Managing Relationships by Divesting the Losers from Your Life!

Are there people in your life that create drama, mess up your sleep, or affect your happiness?

If you answered yes to any of the above, managing relationships may be something you need to address.

It’s time you really need to think about how you handle negative relationships.  And in many cases that involves making the unpleasant decision to divest the losers from your life!

Before We Start

Hi guys, Rick here…Howie and I wrote this article together.  However, we had a bit of a disagreement on the title.  I wanted to use ‘Managing Relationships by Divesting the Losers from Your Life’ as I believe some people are losers and you need to ditch them, simple as that.  Howie, on the other hand, does not like calling people losers and wanted to substitute ‘Losers’ with ‘People Who Hurt You’.

You may be wondering why we went with my title then.  Well, we settled our disagreement like only grown-ass men can, we had a best 3 out of 5 challenge consisting of the following events:

(1)  A thumb war – I used a sneak attack to win.
(2)  Rock, paper, scissors – Howie won this one.
(3)  Pick up sticks – Howie forgot his glasses, so I used that to my advantage to win.
(4)  Arm-wrestling – Howie’s work in the gym has paid off and he beat me quite handily.

So it was 2-2 heading into the final event.  Lucky for me the tie-breaker was something I had years of practice with during long family road trips.

Yup, I won the staring contest and thus we used my title.

Ok, enough of our immature nonsense, back to ditching losers…

Are You in Heaven or Hell?

A positive relationship can make your life feel like you are in heaven, while a negative relationship can make you feel like you are in hell.  So, to maximize the time that you are ‘spending in heaven’, you need to be adept at managing relationships.

In some cases, if a relationship is negative you may be forced to walk away from it to make your life better.

How Do Businesses Ditch the Losers?

Let’s skip to the world of business for a minute…

There are times in business when a company seeks to divest or sell an asset– also known as a ‘loser’.  You can think of it as the opposite of investing.

This can occur for many reasons, a few of the many reasons could be: the asset may not fit with their objectives any longer, the asset may be losing money, the asset may not fit with what they do best, or maybe the asset is a business unit that is underperforming and they simply want to ‘cut their losses’ and move on.

Divest This!

But divesting is not only applicable to business.

Sometimes we need to divest some things in our personal lives for a variety of reasons.  Let’s not limit ourselves to stuff we can sell, let’s broaden the definition for self-improvement purposes and say, ‘getting rid of negative things in your life’.  It can be for money, but it doesn’t have to be. It can save you other things that are often more valuable than money such as time, aggravation, or the opportunity cost of other things missed out on.

Which Areas of Your Life Can You Divest Things?

There are many areas of your life where you can divest things.  Instead of covering them all in one broad blog post, we are going to create a multi-post series on divesting things in the following areas of your life:

  Relationships – Week 1
  Material Things – Week 2
  Stuff Going on In Your Head – Week 3
  Time Wasters – Week 4

Back to Relationships…

Today we are going to start with divesting relationships. There are all different types of relationships:

  Friendship/acquaintance – best friend, a casual friend, a classmate
  Family – parent/child, sibling, extended family etc.
  Romantic – marriage, cohabitation, boyfriend/girlfriend, friends with benefits, extramarital affair
  Professional – co-workers, boss/subordinate, caregiver
  Other – people you meet at a bar, in line at a grocery store or Starbucks or on an airplane, person sitting beside you in class

To make it easy for you, we have created the matrix below to help you prioritize which relationships you may want to divest – or which losers you want to divest!

First Some Quick Definitions So the Matrix Makes Sense

Before we get to the matrix to help you with managing relationships, let’s quickly cover some definitions:

Long-term relationships:  These relationships last long enough to create extensive psychological damage and mess with your mind; for example, someone who is always putting you down. It could be your mother. She is always telling you that you aren’t married because you are a fat pig, and totally undesirable. You have talked to your mom about this and she has not changed her tune for your entire life. Maybe it is time to divest your mother.

Short-term relationships:  These relationships are short-enough and can also mess with your mind, but usually they are not of any lasting significance; for example, buying a car from a shady used car dealer. You do the best you can and forget about it, or go somewhere else.

Negative relationships:  These relationships hurt you in some way, some examples are:

  Physical, mental, emotional or sexual abuse
  Drama and aggravation in your life
  Making you upset
  Wasting your time
  Not what you thought
  They are screwing with your emotions
  You simply aren’t passionate about them
  They don’t align with your life, career objectives or priorities
  They are costing you too much money
  Your interests have changed
  You aren’t having fun

Positive relationships:  These relationships help you in one or more of the following ways, they:

  Help satisfy your needs
  Are supportive
  Give you energy as opposed to draining energy
  Make you a better person
  Allow you to help people you care about
  Support high self-esteem and discourage low-self esteem
  Promote better sleep
  Decrease random noise in your life

Time to Enter the Matrix!

The matrix below has 4 cells based on the definitions above:

Cell 1 = Positive Long-Term Relationships
Cell 2 = Positive Short-Term Relationships
Cell 3 = Negative Short-Term Relationships
Cell 4 = Negative Long-Term Relationships

Your job is to figure out which cell your relationship falls in.

Take a look at the matrix and then we will review how to use it:

Some relationships will have both positive and negative aspects – you will need to decide if it is mostly positive or mostly negative to determine which cell it goes in.  Here are some questions you can ask yourself the following questions to help you figure that out.  Is the relationship:

  More trouble than it is worth?
  Making you wonder if you are better off without him or her?
  Causing health problems?
  Affecting your performance at work?
  Affecting your happiness?
  Costing you time and/or money?
  Causing you physical or emotional harm?

How to Use the Matrix

(1)  Figure out the quadrant in the matrix where your relationship belongs based on whether it is long-term or short-term and whether it is mostly positive or negative.

(2)  If it falls in Cell #1 – Positive and Long-Term or Cell #2 – Positive and Short-Term, there is no need to divest – these are the winners that you want in your life.

(3)  If it falls in Cell #3 – Negative and Short-Term, it isn’t in your life long enough that you need to divest of it. At worst you may just need to remove yourself from the situation.

(4)  However, if it falls in Cell #4 – Negative and Long-Term, you really need to think hard about possibly divesting these losers from your life. And if it is really messing with your head, you may want to see a therapist.  The bottom line is this:  YOU NEED TO SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP TO IMPROVE THESE RELATIONSHIPS OR THINK ABOUT GETTING RID OF THEM!!!

Learning how to prioritize the relationships in your life that you need to divest will be a MAJOR source of decreased stress, better sleep, and generally a more positive outlook on life. It takes “balls” to cut out a cancerous relationship, but you will be better off once it is done!!!   Life is WAY too short to let someone else affect your joy and happiness.

Use It or Lose It:

To figure out whether you need to ditch a loser from your life:

  First, figure out if it is short-term or long-term
  Then figure out if it is mostly positive or negative using criteria above
  Then go to the matrix and see which cell it lies in:

  If it falls in Positive and Long-Term or Positive and Short-Term, there is no need to divest – these are the winners that you want in your life.
  If it falls in Negative and Short-Term, it isn’t in your life long enough that you need to divest of it. At worst you may just need to remove yourself from the situation.
However, if it falls in Negative and Long-Term, you really need to think hard about possibly divesting these losers from your life.

When to Use ‘Managing Relationships by Ditching the Losers from Your Life’

  When there are people in your life that create drama, mess up your sleep, or affect your happiness.

What Do You Think?

  Is ‘losers’ too harsh or is it an accurate description of some people; for example, your mother?  Do you agree with Rick or Howie with respect to the use of the word loser?  Please let us know in the comments below.

Until next time, start managing relationships better by divesting the losers (aka the people who hurt you) and improve your life!

Rick and Howie

P.S.  This is Rick again – Thank God I didn’t listen to Mom when she said staring too long will make your eyes stay like that!

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