10 Powerful Ways To Let Go Of What No Longer Serves You

I know we have probably heard the term “let go of what no longer serves you” more than a dozen times but if we are truly being honest, despite how often we hear it, it still doesn’t get easier.

I have never been good at dealing with change. I have always been so afraid of it to a point that for the longest time, I have always chosen to hold on to certain things and habits that were only keeping me unhappy just because they felt familiar and safe.

I can’t even begin to tell you the number of times I have chosen to hold on to things, and people and put so much effort into keeping things stay the same even if it was already negatively affecting my mental health because letting them go would mean opening myself up to change and uncertainties.

That for me was more terrifying than holding on to things that no longer served me. At that time I strongly believed that I was doing what was best for me.

But man was I wrong. The thing is, I’ve realized that time is fleeting and regardless of what we do or how much we want to stay still, things around us are continuously changing.

The more that we try to hold on to things that are no longer serving us, the more we are only holding ourselves back and keeping ourselves from moving forward.

Life is by far too short and too precious to just spend it unhappy, stuck, and just living it unfulfilled.

Letting go of what no longer serves you means opening yourself up to growth, progress, and healing. We can’t move forward and unlock our fullest potential if we are still holding on to things that are holding us back and sabotaging our overall well-being.

It’s time to let those things go, start a new chapter in life, and live your best life. In this post, I have gathered the steps that have tremendously helped me in this journey. I’m hoping that these will help you too!

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How To Let Go Of What No Longer Serves You

1. Take The Time To Reflect

One of the most important steps that you have to take to let go of what no longer serves you is to really take the time to sit down, reflect and identify the things, habits, and relationships that are only weighing you down, keeping you from growing and being your best self or simply just no longer making you happy.

Be prepared to ask yourself the hard questions and answer them truthfully. I know it can be hard sometimes to admit to ourselves what those things or who those people are, more often than we would like to admit, it’s so much easier to just live in denial.

I definitely understand how you feel. I was guilty of that too. But one thing that really helped me during this process is by remembering that as with everything else in this world, we also grow, change, and continue to evolve into our best selves, and with that comes changes in our needs, wants, values, and principles.

The more that we try to continue holding on to those things that no longer align with the person that we are now and the person we want to become, the longer we are only keeping ourselves stuck, unable to move forward, and unhappy.

2. Let Go Of Control

Are you guilty of spending so much time and effort constantly trying to control every little aspect of your life?

I definitely am. For the longest time, I have been guilty of focusing so much effort and attention on trying to control every little detail of my life.

I have this illusion that as long as I am doing this I am preventing things from falling apart. As long as I’m doing this everything will go exactly as I planned.

But of course, all of that was just an illusion because the reality is, there is so much more in life that we have no control over.

Regardless of how hard and how many times we try, some things will always be out of our control.

And the more we try to control every little thing, the more we are only setting ourselves up for disappointments and heartaches.

If you want to let go of what no longer serves you, one of the things that you have to learn to do is to let go of control.

When we spent so much time trying to control everything in our lives, we often have a tendency to hold on to certain things just because they seem familiar and we think that we have better control over them, even if they are no longer serving us.

We have to accept that we can never control everything in our lives and instead of focusing so much attention and energy trying to do that, let’s set ourselves free from that burden and focus our attention on the things that we can do instead.

I’ve learned that when we let go of control, we are actually allowing ourselves to welcome new possibilities without the fear of change and uncertainties because of this, we can finally see things clearly and reflect on the habits, values, and relationships that are only holding us back.

3. Forgive

For years, I’ve allowed myself to be consumed by my grudges and resentments toward others and most especially toward myself.

I didn’t realize that by doing this I was not only hurting myself over and over again but I was also keeping myself stuck in the past and robbing myself of the chance to be present and enjoy all the wonderful things that are currently happening in my life.

I realized that holding on to the pains and resentments of the past was only making me bitter and angry at the world and the only thing that it was actually doing was hurting me.

I know that forgiveness can be difficult. Sometimes, it can even seem impossible but know that forgiving someone doesn’t mean that you are excusing someone’s mistake or that you are minimizing the pain or the wrongness of what they have done.

It just means that you are finally setting yourself free from carrying that pain, and negativity, and allowing yourself to heal and move forward.

Also, I know that more often than we would like to admit, it is so much more difficult to forgive ourselves than others, if this is what you feel, please know that you as much as anybody else deserve forgiveness.

Human as we are, we all make mistakes and bad choices, what matters is what you do after. You take responsibility for your mistakes but don’t let those mistakes trap you in the past.

It’s time to set yourself free and stop letting the guilt, shame, and regret hold you back from living your life.

4. Give Yourself Grace

This goes hand in hand with what I’ve mentioned above. The process of letting go of what no longer serves you is definitely challenging and overbearing.

During this process, it’s important to be kind to yourself. Give yourself grace, compassion, and love, instead of criticizing yourself and beating yourself up.

When I went through this journey, I made the mistake of being too hard on myself. I kept criticizing myself for having a hard time letting go of something that was only making me so unhappy.

I called myself a failure for even letting this happen to me. Doing this did not help me in any way, in fact, it just made everything much worse.

It just made it even more difficult for me to let go and it made the process even more overwhelming to a point that I felt like giving up.

Remember that what you are doing is certainly not a walk in the park. You are brave for taking this step needed to move forward, recognize yourself for that, and be gentle and patient with yourself during this journey.

5. Set Healthy Boundaries

How many times have you continuously overextended yourself? How many times have you put your needs on the back burner and said yes to things you really didn’t want to do just to please other people?

I’m definitely not here to judge you for doing that because truth be told, I was also guilty of this for the longest time and sometimes I still even catch myself doing this.

I know how easy it is to take our needs, mental health, and well-being for granted. We keep saying yes to other people just to feel accepted, worthy, and enough.

I’ve done this for years and I realized that doing this did not only negatively impact my happiness and mental health but also, left me with so much resentment toward the people who took advantage of me.

One of the most important steps that you can take in the process of letting go of what no longer serves you is by setting clear and healthy boundaries.

Setting healthy boundaries will make it so much easier for you to let go of what no longer serves you since it’ll give you a sense of empowerment that’ll remind you that you have what it takes to make the necessary changes in your life to drastically improve it.

6. Practice Daily Gratitude

When we are stuck in a negative and unhappy situation or when our life is falling apart, practicing daily gratitude can seem impossible.

I mean, when everything in our lives is going wrong, finding something to be grateful for can be difficult. I know how you feel.

When I was at my lowest, and my life was falling apart, I allowed myself to be consumed by the negativity. From the moment I wake up, I only focus my attention and energy on all the things that were going wrong in my life.

It made me so bitter and angry and to be honest, it just made my situation a whole lot worse because it made me feel more hopeless and frustrated with everything.

I realized that being grateful doesn’t mean that you’re invalidating the struggle and the pain that you are feeling, it just means that you are choosing to not let those consume your life.

Being grateful for me means recognizing that though things are falling apart, there is still hope and happiness in the little everyday things of life.

Practicing daily gratitude did not only help me appreciate the small things in life but also motivated me and helped me find hope in the darkest times.

It made me see the good things that I was taking for granted and it also made me realize that I was holding on to certain habits and mindsets that were sabotaging my happiness and well-being.

Here is a great post from Better Up that’ll help you learn how to practice gratitude.

7. Free Yourself From Expectations

Human as we are, we are all bound to have expectations. Now I’m not saying expectations are a bad thing because I know that often they can actually fuel our determination, motivate us and most importantly give us hope.

But the problem starts when we constantly cling to achieving certain outcomes and become fixated on things always going the way we planned and when it doesn’t, we are only met with frustrations and heartbreak.

We become so consumed with holding on to certain outcomes of things and situations that we start to become stuck in patterns and habits that are no longer serving us and making us happy.

Freeing yourself from expectations means recognizing that sometimes things may not always go the way we planned and that’s perfectly okay.

It is accepting whatever comes your way, instead of spending all your energy and effort controlling everything just to achieve an unrealistic expectation.

When you free yourself from expectations, you are allowing yourself to be more present in every moment of your life.

It will also help you finally break free from negative thoughts and habits that you were clinging to just to achieve certain outcomes that were holding you back.

8. Love Yourself More

Learning to love yourself more is an essential part of helping you let go of what no longer serves you.

There’s no denying that loving yourself is often easier said than done. Especially when you are struggling in life or you’re feeling stuck, lost, and just so confused. Loving yourself is probably the last thing on your mind.

But there’s definitely no better time to do this than now. When I hit rock bottom, I realized that loving ourselves in the darkest and toughest times can be one of the greatest things that we can do.

When you learn to love yourself more, you will finally start to see your worth and value. You will finally see that you are enough and worthy just as you are now and without the need for validation and approval of others.

Loving yourself can open your eyes and make you see the things, people, and situations that you are so desperate to hold on to that are not really doing you any good and are only keeping you unhappy and unable to move forward.

Loving yourself can give you a sense of empowerment and remind you that you have the power within you to let go of the things that are no longer serving you and open yourself up to new possibilities and experiences.

I know that learning to love ourselves can be difficult. It’s not really something that we just master overnight, we have to take it day by day.

To help you get started on this journey, take this 30 day self love challenge now.

9. Don’t Be Afraid To Take Small Steps

Making a change, starting a new chapter in life, or letting go of what no longer serves you can be overwhelming and terrifying.

That is what I felt. Just thinking about all the things that I have to do, all the uncertainties, the changes, it was all so paralyzing to me that at some point I even hesitated to go through with it.

If you’re feeling the same way too. One of the things that really helped me during this time is by taking things one day at a time. Just taking small steps every single day.

It’s important to remember that while we do want to have big goals, sometimes taking huge leaps and tackling big tasks can easily become too much for us, that’s why it’s perfectly okay to take small steps.

You don’t have to make big changes all at once. All you have to do is to take the first step and take small steps every single day.

10. Embrace Change And Uncertainties

Are you also guilty of choosing to just stay still and unhappy instead of moving forward and opening yourself up to new possibilities because you are so afraid of change and uncertainties?

I definitely am. Let’s face it, sometimes change is not always exciting, more often than we would like to admit, it can be daunting and scary.

Especially for someone who needs to have a sense of control in their life. Opening ourselves up to change and all the uncertainties that go along with it can be too much.

That’s why often we just choose to stay where we are, even if it is no longer serving us and we are always constantly unhappy, just because it’s familiar and comfortable.

But the thing is, the more that we do this, the longer we are only keeping ourselves trapped in a situation that is no longer helping us grow and live our life to the fullest.

Remember that life is by far too precious to just waste it feeling empty, unhappy, and unfulfilled. There are still so much more opportunities waiting for you, we just have to be brave enough to step outside our comfort zone and make the changes necessary for us to grow and unlock our fullest potential.

Embrace the journey of life and start living the life that you want.

Final Thoughts

Before I end this post, I want to leave you with this, when you let go of what no longer serves you, it’s perfectly normal to feel sad and heartbroken about it. Whatever you are feeling is perfectly valid.

The important thing is that you recognize those emotions and instead of bottling them up or running away from them, you allow yourself the time to grieve and feel them.

Don’t be afraid to feel those emotions. Just because they were no longer serving you or they were no longer aligned with your values and beliefs, doesn’t invalidate the sadness that you are feeling.

Recognize that what you’re doing is brave and you are strong for taking this step. Just because you’re letting go doesn’t mean that you’re forgetting.

It just means that you are now ready to move forward and open yourself up to new possibilities and experiences that’ll help you grow and live a meaningful and fulfilling life.

I’m rooting for you!