Many times when you’re involved in a long-term relationship, particularly one that’s unhealthy, it’s easy to lose touch with who you are and the things that you’re good at and enjoy. Unfortunately, I know this all too well from personal experience. You can become so overly focused on your significant other that you end up neglecting your own needs. The relationship takes care of your basic need to feel valued, secure and protected.
Then, if that relationship suddenly ends, it can feel like you no longer have value or that you are completely alone.
The truth is that you already have value. To help you instill this belief and build confidence, try these steps. Remember, if you want to attract a healthy relationship in the future, you need to first learn to value yourself!
1. It’s essential that you allow yourself to grieve the loss of the relationship. In this process, you might even discover that it’s not your former mate that you miss as much as the security that the relationship appeared to provide. Give yourself permission to really wallow and experience the loss for as long as you can stand it. I personally recommend Ben and Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream and romantic movies, preferably at the same time!
2. When you feel ready, pick yourself up (literally if necessary), dust yourself off, and get curious about what really matters most to you in life. I recommend reading The Passion Test by Janet Bray Attwood and Chris Attwood to identify your top five passions and learn how to keep them front and center in your day-to-day life. The authors invite you to describe what your ideal life would look like and what you would be doing.
3. By exploring your passions, you will likely discover your most important values. These might include integrity, commitment, self-respect and respect for others, connectedness, community, compassion, making a difference, excellence, honesty, or security, to name a few.
4. Discover your natural strengths and talents. Start with recalling an activity that you enjoyed so much as a child that you could do it for hours on end without noticing the passage of time. Continue to seek out and try new activities and adventures. I also highly recommend purchasing and reading the book StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath. This book will give you the opportunity to complete an in-depth on-line assessment to discover your top five talents and obtain specific actions you can take to help you leverage your natural talents.
T. Harv Eker, CEO and President of Peak Potentials Training, sums it up best in Secrets of the Millionaire Mind when he writes:
Each of us has something special to offer the world. Each of us has our own natural gifts and talents. To be truly happy, we must use our own uniqueness to add value to the lives of others.
Best of luck on your unique and exciting journey! Please feel free to share this article with someone you think would find it useful.