How to Know When Enough Is Enough

Kenny Rogers once sang, “You got to know when to hold ‘em/know when to fold ‘em/know when to walk away/know when to run.” When you’re in a situation that is not going well, sometimes it’s hard to know when to keep fighting and when to throw in the towel. There is something to be said for persistence and perseverance; there is also something to be said about ramming your head against a brick wall. An old saying is that “insanity is doing the same thing but expecting different results.” This is an exercise to help you determine if you are spinning your wheels or just need to put some extra effort into removing the obstacle.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Yourself
• An expanded mind
• A willingness to let go

1. Determine the significance of the situation. Is it over something relatively small, like a toilet seat left up or someone speaking too loudly from their cubicle, or is it something large, like taking too much money out of the joint account or telling lies to the boss? Determining the gravity of the situation will let you know how much (or how little) effort to put toward finding a solution.

2. Determine the significance of the relationship: Is this a disagreement between two coworkers or an argument between spouses? Is the rift between friends who have known each other for over ten years, or between acquaintances who met three weeks ago? The esteem in which you hold a relationship will also help determine how actively you try to fix the problem between you.

3. Pay attention to your feelings. Does your situation leave you feeling frequently drained? Are you miserable most of the time? Is it overall a good thing but this is a rough patch? Once you figure that out, then you can decide if you want to stay in a situation that is usually bad, or work through a bad spot in an otherwise good situation. If you want to get out of it and keep it moving, then do what’s best for you. If you want to stay in it and try to make it work, then keep reading and do what’s best for you.

4. Calm down. Charging into a discussion about a problem with your emotions running high usually leads to foot-in-mouth disease. Words once spoken cannot be taken back, so be careful of what you say and how you say it. That’s not to say that you should negate your feelings on an issue, because you shouldn’t .How the situation made you feel is important. But saying nasty or hurtful things for the sake of getting a bit of revenge is just going to make things worse.

5. Listen. When discussing an issue, it’s easy to tune out what the other person is saying and concentrate only on what you have to say. This is not productive, as you will end up going around and around in circles over the same stuff; there is no need to waste free air. Even though it seems like it’s all about you, it isn’t just all about you. It’s about you and the other person. Get over yourself and work toward a common solution.

Tips & Warnings

• This is not an overnight process for most people, especially if time and care was taken to cultivate the relationship and/or the issue is a very important one to one or more parties in the relationship. We all make mistakes when we communicate with each other, and we seem to make the most with the people whom we care most deeply about. The important thing is that we try to make things right.