The better you can learn to manage your mind and emotions, the easier you’ll be able to deal with whatever life throws you.

You’re human, your emotions are normal. We’re not discounting that, or trying to stop you from FEELING. But once you’re done feeling, and are ready to let it go (because think about it – what good will this do, letting it run around and around in your head now?), choose to.

Decide to brush things off, decide to say “AH WELL!” Things could be better at this moment, but they could also be a hell fo a lot worse.

Try To See How Lucky You Are…

For every crappy situation you find yourself in, there’s someone who:

  1. Has been in the same situation, but gotten through it and come out the other side strong.
  2. Is in a far worse situation than you – so think yourself lucky!

And I’m not saying this to take away from your situation. That doesn’t discount what you’re going through. But I hope it makes you think,

“Okay, well maybe this didn’t happen or this didn’t work out, or this frickin’ roadblock has been thrown in my way, but hey, at least the situation isn’t like this or this…”

Try To Remove The “What If’s” If You Have To…

So let’s say you’re really not happy. You can’t accept the way things have turned out because you don’t think they’re right. Then first off, you need to look at:

Is there anything you can do to actually CHANGE the situation? Really? Or is this just one of these things that are out of your control?

If you think there is a chance you can turn things around – try it. For peace of mind more than anything. Do what you need to do to then have the clarity that yup, there’s nothing else I could have done. This is just how things have worked out. And it would always work out this way.

Do what you need to do to gain the clarity around the situation, but know that this doesn’t always mean you have to take action.

Let Me Give You An Example:

Let’s say you’re struggling to accept the end of a relationship. Your partner broke up with you, you knew there was some issues in your relationship but you didn’t think you were at ‘make or break’ stage and you don’t want to let go.

Going Through A Breakup

To get closure and acceptance around it all, you might think you need to try again – to win your ex back, beg for a second chance. That’s all you can do right? Well actually, wrong. I mean, look at it this way – if you got straight back into the same situation you were in before, nothing will have changed in that length of time, so the relationship wouldn’t be any different and ultimately, still wouldn’t work.

Instead, if you want to truly understand if this is for the best, you’d be better doing a Relationship Audit, assessing what was wrong with the relationship, why things were that way, where your mistakes lie, where the disconnect is between who your partner is and who you wanted them to be, take some time working on yourself and THEN – at a later stage even – see if there’s the potential for the two of you to try again.

And I know what you’re thinking

“But I can’t do that! I hate how things are! I just want things back to normal!”

Well maybe the normal wasn’t all that great, it was just safe. And as part of learning how to accept the things you don’t want to, you have to get out of your comfort zone and go through the things you don’t want to, to stand any chance of the outcome ultimately being what you want it to be.

Trust The Process, Trust That Everything Is Going To Work Out The Way It’s Supposed To…

And this isn’t because of fate. Whether you believe in that or not, it’s irrelevant. Instead it’s about believing that every experience is made to test you, because it’s the most challenging times which make you grow the most.

Sometimes crappy things have to happen, to create space for better things. And I know it’s hard in the moment, where a situation doesn’t make sense and you’re struggling to process how you feel. But choose to regain control.

See The Situation For What It Is & Choose To Move Forward…

When you’re no longer in denial, you can appreciate that things could be worse, you’ve thought about what you can learn or gain from this, you’ve started to work through how you feel about it all, then – if you then want to fully accept it to the point where you can let it go and move forward – the best thing you can do is make a plan for moving forward.

Figure out what you’re going to do next. Because THAT’S what puts you back in control. That’s what returns your power. And when you reach that point of proactivity, THAT’S when you know you’ve accepted the things you want to.

You’ve done what you can, you can do no more, so instead of prolonging the pain, you will simply let go, accept how things are RIGHT NOW (not that we’re ruling out how things could change in the future) and instead, doing what you can do.

Doing something is always better than doing nothing – even if you don’t necessarily get the resolution you want straight away. Like I said above, you may well look back and be thankful for that. In the meantime, all you can do is keep moving forward…

I hope this helps. Take care.

Love,
Ell_xx

How To Accept The Things You Don’t Want To

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Author
Ella Stearn
Ell is a Breakup, Dating & Relationship Specialist & Coach, with over 3 million annual readers, globally. As the Creator of Forgetting Fairytales, her mission is to help you learn to love yourself, find the right person to give your love to, then make it a love that truly lasts.

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