36 Steps On How To Stop Thinking About Someone You Can’t Have

By Ruth Jesse

January 10, 2024   •   Fact checked by Dumb Little Man

Are you looking for ways to stop thinking about a man/woman you can have? Not thinking about someone who is very close to your heart is not an easy job but it is not impossible at the same time. This article talks about the result-proven steps to help you stop thinking about someone and move on.

✦ Learn these 36 Steps On How To Stop Thinking About Someone You Can’t Have and get on with your life ✦

1. Cry as much as you can so that you won’t cry again

The first and the foremost step to stop thinking about him is to cry as much as you can. As long as you resist yourself from crying, you can’t come out of this grief. To stop thinking about him, you have to let this grudge out.

Once you will cry so hard, you will start feeling so light from the inside. At such a point, it would become easier for you to stop thinking about him while utilizing your energy at some other thing. Crying is the best treatment for thought suppression because when you cry deeply, your mind gets peace from the occupied stubborn thoughts in your mind.

2. Let your emotional flood pass out first

When you are overwhelmed by the memories of a person, you are actually on a roller coaster of emotions. Until you keep these emotions inside your heart and mind, you won’t be able to forget about him.

To take a person out of your mind, it is important that you let your emotional flood pass out first. For this purpose, you don’t only have to cry hard but also speak out everything you have in your heart/mind. When you do this, you would feel that there is less burden now on your heart and mind. As a result, you would start feeling free of his occupied thoughts from your mind.

3. Cut off all contacts and delete/block his number

Once you have thrown out all your grudge and emotional flood, it’s time to block him from everywhere. Make sure you block his all numbers on your mobile phone and also block his emails and messages.

Delete all his previous messages and all voice chats so that they won’t remind you of him at a later point. At the same time, delete all his pictures or anything related to it from your mobile and laptop. Cutting off all contacts with him would help you in forgetting him and not thinking about him in the future.

4. Stop stalking him on social media

Another best step to stop thinking about your ex is to never stalk him on any social media platform ever again. When you have decided to take him out of your thoughts, then there is no purpose in stalking him on social media. You don’t really need to know what is going on in his life and what he is doing at the moment.

If you keep searching and stalking him, you won’t be able to restrict your mind from thinking about him. Therefore, moving forward requires you to stop looking after him no matter what happens.

5. Stay away from substance abuse

Psychology today says that many people start taking drugs when they are either so broken from the inside or missing someone badly. If you feel helpless while trying to stop thinking about someone, look for immediate help instead of relying on drugs.

No matter whether you are taking illegal or legal drugs or simply painkillers, all of them are so bad for your mental health and overall wellbeing. They may give you temporary relief from the pain you are going through but they are not the long-term solution.

Keep in mind that when you start taking drugs due to a person’s thoughts, his memories start torturing you even more. Therefore, stay away from such things and improve your wellbeing if you really want to get rid of his thoughts.

6. Overcome your negative traits

Each one of us has some negative aspects of our personality. These negative and problematic traits become more dominant when we are in distress or anger. When you are trying to stop thinking about someone, your personality’s negative aspects become more dominant and defeat you in controlling your mind.

Therefore, the first thing that you need to do to get mental peace is to work on yourself. You need to polish the good side of your personality while improving your bad side. When you control and fix all the evils of your personality, it would become easier for you to reform your thinking process.

7. Prioritize self-appreciation

An important thing to remember is to never criticize yourself due to any other person. If you have ever taken informed professional advice, the first thing you will be asked to practice is self-appreciation.

Until you learn to appreciate yourself, you can’t help yourself to stop thinking about your ex. To improve your mental health and to get yourself peace, it is important to feel proud of yourself.

Keep in mind that you are precious and a dignified person. You don’t need anyone’s else appreciation but you are enough for yourself. You must believe in yourself and challenge your potentials to bring your smile back by stopping thinking about him.

8. Stop thinking about the past

To stop thinking about your past, you have to kick it out from your daily life. Who came into your life and who left you alone, is not important to focus on because there are far much-valued things in your life to cherish.

If someone is not meant to stay, he won’t. You can not hold someone into your life if he is not for you. The only thing you need to keep in your mind is that the world doesn’t end on just one person but there is someone else especially made for you. He will come into your life one day and will hold your hand forever.

Therefore, keep yourself busy to avoid going into the memories of the past that always make you think of him. Instead, practice being into reality and enjoy every signal moment of your present because your life is precious.

9. Keep yourself busy in something productive

Do you keep yourself busy with something productive or keep sitting on your couch or bed with your thoughts? You can’t help yourself in getting out of his thoughts if you can’t stay busy with something productive.

If you don’t like to do household chores or something, don’t do it. Nobody is forcing you to do what does cheer you up. However, you just need to find out your happiness in something that seems interesting to you.

For example, suppose that painting or making sculptures was your favorite thing but you quit doing it for any reason. Now, buy the stuff for the painting or sculptures again and start making them again. You will see that these favorite activities of your past give you the same happiness that they used to give you.

You will so much embed in such activities that your mind would ultimately stop focusing on his thoughts. Therefore, keeping yourself busy is the best strategy to get rid of unwanted thoughts.

10. Change your place for a few days/weeks

Sometimes, a specific place is linked with the memories of someone and everything at that place reminds us of him. It gets very hard to forget a person while living in such a place that has his memories.

To help you out in this situation, the only way is to change your place for a few days or weeks. For example, you can either go to your friend’s home, the home of your favorite aunt, or anyone else. If you don’t have any of these options, book a room in an affordable hotel and go there for a few days.

While staying there, find new hobbies and explore new charms of the world. Every place has its own hobbies and it must give you at least one new hobby that may prove as the turning point of your thought process.

Try to live your life to its fullest at this new place. Whenever you will come back, you would feel as if it’s a new version of you. You would bring so many new thoughts and pleasurable memories with you that they will help you stop thinking about him.

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11. Redesign your mental space

It is important to understand that only changing your physical space won’t yield expected results until you also redesign your mental space. Having good mental health is very important for self-awareness and for controlling your thinking process.

While exploring your life at a new place, also feed your mind with any new interest. Psychology today says that when we feed our mind’s active log with a new love interest, we forget about the previous one. Here, love interest doesn’t mean to find your new crush or some person but this love can be of anything i.e. love of wandering, painting, or cooking, etc.

12. Kick out all reminders of the past

The reminders of the past would act as the biggest resistance in your moving forward. When you decided to stop thinking about him, then what’s the purpose of keeping his reminders?

To start a new life, throw all the gifts and pictures of your unrequited love. Throw them at a place from where they can’t remind you of him and you can’t grab them again. Lit up all the letters he wrote to you or everything else related to him and let the white light with fresh breeze come to your room.

Photo Credit: Pexels

13. Learn from the mistakes from your teenage years

Teenage is all about immaturity and making mistakes. If you have also made mistake in your teenage and now regretting it, you shouldn’t because we all make mistakes. However, the important thing is to see what you are doing now to overcome those mistakes?

Are you still sitting and crying in some corner of your house by recalling his memories or trying to move on? Evaluate yourself and learn from your previous mistakes. Search on the internet about how to move on and do exactly what more previous article says instead of keep surfing for new articles.

14. Keep yourself and your place clean and organized

A messy and disorganized room would make you feel lonely, devalued, and emotionally down. As a result, you would keep on thinking about him and regretting whatever happened.

In contrast, a clean and organized place would fill up your soul with refreshing energy and motivation to move on to do something better. You must practice this step to enjoy its dramatic results and stop thinking about him.

15. Go shopping and buy new dresses

Every person loves shopping as it imposes a very good impact on one’s mood and mental health. Even the best recommendation from an online therapy for mentally distressed people is to go shopping.

You should buy new dresses for yourself, new shoes, home accessories, makeup, and anything that amaze you. This tactic will turn you into a new person without an occupied mind.

16. Psychology today says that getting ready helps in feeling fantastic

To stop thinking about someone, start thinking about yourself and your future. Get ready by wearing a beautiful outfit and think how beautiful you look.

Plan parties to feel fantastic and meet your favorite people to make new memories while freeing up your mind from his thoughts.

17. Visit new places

Another best idea is to explore new places that you always wished to visit. It is the time to visit them and give a boost to your positive feelings.

Make a checklist of the places you want to visit and explore as many of them as you can. Visiting them would fill up your mind with new cherishable memories and help you stop thinking of someone.

18. Dine out and have your favorite food

Dining out to your favorite restaurants and having your favorite food always leads to good mental health. Just like you used to love dining out before, do it in the same way now.

Order your favorite food at an amazing restaurant and feed good memories to your mind to forget thinking about him. Even if it is just a cup of coffee or a frothy, having it at a beautiful place would impose a good impact on your mood.

19. Be bold and face your fears

Until you face your fears, you can’t process your thoughts. To stand up with confidence, it’s important to face your fears now.

Imagine the things that are causing hurdles in your way of progress and arrange them in a category list. Face and defeat them one by one so that you could be a stronger person without any fears.

20. Make new friends and spend time with them

Instead of starting dating with a new person immediately in the hope of developing a long-term relationship, spend some time with your friends. If you don’t have any reliable friends, make new friends and share your sense of humor with them.

Avoid making mistakes that you commit when you started dating but take every step with care while making new friends.

Photo credit: Pexels

21. Find happiness from making new relationships

It’s true that not all other people are reliable to develop relationships but there must be a certain someone who would prove as good partner.

Until you find a good partner, cherish your relationship with the ones who are closer to you. These relationships with your friends or family members would help you not think about him.

22. Stop obsessing for every new person

When you already have a hard time moving on, remember the lesson that you learned over the course of years. Keep in mind that running after a person who is already gone would give you nothing but only a hard time.

Therefore, stop obsessing for every person coming into your life but make the new relationships wisely. Don’t develop intense feelings for someone who doesn’t even deserve you and your time.

23. Pay attention to self-worth

Another important piece of advice is to pay deep attention to who you are. Never compromise on your goals and missions because of a person who is not with you anymore. Over the course of time, you will forget about him if you make efforts now.

Set new goals and accept new challenges to divert your attention to them instead of keeping thinking about someone you don’t deserve.

24. Take steps for self-care

Self-care always imposes a very good impact on a person’s wellbeing and mental health. Develop a good self-care routine and religiously follow it to improve your relationship with yourself.

Suppose that you start doing skincare every night before sleep. You would realize that it would help you to stop thinking of him while feeling good about yourself.

25. Do meditation or yoga to get rid of negative/unwanted thoughts

Instead of thought suppression, make sure to practice meditation and yoga every morning. The most important benefit of meditation and yoga is that both of these help in getting rid of unwanted and negative thoughts.

Learn meditation or yoga as a new skill and practice it every morning to ease your pain of remembering him. Through meditation, you would get good control of your mind as well as your thought process.

26. Express your emotions/thoughts to some other person, i.e. your friend

If you feel that nothing of the above is helping you as expected in overcoming his thoughts, it’s time to share it with some other person.

Speak your heart out with either to your best friend or to any other person you trust. It would help you in feeling so light and better than before.

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27. Learn from the others’ life lessons

The good news is that the relationship stories of other people and how they get out of a similar situation helps dramatically.

If you know any such person, ask him about what happened to her/his relationship and how he helped himself in moving on. Whether it is the story of a new person or someone you know, it would help you in moving on too.

28. Take your family as your support system

When you enclosed yourself in a room, you would keep on thinking about him. So, get out of your room and use your family as your support system. Make sure to sit with your family members and revive your relationship with them.

Within only a few days of doing it, you would realize that you don’t think about your ex more. It’s simply because you divert your attention and keep your focus on your family, parents, siblings, or others who make you happy.

Photo credit: Pexels

29. Join sports clubs or similar institutions

Spending time at such places and engaging yourself in some physical activity such as sports would help you in not thinking about him. Just like he has moved on, you should also move on in the same way and utilize your energy in a better place.

Joining such clubs or institutions would help you in diverting your attention from him to new activities.

30. Make a checklist for achieving everyday milestones

To stay on track, you must devise a checklist for achieving everyday milestones. Every good news about accomplishing your milestone would impose a good impact on your mental health.

It would also boost positive emotions and happiest feelings about becoming a better person than yesterday.

31. Recall motivational quotes to get rid of obsessive thoughts

When you think that your focus is diverting back to his thoughts, recall motivational quotes and sayings. Remember how others defeat such situations and imagine yourself being successful like them.

These types of motivational stuff would help you in keeping your focus on accomplishing your goals instead of lagging behind with your thoughts.

32. Consult with an online therapist or relationship expert

Another best approach is to consult with a licensed counselor online and discuss your issue with him/her. Tell him everything about your ex-relationship and how that one person impacted your thoughts.

Talk to the therapist whenever you need it, and take his support to come out of this painful relationship that always hurt your feelings. Focus on what he says to you and follow everything to let better things happen in your life.

33. Visit a qualified mental health professional

Another important tip is to visit a mental health professional if online therapists couldn’t help you much. When you visit their clinic, close your eyes and imagine whatever happen or hurt you so much. Say it all in front of the professional and let him suggest to you the better ways to get out of this trauma.

Photo credit: Pexels

34. Complete all sessions

Keep in mind that visiting only once and not completing all the sessions won’t treat your current condition. To completely cure yourself from whatever happened, you have to complete all the visits your therapist asks.

In every visit, talk about your progress as well as the concerns you have. Within the shortest possible time, you would feel the difference.

35. Make plans for a better future

When you start feeling better, talk to yourself about which type of future you want. Make plans for your future and say goodbye to the pain of the past.

Don’t be shy to look for a new life partner to whom you really deserve for the rest of your life. However, don’t trust blindly a person but make sure to choose your partner wisely to engage in a lasting relationship with him.

36. Set up new goals

Set up new goals and focus on accomplishing them. It will help you in diverting your thoughts from your ex to the accomplishment of new goals. Talk to your friend or family members about your goals and ask for their support if necessary.

Value every existing relationship in your life and involve them in setting and accomplishing better goals. When they will be working with you on something big and impressive, you won’t talk or think about your ex at all.

☝️ What does it mean when you can’t stop thinking about a certain person? ☝️

When you fail to stop thinking about a certain person, it means that this person has fully controlled your mind. It usually happens when you have to spend a good time with a person and then he left you. At other times, your crush may make you indulge deep into his thoughts that you fail to think of something else other than him.

In either case, the above discussed 36 steps to divert your attention from him would help you a lot. Try a few of these and see the magic.

🧐 Conclusions 🧐

It’s hard to live with the thoughts and memories of a person who is no more in your life. If you are stuck thinking about someone you can’t have, try out some of the above-discussed 36 magical steps in reforming your thoughts. They would help you in forgetting about him while focusing on something more productive to enjoy a better future.

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Ruth Jesse

Ruth is a life coach who specialises in relationships and career development. Outside work, she loves writing novels and guides for personal development.

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