How To Honor Yourself and Crush Someone Else’s Hopes and Dreams…..WITHOUT Burning Bridges or Destroying Friendships

Have you ever decided that THIS IS IT, YOU NEED YOUR SPACE??

It might be that you need to break up with your business partner, or you have to fire a customer, or you crave space and want to ditch your significant other….at least until you've figured out just WHERE you want your life to take you.

In other words, you have to honor your own needs first and foremost.

So…you decided that THIS IS IT, and picture a delightful life without the current bothersome idjuts who are sapping your attention.  Oh, certainly, you like these people as, well, people, and if you had your druthers, you'd keep their friendship/business acumen/etc. forever after as well.

Right?

But let's be realistic, shall we? 

If you crush someone's hopes or dreams or future business earnings, the chances are, they're going to despise you only slightly less than wolves shun Sarah Palin. 

Unless, of course, you manage to shift your relationship WITHOUT destroying bridges and WITH maintaining your current friendship.

And here's how.


Step 1.)  Emphasize how it's not the other person, it's YOU.

Having the rug yanked out from under you  is something pretty damned difficult to understand.  Chances are, the other person will immediately feel hurt/betrayed/"How can you do this to me?/etc."

Thus, you want to shift the causes of your actions.  It's not them.  They're wonderful people.  It's YOU.  YOU are the one who needs to figure out your next step/direction…and you need to do that alone.


Step 2.)  Make sure your actions walk the walk you talk.

If you need to break a relationship that you share with multiple people (multiple colleagues/customers/types of friendship/etc.), make certain FIRST that your actions SHOW you're serious.

Get rid of the least important person FIRST…before dropping your "Need to find ME!" quest on your best friend/best customer/etc.  After all, if you state," I have to revamp my friendship support base, BYE!" to the person who has been with you thru thick or thin…but then share you're too nice to really cut it loose with your other friends because it would hurt their feelings….the message.  She gets lost.

All that shows is you take care of the unimportant people's feelings while destroying those who would have stood against the world for you. 

Bad move indeed!

YOU know your needs are valid, and that your most important friend really IS…. the most important one there is. 

Make sure your actions show that.


Step 3.)  Ask the other person, "Tell me what you fear."

If you want to keep the door open for friendship/business works/etc. in the future, you HAVE to address their fears.

It's very easy to say, listen, I need to get myself together, blah blah blah, and while you feel a rush of relief after it's all been done and said, your friends/colleagues will think to themselves, "My gosh, I will never ever ever EVER deal with this person again." 

Not what you want!

So…you have to bring out into the open…."What do you fear?"

Make no mistake about it, this step is CRITICAL.

Because if you don't, the other person will concoct "what ifs" that you probably never ever considered in a bazillion years….and will color their views of you forever.

The other person might say,"I'll never see you again!"  

And you can respond, "No, that's not it at all – I love spending time with you, it's just RIGHT NOW, I am an idjut and need to get myself together."

The other person might say, "I'm not smart enough to go out and be successful on my own!

To which you can say, "Heck no, you're incredible, you're talented, and if you'd like, I'll go research all the resources online that can help you even better than I could."

The other person might say, "My family NEEDS the ABC always working, and you're the only one who can fix ABC!"   

And that cries for the response, "I sure know that feeling too!  (note – ALWAYS empathize!).  Let me see who else handles ABCs…and I'll personally drop them a line to introduce you as a future customer too."

Remember, everyone has failed mind-reading 101.  Your goal is NOT to burn bridges; you HAVE to bring the fears out into the open so you can destroy them as quickly as possible.


Step 4.)  Reassure the other person what they fear will NOT happen

It bears repeating. 

It's all very well and good to need to cut loose…but you really SHOULD honor your friends and customers who not only have depended upon you all these years, but also who has extended a hell of a lot of understanding and appreciation too.

It's just good business sense.


Step 5.)  Ask the other person, "Tell me what I can do now for you."

When all is said and done, the facts do remain.

  • You DO need space.
  • You DO want to keep the lines of communication open.
  • You DO want to re-evaluate things once you're in sync with the universe.

In short:

You DO care about the other person and want to lessen the hurt as much as possible.

So…ASK them to tell YOU.

"What can I do right now for you?"

'Course, they might say, "Slit open your veins while sky-diving naked from Mt. Everest in the dead of winter." 

Obviously, don't do this. 

However, again most obviously, a reaction like that says there's MUCH hurt STILL infesting the other person…and your original message of "It's ME!" didn't get thru to THEM.  They're still looking at it as though you did something to THEM…instead of the plain fact that you're trying to fix your current situation.

You have to re-evaluate how important it is to restart your message, several times if need be.

Ideally, though, the other person will say, you can keep me posted via email, you can drop me a text every morning with your updates, you can tell me when we can next meet for coffee so I know you're okay, etc.etc.etc.

Remember your main goal.  You want to keep your bridges stable and open for future traffic…you don't want to burn them beyond recognition.

See?

And that's some ways to help free yourself from current relationship/business burdens…while keeping the lines of communication open for the future.

There are, of course, a couple of things you should keep in mind.

1.)  The above won't work with immature peoples, nor people who lack self-confidence.

Sad but true.  There are some folks in the world who view EVERYTHING in terms of how it affects THEM…and NOT how it affects anyone else.  In this case, well, you're hosed and will probably have to be a wee bit more brutal in your goodbyes.

Make sure you DO try to keep the pain at a minimum…but you cannot take ownership of others' reactions.  Eventually, the time comes when you have to tell them, "Again, it's not you, it's me, I've stated everything I can possibly imagine I can say….I have to go now."

2.)  You NEED to stay firm.

If you've really and truly decided you need to make a change in your life…don't let other people's begging change that.  You went thru hell already committing to your decision; giving it up so easily will simply postpone the inevitable.

And finally…

3.)  Don't lie.

If you're really worried about the people you cut free, and if they're on your instant messenging lists and you both want to keep each other there…do NOT wait until after they've gone to bed before saying, "I was worried about you all day."

You honestly might have been.  But the truth really is…touching base when the person was actually awake and hurting…would have done a hell of a lot more good and shown a hell of a lot more sincerity.

Remember….

Life is always dynamic and always in motion.

You have every right to craft your own path…and even the wisest of peoples might need to recharge their souls in order to maintain current friendships and business relationships.

Just make sure to honor the people who love you and care about you…and keep your bridges in total operational condition.

Your spirit will thank you for it.

Enjoy,

Barbara Ling

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Get Barbara Ling’s Newsletter

Looking to get inspiration? You can get Barbara’s Daily Morning Perkup for free. Click the button below, and fill out the information in the form!

Get Started Here You’ll love what you learn… Promise!

Remember… this site is mainly a daily marketing Perkup, Smile-Maker and Newsletter… subscribe below to always have the edge in the morning!