3 things you probably need to hear
If there's one thing I've learned since becoming a coach - what themes I start to notice in my clients or even in the comments I get on my most recent TikTok always seem to the things that everybody (and especially I) need to hear myself.
So today, I want to give you 3 things that I'm guessing a lot of you might need to hear today!
1. There is no such thing as enough.
I'll feel good when he asks me to be his girlfriend. I'll feel fulfilled once I'm in the new job. I can relax and enjoy life once I'm making $100K.
If I were getting more interest on the apps, I'd feel less insecure. If I were working ouut more often, I'd feel more disciplined. If I were better at making decisions, I'd trust myself more.
We all slip into this pattern of thinking. It's the circumstance that's giving us this unpleasant feeling we need to fix and if we can fix the circumstance than the feeling will go away, right? RIGHT?
Y'all know where this is going.
It's easier to look at the world and say, “Oh this unpleasant feeling I'm having? It's fixable when xyz is true.” than to look at ourselves and realize that something about the way that we're thinking is causing the feeling. A circumstance won't necessarily fix it.
When you got your first job, did you immediately feel confident and competent? When you got that raise, how long did the feeling of “rolling in the dough,” so-to-speak, last? When you went on that second date, did you immediately and permanently feel attractive? Of course not.
Because we look out into the world to confirm what we already believe about ourselves. So if you think you're unattractive, when you're on a date with a guy you're not particularly into, you'll think “Ugh, am I going to be stuck dating guys like him because he's the only type of guy that will be into me?” and when you're on a date with a guy you really like, you'll think “Ugh, he's so great, I can't believe he actually wants to be on a date with someone who looks like me. I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't want another date.” All of our thoughts flow around the belief we already have, like water down an already carved river bed.
In order to get the feelings we're all seeking, it's an inside job, managing our thoughts. Until you start being able to feel like what you have and who you are is enough TODAY, there will never be a day where getting some new thing will magically satisfy.
You're allowed to want more, to know you have things to improve. But you'll be doing it from a place of - “I am already enough but I can be better” and “my life today is great and I can't wait to see how much better it can get” rather than “I'm not good enough until I've done/become/feel X” and “until I have X, I do not have enough.”
2. You're not asking for too much.
There's often an urge to “be realistic.” Whether it's how to be treated at work, the type of guy you want to date, how often you want to hear from that guy, and so on.
That realistic is code for: if I set the bar lower, I'm less likely to be disappointed.
But here's the problem. The real wants, the ones related to how you feel (not the superficial ones like “I want him to be well dressed” or “I want Summer Fridays”), don't go away. So if you do all that work to convince yourself you can compromise on the real wants, when you get the thing you say you want, it'll always have a tinge of compromise in it.
The whole reason we play this game is because we think if we set the bar a little lower for the guy, the job, the lifestyle, we'll get it sooner and we'll be happier sooner. But as we covered in #1, the feeling that we're searching for doesn't come from a change of circumstance.
We don't all get to be multi-millionaires, jetsetting to tropical islands and working 3 days a month. But most of us don't really want that life anyway. What we want is someone who puts us first, makes us feel safe and cared for. We want our contributions at work to be appreciated and to not have to trade our lives outside of work for our success inside of work. We want to be able to voice when we're disappointed or uncomfortable without retaliation and for the person we voice the concern to to want to address our concern.
Those needs? To be seen, heard, appreciated, prioritized, cared for? Those needs are valid. You're not asking for too much. But you have to believe that so that you're willing to wait for something that doesn't feel like a compromise.
3. Changing a thought pattern is hard.
Trust me, if you could just all the sudden switch from thinking that “there aren't any good guys out there” to “there are great guys all around me” or “the guys I like don't like me” to “what I want is attracted to me,” I wouldn't have a job. I also wouldn't have invested significant sums of money into my own personal development and coaching journeys.
Much of what I talk about here (and with my clients and everywhere else), is noticing a current thought pattern and identifying whether it's helping or hurting you and then working to shift the thought pattern to something more helpful.
And often, clients will come back a few weeks later saying “I'm still struggling to believe X (whatever thought we're trying to shift to).” The tone in their voice implies, “I don't think it's working, can we try something else here?”
But when we've been thinking one way for our entire lives, a few weeks of noticing a thought pattern doesn't make significant long lasting change. This is why I coach for a period of months - so we can slowly chip away at the scaffolding supporting that original thought. What evidence have you collected that we can start questioning? What does it feel like when you start trying to believe the new thing?
Just because you're struggling to be more confident, to believe you're enough, to accept your life as it is, doesn't mean you're doing something wrong. It's also not proof that it's not true. It just means you may need to give it more time.
For example, as with almost all women (and men), I have insecurities about my body. I started last summer to start to notice when I was commenting on those insecurities in the mirror. Small boobs, untanned skin, acne scarring, frizzy hair. (You get the picture.) Every time I noticed the thought, I tried to notice some part of my body I liked or thank my body for helping me wake up today, my eyes for helping me see, my waist for how it looked in that skirt. And slowly… I started to try to appreciate or compliment the parts of my body I know are not my favorite. The way my skin looked that day. The way that new bra showed off how I am naturally *endowed*.
When I tell you this was a day-by-day, month-by-month process, I mean it. And I'm not completely past it. But my level of acceptance and appreciation of those insecurities, a year later, feels miles from where it was. This summer, I've been wearing dresses, no bra and feeling cute in them. I've cut down the amount of makeup I wear to cover those acne scars and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror saying, “look how good your skin looks today.”
And for all of you skeptics out here saying, “Okay that all sounds good but guys still want tanned girls with big chest," here's the other interesting thing: as I've shifted my own level of acceptance, I've noticed the world shift too. I don't immediately jump to the conclusion that the reason that guy didn't follow up is because I'm too small chested, so that's step one. But I've had people comment on my skin, unprompted. And a guy I was on a date with specifically comment how I looked in a dress (and while he wasn't specific about what part, you know how sometimes you can just tell what he's getting at by where he was looking and how he said it…).