How To Stop Obsessing Over Someone

Spread the love
  •  
  •  
  • 3
  • 30
  •  
  • 3
  • 8
  •  
  •  
    44
    Shares

Right guys, it’s time to remove some unhealthy habits – starting with how to stop obsessing over someone. Whether it’s a new love interest, a crush or an ex, obsession is an unhealthy addiction that can take over your life and stop you living in reality. 

The thing is, because of the intense feelings of euphoria that you get when you date and start to fall in love, it’s easy to get fixated on the person who’s giving you those feelings. It’s also difficult to let go of the fixation once things go south, craving to feel that way again.

So, how do you stop it? How do you stop obsessing over someone? Well, it’s not always an easy process, depending on how deep it has become. Like anything, it takes practice and commitment. So let me guide you through the process.

How To Stop Obsessing Over Someone

Let’s jump straight in. Here’s how to stop obsessing over someone…

STEP 1: Recognise It’s a Problem

First up, you need to recognise that you are obsessing over someone. You need to see that it’s started to take over, has become unhealthy and it is an issue. An issue that comes from you.

It doesn’t make you crazy and it’s nothing to feel embarrassed about, but it’s there, and you can’t be in denial. Have a read of this post on fantasising, because the two are closely related.

STEP 2: Identify Why It’s Happening

The best way to stop obsessing over someone is to get to the root of the problem as to why it’s happening.

  • Where is this behaviour coming from?
  • How has it escalated this way?

Is it due to fantasising like we said above? Is it because you just really want to find someone to love, and to feel that love in return?

Does it come back to low self esteem? Is this a habit of yours, something that always seems to happen because you fall for someone too fast?

Really explore what’s going on this way and why you’re getting such a strong attachment here.

How To Stop Obsessing Over Someone

STEP 3: Notice The Triggers

Some situations will make you obsess more than others. For example – when you’re on your own, when they’re out doing something with someone else, on the weekends when you’re not distracted by work.

Or if you’re obsessing over someone after a breakup- it may be when you’d usually have been with them.

Notice the times in which you obsess over them the most. Also identify the way in which you feel at that moment in time, e.g. insecure, anxious, isolated, etc.

There will be crossovers between your situation and your feelings. Once you know when you’re more susceptible for the obsessive thoughts / habits, you can try to do something about it before they come through.

So for example, let’s say you obsess more when he’s out and busy – make yourself busy at the same time. Or, if you obsess when you’re feeling down in yourself, instead of letting your focus go on him, put your focus on what you can do to change the way you feel.

STEP 4: Cut The Reliance

Often we obsess over someone because we have strong feelings for them, what we have going on with them is good, it makes us feel good, and we’re scared of losing it.

As a result, we start obsessing over them to ‘cover all areas’ and make sure things don’t go wrong. (Which is ironic, because when you start obsessing over someone, there’s a good chance you become a little intense which ultimately will only be more likely to push them away – hence why you should never chase guys.)

You become so reliant on the person to feel the way that you want to feel. When they’re then gone, you feel lost and so you obsess over them to try to get those feelings back. The thing is, you need to remember that you don’t need anyone to validate you, or bring you happiness.

You are in control of your own happiness and you need to put yourself back in control of that – by finding happiness in yourself. Click here for How To Create a Happiness Plan.

STEP 5: Take Them Off Their Pedestal

You’re infatuated with this person. You think they’re God’s Gift. And they may be pretty damn awesome. You don’t need to knock them down as such, but you do need to see them for who they are – with their imperfections.

To do this, I recommend creating a Remember List – which you can keep on your phone. Simply open a new Notes Tab and write down all the things that don’t make them perfect.

You can also write down important reminders that you need to read to bring you back to sanity when you find yourself obsessing. Things like “If it’s meant to be, it will be anyway. Let things happen naturally, don’t force anything.”

Recommended Read: How To Take Them Off Their Pedestal

It’s all about helping yourself to become more level headed. This leads me onto my next point…

How To Stop Obsessing Over Someone

STEP 6: Work On Building Emotional Stability

Obsession puts you in a pretty manic state. You want to work on becoming more in control of your mind and emotions, which is why building emotional stability is key.

Click here for my complete guide including key steps and helpful habits. This will really help you in the moments where you find yourself obsessing, as you can try things like mindfulness, mantras, mental visualisation, physical grounding, breathing exercises and positive self-talk to stop you in your tracks!

These things may not come naturally at first, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes and the more ‘normal’ a response these alternative methods become – to your previous obsessive behaviours.

So start swatting up. Shift your focus and work on things that will really help you. See the good thing is, no matter what you’re unhappy about, there is always something you can do about it – even if that’s just an attitude shift.

STEP 7: Get Stricter With Your Time

Start to help yourself more. Don’t feed the bad habits, in fact – don’t even allow them. You’re aware of what you’re doing and why you’re doing it now.

You also recognise the times that you’re the most susceptive to obsessing over someone. So build on this further now by making it harder for you to do the things you once used to do.

Set yourself ‘rules.’ For example, a great starting point is limiting your screen time.

If you find yourself constantly sitting on your phone, waiting for a text, texting back straight away, scrolling through their social media, looking through photos – gradually start to push this down by putting a cap on your time.

STEP 8: Take Away The Temptation

If you find you’re struggling to stick to the rules you set above, take away the temptation completely.

Unfollow or block the person on social media (something you should already have done if you’re trying to get over the person anyway), cut contact, set barriers which make it even harder to do what you used to do.

If things are still happening between the two of you and it’s a love interest that you want to stop obsessing over, you can still take away the temptation by freezing all of your social media accounts for a little while, or switching your phone off in the moments that you want to obsessively check in on this person.

Look at your key negative habits and see what you can do to make them harder to follow on with – or what positive habits you could replace them with.

You might also like to use distractions to shift the focus when you find yourself starting to obsess – after all, you need a replacement once you remove the temptation.

Start a new project, get back into an old hobby, go on some self-dates, just do whatever you can to keep yourself busy.

How To Stop Obsessing Over Someone

STEP 9: Talk To Others About It

Getting a support system in place makes it so much easier to stop obsessing over someone. And this doesn’t mean having a professional involved or anything serious. That would be more required for Obsessive Love Disorder.

If you’re not quite at this point however (phew!), all you really need is your friends or family. Explain the situation, explain where you’re at and instead of texting the guy / girl when you feel the urge, text your friends and they’ll keep you on track!

You can also “talk to yourself” using a diary to get things off your chest, or even just writing texts down in notes (that you’d usually send to the person you’re obsessing over)- just don’t send them! That’s the key part.

Sometimes it’s just about expressing things, getting out how you feel, then you can let it go and move forward. You can also better process things when you get thoughts out of your mind and either, on paper, or worked through with someone else.

STEP 10: Make It More Lighthearted

You want to reach the point where you look back on this and think

“Gee, how smitten was I?! That was insane!” Or, “BOY, did I make it hard for myself to get over him!”

You don’t need to make this a big deal. In fact, the more you build it up, the harder it will be to escape and the more overwhelmed you’ll feel.

Learn to laugh about your silly behaviour, joke about the way you used to be (because it will soon be in the past, trust me) and don’t let this knock your confidence or define you in any way.

Know that it’s not something to worry about (so long as you’re working on it) and it’s DEFINITELY not worth beating yourself up over.

This Is Your Challenge Now…

Your challenge to stop obsessing over this person! Every little victory, any time you make some sort of progress and behave better than you once would have – celebrate your success.

Even with the small things! Because the small things gradually build up to a big change.

Encourage and lift yourself up. And please – stop being so damn hard on yourself. In fact, click on through here and read this now, before you go on to do anything else with your day. 

The fact that you’re here, reading this, trying to work on yourself, says a lot about you as a person. So hold your head up high girl!

Be the strong, independent, confident woman that you know that you are and refuse to ever let anyone take over your life in the same way again. Take care!

Love,
Ell_xx

How To Stop Obsessing Over Someone
Photo of author
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.

3 thoughts on “How To Stop Obsessing Over Someone”

  1. Hi,
    I just started reading your posts and I can relate to them so much. It all obviously comes from years of experience and challenges. I am simply not a woman tho… But like what women like…
    I do love your content and it is helping me so much right now. I am glad I found your blog…
    Thank you!

    Reply
  2. You really helped me, I’ve been suffering from I didn’t even know it was a thing. Especially obsessional love disorder. It’s like a bad addiction, but entails so much more. And everything I just read helps, and helps to make me in a better healthier frame of mind. Thank you! Really needed this now.

    Reply
    • Thanks for commenting Lilly. I am so so pleased to hear this article is helping you. If you have any additional questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Wishing you all the best. Ell x

      Reply

Leave a Comment