I want to talk to you guys about how to move on. I want to give you the key that helped me a lot in my life. Now, to clarify, I am going to be talking a lot about "relationships" in this post, but I don't just mean a romantic relationship. It can be a friendship or even a relationship with food, drugs, social media, or whatever. It could be anything. You might be asking yourself sometimes, "How can I allow myself to stay in a relationship that is so bad?" Well, for many of us it has almost nothing to do with the person or the thing we actually have the relationship with, but instead it is about what we associate with that person or thing. It can become so confusing because a lot of times we end up in a situation that we feel like we can't get out of, but we know that the person or the habit is ultimately hurting us.

Let me tell you a little bit about a habit. A habit comes from finding out that a certain action leads to a certain feeling. So maybe you do something that brings you joy and you take note of it again. Let's just say that the next time you go to do that thing you notice joy again. Well, now you have some positive associations with that action. You are probably going to come back to that time and time again because you want to get that positive feeling, and there isn't anything inherently negative or wrong about that. The problem comes from us mislabeling things. You see, on the flip side of the habit coin we are supposed to stop doing things that bring us pain or heartbreak over and over again, but sometimes we label the heartbreak as positive because we are measuring the right way.

Maybe you are in a relationship with someone who is toxic. They treat you poorly, they are overprotective, and maybe they even cheat on you. Now normally you might think that it is obvious that that situation is wrong and should be labeled as a negative, right? Well not necessarily. Maybe you have tied your worth to whether or not you are in a relationship. If that is the case then being in the relationship is a positive thing that outweighs the negative of their toxic traits. That's the problem. Incorrect measurement. Let's say you like the way a drug feels when you take it so you label it a positive, but what about the fact that it is shortening your lifespan and destroying your relationship with everyone around you. You are not measuring your positive and negative correctly. You are measuring all of the wrong things.

You have got to condition yourself to label things the right way as soon as a relationship starts so you can condition yourself correctly before you become addicted to the problem. Start measuring the right things, and watch closely for what is toxic.

It all starts with you.