BY ELLIE CONSTANTINOU
It never feels good to back out of something. I’m
the first person to advocate trying absolutely everything you want to set your
mind to. Yet sometimes there isn’t enough time or energy to balance every
commitment I’ve made. Even with an endless stream of commitments and
responsibilities, I still find myself feeling guilty when I have to turn my
back on a decision or situation that I had previously tried to commit to with a
lot of enthusiasm.
Some things just don’t work out and the passion you once had for a
certain commitment might be best placed elsewhere when the time comes to act on
it. The truth is that no one can be right about everything. There are so many
things we are yet to learn or experience and fortunately we’re within reach of
so many different opportunities that allow us to do so. Whether it be academic
advances, new skill sets or various assets from one another, we always have
more to learn.
Accepting that we always have the opportunity to learn more is one
thing, but admitting defeat is entirely something else. Looking back on a
decision that you made with confidence and realising that in hindsight, it
wasn’t the smartest of things to do, can often be damaging in terms of your
mindset and self-belief. However, there are a huge number of things in life
that can’t be predicted and there’s no way of knowing how they’ll turn out
until we experience them. Often, we even have to experience them firsthand for
ourselves, too.
Talking to a friend recently about a situation I found myself in
recently, he asked me “How could you have been so dumb?”. I say I found myself
in this situation, but really I got myself up and sat myself right down in the
middle of it, without bothering to weigh up the consequences against what I
wanted at the time. In reply to my friend, I gave the usual “I know, I know”,
but really, I began to ask myself how I could have actually been stupid enough
to allow myself into something I’ve quickly begun to regret. Then I realised,
it was what I wanted at the time. When it came to making that decision, I made
it using all the information I had at the time, along with the emotions that I
was feeling. No one is to blame, and although I beat myself up about it for a
little while, I soon realised that what’s in the past stays there for a reason.
The decisions I’ve made in the past don’t define who I am or what I can do
today.
Many of us act on impulse. It’s easy to see someone or something that
catches your eye and immediately jump in to it. This can be a relationship,
friendship, job or any other commitment that we don’t properly think about but
feels right at the time. At some point, it becomes clear that it’s no longer
what you want or need, or that it isn’t benefitting you in the same way that it
once was.
One thing that is often essential to remember is the misconception that
backing out of these commitments makes you seem flaky or unreliable. This isn’t
true at all. Taking time out to evaluate your recent decisions and assess the
impact that they’re having on your mental, physical and emotional wellbeing is
one of the most important parts of personal awareness and development.
Sometimes it’s essential to change your mind, move away from overbearing
commitments or ties and use this new space to make new decisions, even if only
for a little while.
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