No one said that life after a break up would be easy. In fact, it can be one of the most challenging times in someone’s life. When you invest your time and love into someone and it doesn’t work out, it can leave you with a lot of negative feelings. You could end up feeling depressed, anxious, hopeless about life and overall decrease your self-esteem. This makes finding motivation to move on after a break up an extremely difficult task.
It can leave you skeptical about whether you will ever find the person you’re supposed to be with. It can also leave you in shock, because you were so set on spending the rest of your life with this person and suddenly you have to find the motivation to move on.
You forget who you were before you were with this person. You suddenly find yourself lost and unable to navigate your day because your life has completely shifted. Not only do you have to deal with all the responsibilities that come with your everyday life, you have to deal with them while feeling sad.
The worst part is that you see everyone around you just living their lives while yours suddenly stopped.
Despite it being a difficult transition, you should look at it as a positive thing. Honestly, you’re not alone. According to research, 64% of Americans have gone through the break up of a long-term relationship.
Everything truly happens for a reason, and just because this relationship didn’t work out doesn’t mean your life is over. It only means that there’s someone better out there for you that is supposed to stay in your life.
“Sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.”
–Marilyn Monroe
While you may only focus on the things you liked about this person, you guys broke up for a reason. That reason should never be ignored. Truth is if the relationship was “perfect” the way you’re describing it right now in your brain, you wouldn’t be feeling this way at the moment.
Reasons Couples Break up in the First place
- You don’t feel love for your partner anymore.
- Lack of trust and communication
- You want to live a different life than the one you’re living with your significant other.
- It doesn’t feel like an equal partnership anymore and it’s making both of you miserable.
- You don’t feel like yourself in while you’re in this relationship
- Isolation from friends and Family
- Jealousy turning into controlling behavior
- The relationship is toxic, and it’s not letting you grow as a person.
Whatever the circumstance may be, and no matter how positive the change may be. It doesn’t change how difficult it is to find motivation to move on after the break up.
You can still care a lot about someone and it still may not the person you’re supposed to end up with and that’s okay.
Your feelings are still valid and should not be taken lightly. You should, however, learn from your mistakes and become a better person based on the lessons that were learned from your experiences.
Does this happen overnight?
Absolutely not. However, time heals all wounds and I know you’re more than capable of going through the necessary steps to heal. You wouldn’t have opened up this article if you weren’t ready to take control of your life and move on.
Here are some steps you can take if you’re struggling with motivation to move on after a break-up:
1) Be Honest With Yourself
“Pain makes you stronger, fear makes you braver, heartbreak makes you wiser.”
— Drake
Many people give the advice that when you break up with someone you should stay busy and do as many activities as possible to forget about the person. Although, that’s partly true, you should also be honest with yourself and process your emotions in a healthy matter rather than trying to ignore them.
If you don’t deal with your emotions right away, they will come back stronger. Take the time you need to process what happened. Don’t go out and jump into trying to meet someone new or distract yourself with temporary people. Work on yourself.
If you’re feeling so drained that it’s hard to even think, this is a sign that something needs to change. Often what we need in those moments are motivation and help from others.
Ask for help if you need it from close friends or family members. Surround yourself with people that you know are genuine and care about you.
If you don’t feel comfortable talking to people who you’re close with about how you’re feeling, then you should consider joining a support group. It may sound dumb, but there’re hundreds of people going through the same thing you are. Joining a support group could help you be more open about how you’re feeling and could help heal some of your wounds knowing you’re not alone.
Give it time, and eventually the pain will lessen. Try to be patient with yourself as well! You’ve been through so much already, don’t overload yourself by trying all these things that everyone else says you should do. You should always be honest with yourself and understand how you’re feeling.
2) Find Your Purpose Outside Of The Relationship
“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”
— Socrates
Do what makes you happy! Start doing things that you stopped doing because of your relationship. Get back to your hobbies! Or you can reinvent yourself and start doing things that you have never done before.
Take time for yourself by doing something new and fun that doesn’t involve your ex. This could be anything from taking up dance classes, going on trips to places you’ve never been before, or learning a new language!
Trying new things can be very rewarding. It will give you a sense of independence and make you feel capable of doing anything you want alone. Stop waiting around for others to do things that you want to do. Find a way to do them without waiting on anyone.
The important thing is that you are doing things for yourself. Finding motivation to move on after a break up can become very simple when you realize you’re finding the motivation to better yourself.
If you find motivation to move on after your break up by doing these things, you’ll want to keep doing more activities and find purpose outside of the relationship.
If you’re not in the mood to do tremendous activities yet, start by doing minor changes or find time to give back to others. ex. volunteering or donating to charity. It doesn’t take much time and can help make you feel better in the long run.
3) Develop Good Habits
“Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have – life itself.”
– Walter Anderson
The most important thing is that every activity you meant to better yourself becomes a habit. You can find pleasure with doing things like decorating your room, developing a skin care routine, and starting to implement a morning yoga routine
Maybe there’s some things in your life that you want to change but haven’t. A big part of staying happy is to make changes in your life. These new habits will become routine and eventually successful. Doing the same things over and over won’t make you happy, but doing something different that improves your quality of life would!
I personally started eating healthier as a result of my break up (after a couple stress eating days of course). It made me feel good knowing that I was practicing being the best version of myself possible and slowly started incorporating other healthy habits around my life.
4) Stop Stressing about What Could’ve Been
I’m more interested in the future than in the past, because the future is where I intend to live.
– Albert Einstein
It’s natural to be sad and down after a break up but it’s also important to learn how not to feed into your sadness.
“The past is in the past. It’s best to let it stay there.”
A lot of people find themselves going back into a cycle, trying to heal their wounds by reliving old memories and behaviors that have hurt them before. You can’t change what happened, but you do not need any more pain welling up inside your heart.
Instead, focus on how much better your life is when you focus on yourself.
It’s often tempting to think about what you would’ve done differently, but it will not change anything. It’s like beating yourself up for something that happened in the past all over again. These kinds of negative feelings are not what you should be focusing on.
Forgive yourself and let go of thoughts on what could have been. Those things didn’t happen for a reason.
5) Put On A Strong Face And Do What You Need To Do
I am going to be happy. I’m going to smile a lot. And I’m going to be easy. I am going to count my blessings. I’m going to look for reasons to feel good. And I’m going to dig up positive things from the past. Plus I’m going to look for positive things where I stand. And I’m going to look for positive things in the future. It is my natural state to be a happy person. It’s natural for me to love and to laugh. I am a happy person.
– Abraham Hicks
It is important not to wallow in self-pity and fear. If you choose to act with guilt, fear, or pain after a break up, then, in the long term, these feelings will make it less likely for you to move on with your life. It can be difficult at times, but focusing on positive thoughts is the best way.
Block him/her on all of your social media sites. Don’t stalk them. It will benefit you so much more once you see that they’re no longer around. Stalking them to see how they are doing will only make you feel worse. Also, please don’t be friends with your ex (at least right away), take that time to yourself.
You’re gonna feel so much more growth once you treat this breakup in a mature manner. Doing this will prove that you are capable of processing your emotions and understand what the best for you is.
You are the driver of your life and future. YOU deserve to live the best imaginable life, letting no one make you feel like you’re not capable of improving your life. We even have a whole article on how to date yourself.
Let this break up be the beginning of your new life, the life you deserve to live, explore and enjoy.
We all have hard times but if you stay positive, finding motivation to move on after your break up will only make you a stronger person.
Focus on things that are important to you. Your career, your health, your family should all be things you should be prioritizing. Level up from where you were before.
I’ve always been a fan of writing down what I want to achieve. This not only helps me keep track, but it also gives my mind something more tangible than just hoping and wishing for these things to happen. Try setting some goals that are attainable so you know where you need to focus your efforts!
Bottom Line:
It can be tough to find motivation to move on after a break up, but people do it every day. It may take you a month, 6 months, a year. There will be a point where you will think about the person and you will suddenly feel nothing.
That moment of realization will make you feel so powerful.
Remember, while going through this process of healing and self reflection, it’s important that you’re honest with yourself and know what’s best for the both of you;
1) Be honest with how you’re feeling
2) Find your purpose outside of the relationship so you don’t feel like all your time is taken up by someone else;
3) Don’t stress about what could have been- whether good or bad—and instead focus on doing whatever will make YOU happy in this moment;
4) Put on a strong face and push through the hard times.
There’s no doubt in my mind that you can do this. After you find the motivation to move on after a break up, you’ll realize how capable you are to do whatever you want out of your life.
What are some ways that you’ve found motivation to move on after a break up? Let me know!
