Have you ever faced a challenging decision? Certainly, you have. Are you in between giving too much time to work and not enough to home? Are you facing ethical challenges at work? Are you looking at entering or getting out of a toxic relationship? We face these decisions, but then we find a way to talk ourselves into them anyway. I know because I’m guilty. There have been times that I

trapped

didn’t want to hurt someone’s feelings or didn’t have the courage to stand up for what I felt was right, so I went against my feelings and entered into a bad situation. It may not feel so bad at first, but with time you get more involved and things escalate. Events and emotions spiral and before you know it, things start to feel out of control and you’re so far in you can’t even see how you got there in the first place. It feels like there’s no way out or getting out will be too painful or have too many consequences.

How do you avoid these situations? You don’t get into them in the first place. When you are first faced with the challenge to work too much or make a tiny unethical move or go out on that second date, people have a tendency to lie to themselves about the potential consequences and dive in headfirst into a doomed situation. I know because I’m guilty of entering jobs and relationships that I knew were’t right for me, but I gave up what I really wanted in the future for what I could have now. If you can slow down enough to recognize the impending drama, you might just find the strength and courage to go the other way or create boundaries like strong ethics and time restrictions to help you maintain balance and healthy relationships.

If you continue you can find yourself in deep and it can feel almost impossible to get out. You have things holding you in like meetings and business trips, legal ramifications, children or living arrangements. It becomes so much harder to get out than it would have been to just say no in the first place.

I found myself taking jobs that I knew weren’t a fit for me. I’ve gotten into relationships that I know weren’t with the man God intended for me. I’ve played too much and not spent enough time with family, and they’re all decisions that I felt I would one day regret, but I did it anyway.

What did I get out of it? I learned a lot of things the hard way. I left with some regrets. I’ve wasted time and, in other instances, money.

I encourage you to set some boundaries in your life, listen to your gut instinct and the people who love you to make better decisions. This way you can stay out of bad situations rather than facing the pain of getting out of them with the pain and often consequences that come with getting out.