Stop giving away your power

Feel like your life is spinning out of control? Stop giving away your power.

by: E.B. Johnson

When our lives go spinning out of control, it’s often the result of a loss of personal power. Losing touch with our hopes, courage and confidence can go a long way in undermining our happiness. This occurs when we sacrifice pieces of ourselves in return for the validation of others — a risky process that always comes with more heartache than it’s worth.

The only validation in the world that matters is our own. We are the only ones who have the ability to find value and worth in ourselves and our lives. Placing this power in the hands of others will always destroy our sense of self and pull us away from the things which offer us fulfillment and joy. If you want to take back control of your life, stop giving your personal power away to other people. Only you can take it back and reclaim it as your own.

Giving away power is the worst you can thing to do.

Giving away your personal power is one of the worst things you can do in this life. We have to hold on tight to our personal power and use it to help us overcome the hardship and adversity that life throws our way. When we hand this power over to others, we give them the ability to manipulate our emotions and undermine our happiness in ways that hard to come back from.

Rather than giving up on those things which define us, we have to find the courage to stand strong beside our hopes and visions of the future. Seeking validation in others is a fool’s game, as we alone are fully capable of understanding our needs and the core experiences that will bring us fulfillment in this life.

Stop putting their opinions over your own and stop chasing their joy when you know it offers you no home. Instead of giving in to their guilt trips, or giving them the key to your emotions — discover the power in detaching and finding your own way forward into the future that you desire to build. No matter how much we love someone (or respect them) it does not mean that they have a right to dictate our lives. Take back your personal power and find a future that is authentically aligned with your needs.

Why we give our personal power to other people.

Giving our personal power away is a nuanced process, and one that happens over time. You don’t wake up one day and decide to give up on yourself. You give your power away out of fear and anxiety, or you have it taken from you by those who would use you for their own advantage.

Hardship and stress

Life is difficult, and it doesn’t seem to get easier as the days and years drag on. When the hardship and the stress become too much to bear, it can become tempting to hand the reins of power over to someone else in our lives. When we do this, we can blame them for our misery, and we can blame them for all the things we fail to secure for ourselves. It’s an easy out, but a miserable existence — and one that doesn’t lend itself to happy endings.

Eroded self-confidence

Self-confidence is important, and it helps us to safeguard our happiness and our wellbeing. When this self-confidence is eroded, however, we find ourselves dealing with subpar self-esteem that can cause us to believe we don’t have the ability to manage our own lives. Little-by-little, we give away our power and start to follow the whims, desires and directions of those around us. Our fulfillment evaporates, and so does our joy and hope in life.

Childhood trauma

Our childhoods form the baseline of our behaviors and relationships later in life, and this is especially true when it comes to the power dynamics we perpetuate and play out in our adult lives. If you were raised on examples of toxic power struggles, you might model these struggles later — giving your power up to subpar partners who are only there to take advantage of you, or get what they can from your abilities and skills.

General unhappiness

A common factor behind our need to sacrifice our power is general unhappiness. When you find yourself at the bottom of a hole looking up, you can long desperately for any quick rescue. The problem there, though, is that you’re then in debt (and forever beholden) to the person who exerted the effort to get you out of that hole. Rather than handing our personal power over to others, we have to learn to look to them for inspiration…then begin our own ascent.

Loss of self

When we lose ourselves, we lose sight of those experiences and actions which can give our lives meaning and purpose. Wandering rudderless, we can find ourselves becoming the victims of the other people’s “validation”. We take their ideas as gospel and start molding ourselves to fit their definition of what a “happy” life looks like. More often than not, we end up even more unhappy and lost for the trouble.

Signs you’re giving your personal power away.

Feeling lost, or as though you don’t know who you are or what you want anymore? You might be giving your personal power away, and these are the signs you might be missing.

Prioritizing opinions

The way we prioritize the opinions around us is important and though it’s crucial that we listen to others — it’s also imperative that we don’t put their thoughts before our own. If you’re giving everyone else’s opinion more weight than your own, it means you’re giving them power over how you see yourself and the world around you. You have to value the perspectives of other people without always giving them priority.

Giving in to guilt

Do you constantly give into the guilt trips or pressure of the people around you? Giving in to guilt is a common sign of transferring personal power, and it’s also one of the most common. Our guilt and our shame can drive us to make rash and impulsive decisions that do more to hurt us in the long run than to help. Those that love us will never try to use guilt to push us into doing something that we don’t want to do. That’s manipulation, and it’s toxic.

Constant complaints

When we constantly complain about our lives, it indicates an inability to manage, accept or take responsibility for our lives. Do you complain about anything and everything you have going on in your life, as though looking for someone to swoop in and save you from it? This can indicate a victim mentality, or the belief that someone else can or even should shoulder the burden of your baggage.

Need to prove it all

Not all signs of giving up our personal power are overt like the ones above. Sometimes, the signs of giving up on yourself are much more subtle. Among these more subtle signs is an overwhelming need to prove yourself. Think about your life and all the things you strive for day-in and day-out. If you’re only setting out to prove other people wrong, you’re giving them power over your journey and your body (through your emotions).

Off-base investments

Off-base investments are another subtle sign that you’re giving your power away. This occurs when we invest a disruptive amount of time and energy in people we don’t care about, or people that we don’t like. We might tell ourselves that we’re doing it for the right reasons, but those reasons are usually as flimsy as our affection for these people. When we chase people we dislike, in the hopes that they’ll give us what we want, we’re giving them power where it doesn’t belong.

Bringing out the worst

Do other people bring out the absolute worst in you? Are there people in your life who have the ability to make you lose your cool just by walking into the room? This is an indication that other people hold the key to your emotional prison. They wind you up, make you feel hopeless, or otherwise bring out the worst in you. This is power, and it’s a dangerous power for them to hold over you. When you allow others to impact you emotionally, you give them the ability to throw you off and mess you up whenever they want.

Chasing the wrong joy

One of the most powerful ways in which you can identify whether you are giving away your power is to trace back your path to joy. When we chase someone else’s picture of a happy life, we give them power to define us and the power to choose what’s important to us. Do you change your goals based on the approvals (or rejections) of other people? Then you’re giving them the power to decide what you do with your life.

The best ways to take back your power and stand up for yourself.

You don’t have to live a life that is powerless, or out-of-control forever. You can learn how to take back your power by committing to the process and taking action for yourself right here, right now — today. It’s never too late to build a future that aligns with our hope and our happiness.

1. Stop the process in its tracks

Handing over our personal power — whether we realize it or not — is a process, and one that requires us to actively return the emotional responses or decisions that other people make for us. If we want to stop this process, we have to commit to stopping it. That means taking action and standing up for ourselves now, and not later.

The next time someone asks you for a favor, or asks you to do something for them — take a step back. Breathe, count to 10, and then consider your feelings. Is this something that you really want to do? If it is, what is driving that desire? Do you desire it for yourself? Or do you desire it because you want this person to like you, or approve of you?

Make the conscious decision to stop pleasing others and start identifying your own needs. Spend time with yourself and create space between you and the people you are most likely to acquiesce. Stop the process in its tracks and do that by getting committing (proactively) to the journey right now. These answers make a difference and signal where the true power lies.

2. Chip away at the victim mentality

The victim mentality is toxic, and it’s a common reason that we give up and give in on who we are. While some of us are unaware of this tendency, others aren’t — and they consciously use this tactic to garner sympathy and relinquish their power. Why relinquish their own power? Because it’s (sometimes) easier than doing the hard work for a happy life yourself.

Examine what has caused you to rely on playing the “victim” in your life (if that’s what your problem is). Ask yourself what value you get from allowing others to decide who you are and how your life plays out. Do you enjoy the attention? Are your views on affection and validation warped? You alone hold the answers.

Chip away at this victim mentality and allow yourself to see the power in defining your own life through your own actions. No one can take that victory from you. No one can steal it, or claim that it was never yours to begin with. You have to chip away your victim mentality if you want to own your own life, and the decisions that take place in it. Sure, the work is hard…but it’s beautiful, rewarding and fulfilling too.

3. Communicate what comes next

Finding the strength to recognize your own personal power isn’t enough. You must also communicate this new turn to the people in your life. This doesn’t happen through a sit-down conversation. It happens by setting boundaries and limitations for which you demand respect. Before you can do that, however, you need to know where those boundary-lines lie.

Spend some time getting familiar with what, precisely, your limits are. Figure out what crosses the line, and what behaviors you’re no longer willing to allow in your vicinity.

Be brutally honest. If you’re giving away your personal power because you’re surrounded by bullies who push you into making decisions you aren’t comfortable with — it’s time to draw the line. Communicate what comes next by sticking up for yourself and making it clear that you will no longer have your life dictated by people who care more for themselves than they do for you.

4. Solidify your core

You have to get back to the core of who you are if you ever want to have a hope of taking your personal power back in this world. That means getting clear and specific about what makes you tick and getting proactive about aligning your values with the people and experiences that fill up your life. Stop chasing the image that other people are building and rebuild your vision of self from the ground up.

Get back to the root of who you are, and those authentic aspects of self that bring you passion, strength and courage. Invest in some self-care, take an online course, or pick up those paintbrushes that have been moldering in the dark. Fall back in love with yourself and begin the journey back into the center of your authentic self.

The more in touch with your core that you are, the more clear your future becomes. When we get our authentic needs and desires in-sight, we get our courage and our fortitude in-sight too. Think about the last thing you were certain about. How hard did you fight for that thing? How determined did you become to stick up for it? The same goes for our lives. The better (and more honestly) we know ourselves, the more comfortable we become standing in our own personal power.

5. Identify the choices ahead

Another great way to take back your personal power is to get excited about the future ahead. When you’re uncertain about the future, you become fearful of it. In this fear, you might avoid making the hard choices (handing them off to someone else). Becoming more confident in the future — and therefore less avoidant — comes when we identify the choices ahead; seeing the beauty in our power of choice.

Look ahead at all the life that is yet to come, and all the time you have to make the big changes in your life. It’s never too late to start doing what you want to do. It’s never too late to start building the life that aligns with your joy and fulfillment.

Identify the choices ahead. Focus in on all the instances still left in which you have the ability to change the course of your own life. These choices could lie in your career (like taking a big promotion, or starting your own business). But they could also lie in things like moving across the country, or making some big changes in your romantic relationships. Each of these is a pivotal decision that could open the door to your dreams.

6. Lean into freedom

So many of us yearn for freedom, but many of us find true freedom uncomfortable. That is because true freedom requires us to be fully responsible and accountable for our lives and the decisions we make. It’s far easier to blame others, or blame your circumstances for everything that goes wrong. Taking responsibility for everything you get right, though? That’s something that can only come by leaning into freedom and reclaiming your personal power.

Reshape your ideas on freedom and find comfort in setting out on your own. Get used to taking big steps independently. Travel solo, try something no one in your family has ever tried before. The more confident you get in hanging your feet out over the cliff’s edge, the easier jumping becomes.

Trust that you know what’s best for yourself. Trust that you have the ability and the resilience to manifest the life you want and overcome the hardships that will inevitably come along the way. We find ourselves when we push ourselves beyond the edge of the cliff, into the open air of freedom. Lean into your freedom and start taking back power for yourself and the future you’ve always wanted to build.

Putting it all together…

Life is challenging and the scariness of it all can often push us into giving away our power. When we find ourselves spinning out of control or otherwise lost, it’s often because we’ve placed our futures in the hand’s of someone else’s validation. If we want to find a way to lead joyful and fulfilling lives, we have to take action in the name of our futures and take back our personal power.

Stop the process in its tracks and proactively commit to taking responsibility for your life and the choices made within it. You have a right to be the person you want to be, and you need no one’s validation but your own. Chip away at the victim mentality that is holding you back and stand strong beside your ability to choose your own happiness. Spend some time setting boundaries, then make sure you communicate those boundaries to anyone who would take power from you. We don’t owe anyone our lives or our joy. Get back to the root of who you are and get excited about the future by identifying all the choices you have left ahead. Freedom is daunting, but living a life defined by others is even more so. Find comfort in the discomfort of standing in your own power, and use that to build a life that is authentically yours.