Do you know when I started feeling really comfortable in my own skin? When I stopped caring about the need to please others.

When I let go of the need to be liked, to serve others (ahead of myself), and stopped being my own toughest critic. Sometimes, you just need to let go of what isn’t serving you. Here are a few scenarios I would classify as ones that aren’t serving you.

1. Staying in a relationship where your partner is being verbally or mentally abusive.

2. Staying in a job that slows your enthusiasm down to a crawl. You literally have trouble getting out of bed in the morning when you think about having to go to work.

3. That friend, who is a walking ball of negative energy, but you feel like you are obligated to stay in their social network.

But you say, I feel like I need to serve others, they need me.

Great, but when all of these things are zapping your energy and your enthusiasm, who is helping YOU? if you are depleted of everything you can give, who are you able to help?

I’ve tried numerous ways to maintain my figure and weight over the years to stay healthy and feel good, but do you know what made me lose weight the fastest? A toxic relationship. I lost 15 pounds in 3 months. I was literally skin and bones.

It’s sad but true, but it’s likely that we have all had one of those in our relationship history. You know it’s bad but sometimes it’s not that bad, when they are nice to you for 1 hour out of 24 in the day it seems like it could get better.

My friends knew I needed to get out of the relationship, I knew I needed to get out of it, but I stayed because I still put the need to serve other’s needs over my own. The relationship wasn’t serving me, and nothing was keeping me there, except me.

It’s the same with toxic friends, just because they were the best friends for you 10 years ago doesn’t mean people don’t change, it doesn't your social circle stays stagnant forever. People grow and their intellectual and social needs evolve. Let them go because the friendship no longer serves the two of you. You are both better off moving onto new friendships.

How about the job? You need the money, you say. I say you can make the money elsewhere. Would you rather stay in a job that makes you want to go back to bed, or be in a job where you enjoy getting to work, where you feel like you light up when you get to the office?

Life is too short to have these make-believe prisons keep you in situations that do not serve you.

I challenge you to let go of one thing that is not serving you today. I’m curious, what will it be?