I’m always preaching about learning about yourself.

Learning what makes you happy. Learning what doesn’t. Learning what makes you feel fulfilled, what dreams keep you up at night and what negative situations stay on your mind for days on end.

It’s in this process of learning about yourself that you learn how to create the best life for yourself.

When you’re learning about yourself you are staying aware. Staying aware of things happening around you and their effect on your happiness can be the change between a magical life and a painful one.

For example say things are going really well for you. You’re feeling more confident than ever, you have a great group of friends, and you’re really in love with where your life is.

Out of the blue you meet someone that you really like. You spend a few weeks together but this person isn’t completely and totally translucent. You know that they’re still recovering from a breakup and that there’s a 100% chance that you are going to walk out of this bruised and battered.

You might think that being bummed out about him not being fully committed to you might only effect your thoughts on your love life but there’s so much more that goes down without you even realizing it.

What happens is that not only is your perspective on men changing for the worse but you’re perspective on yourself and on life is also being negatively impacted.

When we stick around and allow somebody to treat us at a lower level than we prefer we’re welcoming a negative energy that is going to slowly diminish our confidence, our charisma, and our ability to be rational.

The same goes for friends, coworkers, or any situation that keeps you up at night hanging on every single word and wondering what it is about you that you could change to make things better.

Here is where we have to be aware.

We have to be aware that this person or situation is negatively effecting us and that in some situations the best case is to just walk away.

Take a second to step back and notice if insecurities, self doubt, and unhappiness all showed up around the same time as a certain person or situation. That’s when you know it’s time to walk away and that this person or situation is not beneficial to you.

“You can’t pour from an empty cup. Take care of yourself first.”

If there’s a person or situation that is causing you unhappiness you’re essentially depleting yourself of happiness and then never refilling yourself.

As hard as it may seem now, it’s completely and totally worth it to walk away and not allow that situation to mess with your current positive perspectives on dating, yourself, and life.

Learn what makes your happiness tick and what makes you top dead in your tracks in a sea of self doubt.

Learning about yourself-the best ways to make yourself happy and the situations that will inevitably bring unnecessary suffering-will make a huge change in your life and will show you what’s worth your time and what isn’t.

Stay aware and continue to self reflect so that you can create the magical life that you deserve.