
Transcript provided by YouTube (unedited)
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when we constantly almost applaud the
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fact that i’m just too picky i’m just my
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problem is i’m too picky if we’re not
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careful
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it becomes another way of saying
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i’m
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kind of a judgmental [ __ ]
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[Music]
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well it’s interesting steve there is an
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article on the bbc that talks about the
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idea that people aren’t actually as
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picky in reality
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as they think they are
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when describing
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who they would date research shows
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hidden biases
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mean will actually give people a chance
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even if they don’t quite meet our
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criteria
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right yes and i think that’s interesting
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because
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dating apps no doubt
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make us much more picky than we are in
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reality and i think anyone can kind of
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run this experiment if you
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imagine going on a dating app
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and how you swipe through people so
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liberally in such a
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uh a kind of laissez-faire
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fashion and then
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consider
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how you are if you’re
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a party and someone introduces you to
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someone yeah you’re far more likely
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to give that person that you’ve been
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introduced to in real life
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a moment a chance
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then you are
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on a dating app where that person
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may not even
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[Music]
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make it
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into your i’m going to send them a quick
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high
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folder yeah and it might even be for
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weird reasons like you’ll see one movie
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they said was their favorite movie and
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you’re like oh god really that one like
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or i’ll roll your eyes oh that’s so like
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cliche but if you met someone at a party
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who is great you wouldn’t reject them on
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the basis that their favorite movie
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like made you roll your eyes a bit you
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you’d you’d be like i don’t care like
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this is really fun i’m having a great
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time are they a couple of inches under
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the height that you’ve decided
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you want for yourself
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and that becomes a reason not to choose
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someone and this is the
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that’s what’s really interesting is that
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perfect partners aren’t
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picked in the margins if you met someone
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who is a couple of inches under what you
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thought you wanted your height to be or
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the person’s height to be
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and they ended up being
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so many amazing things in a relationship
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and you had an amazing time with them in
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chemistry and whatever
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the chances
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at that point of you walking away
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because they’re not quite the right
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height or the height that you’d
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predetermined was important
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are
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there
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it’s almost never going to happen or i
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would argue if it does happen
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then you’ve got to start looking inward
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and saying okay what’s happening with me
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that i am treating my love life like a
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thing to be optimized
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[Music]
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instead of finding someone who is
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an amazing partner
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if i find a fantastic partner what’s
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going on with me that i am optimizing
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in this way that i’m still telling
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myself it’s not quite right because they
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don’t have this thing or that thing
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yeah i almost think
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you’re not looking for
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the mistake is to think you’re looking
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for a perfect person
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but you’re actually looking for
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an amazing fit
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someone that fits you really well that
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fits the pieces of your jigsaw really
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well and that’s a very different thing
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one of the phrases this article uses is
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it’s not about the partner you choose
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but the partnership you build
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which i think is
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important
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now i don’t think that you can just
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choose any partner we have to choose a
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partner with the right stuff
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and then
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look at the partnership we’re building
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with them and see if the partnership is
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one that is
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meeting our needs if the partnership is
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one that can make us happy but that’s a
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very different thing from spending our
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whole lives optimizing
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in terms of the partner
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it says here in this article steve maybe
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it’s not that helpful to search and
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search for a partner who looks good on
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paper but it is helpful once dating
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someone to look for early signs that the
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relationship is turning out to be
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healthy and
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supportive
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that
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i think is a real
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shift
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away from
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whether someone meets all of the
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criteria we thought we wanted
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which some of which are hangovers from
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when we were young
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and had this
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shopping list of unimportant things
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that someone had to be and we never
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actually
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revisited that list to see how many of
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them
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were important now i do think that the
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person we come across in life
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that is going to make us happy has to be
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our version of
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special or a version of special that
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really appeals to us but the idea
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that
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we are going to
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objectively
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optimize
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to the point
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where the decision is just made for us
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by fate
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or
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feeling or destiny or whatever you want
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to call it
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is a really really destructive notion
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because it removes agency
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from us as people
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agency is dece in decision making
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whether it’s a person or a career
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or a place you want to live
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agency is saying
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i
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have a role to play
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in
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choosing something and making it
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spectacular
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my job is not to travel the world and
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then when i just
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feel
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this is the place i’m supposed to spend
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the rest of my life
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i settle there
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removes any agency from us
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and it’s making a decision i i think
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this is a very missed
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point in so many things and i’m not the
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first one to say it
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but making a decision
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exercising that agency
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is something that imbues
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a situation with meaning
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that you chose that thing that career
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that place to live that person
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and then decided to go all in on it
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there’s beauty in that that is the thing
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that imbues it with so much meaning but
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so many people go through life
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waiting for life to give them meaning
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i need to find the career that gives me
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purpose
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i need to find the place to live
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that
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just
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speaks to me that is
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that is my place
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that makes me feel good
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i need to find the person that gives my
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life meaning
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but
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that’s to be a kind of a victim
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to meaning
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instead of choosing meaning
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and and
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what could be more meaningful in a world
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where we could have so many potential
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partners
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what could be more meaningful than
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saying i’m choosing
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to build a story
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with
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this person
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this is the story i
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choose and i think that all the
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investment that comes afterwards all of
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the commitment that comes afterwards
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comes as a result of deciding
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that you’re going to make that story
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really important
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that
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commitment is the the inevitable result
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of deciding
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the meaning
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of a story
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as opposed to the result of
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something coming to you pre-ordained
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life doesn’t unfortunately
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i just don’t think life gets to be that
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simple you can be
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so many different things in life
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you could be a fisherman you could be an
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accountant you could be a lawyer
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you could be a speaker you could be a
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writer you could be so many different
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things i don’t think life gets to be as
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simple
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as
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something just chooses you
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we get we go through life and we
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exercise agency
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and the search for a partner
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is no different at a certain point
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we stop
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and it’s not that we stop and we say we
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we just not that we stop on somebody and
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we say
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this is
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good enough
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it’s that we stop on somebody
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and we say
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i’m gonna make this great
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we’re very powerful
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and we have the ability to make things
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great
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in life
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we all have our own magic
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we all have our own ability to make
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things great
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but we have to exercise that ability
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it doesn’t mean that it can be with
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anyone
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we still have to find someone
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who has
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a similar
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attitude towards making a relationship
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great or will be the one doing all the
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work and that doesn’t work
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we still need to find someone with whom
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we have some chemistry
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doesn’t need to be the greatest
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chemistry of all time
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for someone you have chemistry that
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makes it a romantic relationship
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or you have a friendship
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and it still needs to be someone who has
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an outlook on life or values that
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synergize with your own doesn’t have to
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be all the same but they have to be able
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to to be compatible with your own
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but the pool of people that that
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describes
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is far greater
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than the scarcity that people imagine
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is the case
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when they think of trying to find their
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ideal partner
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and i actually fundamentally believe
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that when
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we develop a healthy relationship with
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ourselves and our own flaws
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and when we find ourselves ready for a
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real relationship
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more people become right
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because i do think that when we
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constantly
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applaud almost applaud the fact that i’m
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just too picky i’m just my problem is
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i’m too picky
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it’s kind of
12:00
if we’re not careful
12:03
it becomes another way of saying
12:06
i’m
12:07
kind of a judgmental [ __ ]
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and it’s done under the righteous label
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of i’m too picky
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and i think that we’ve all been through
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those phases
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where we’re incredibly judgmental of
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people and everyone feels wrong for us
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because we’re so judgmental
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yeah everyone loves saying you know when
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you raise your standards in life and
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when you grow and when you read and when
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you do self-development and when you do
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all of these things
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it your pool of people shrinks and it’s
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hard to meet someone who’s on your level
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that’s a really easy easy thing to say
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i’ve even said that in the past
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i think it’s a bit of a cop-out because
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i actually think the more open you
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become as a human being the more you
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accept yourself
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and your own flaws
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and your own history and your own
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weaknesses and don’t see certain things
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with shame
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and disgust when you aren’t disgusted by
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yourself
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and the things that you’ve done or you
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are
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then you start looking at other people
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with less
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disgust with less contempt
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with more openness with more love you
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start actually seeing more good
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in other people when you accept yourself
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more it’s hard not to accept other
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people more and so when we become really
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ready
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more people become right
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what’s up everybody i hope you enjoyed
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the episode today taken from the love
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life podcast i wanted to let you know
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that the things that i was speaking
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about in terms of
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self-acceptance
13:44
and how that changes the way that we
13:46
approach our love lives it changes the
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way that we approach other people
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is a real muscle that we can work on
13:54
if you have struggled in your life to
13:58
love yourself if my god if you’ve
13:59
struggled to like yourself if the idea
14:02
of loving yourself isn’t even on your
14:04
radar because
14:06
you’re struggling to like yourself in
14:08
general if you continuously beat
14:11
yourself up
14:12
over things that you do wrong or things
14:14
you say wrong or mistakes you believe
14:17
you’ve made in your past that to this
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day you regret and you continuously
14:23
uh castigate yourself for these are
14:26
things that will affect everything in
14:28
your life because our relationship with
14:30
ourselves shapes
14:31
everything our happiness our sense of
14:34
peace how we approach life in general
14:36
our confidence our personal power at
14:39
work in love if you want to learn
14:42
how to build that self-acceptance and
14:45
self-love muscle
14:46
that is the deep work that i do with
14:49
people on my virtual retreat
14:52
it’s three days of coaching immersion
14:56
and this is a very timely
14:58
announcement because it is coming up
15:01
very very soon in march from the 18th to
15:04
the 20th
15:06
if you have not booked your call yet to
15:09
talk to one of my team
15:11
please go and do that now they’ll tell
15:13
you all about the program they’ll talk
15:15
to you to you about your goals what
15:17
you’re trying to achieve right now
15:18
what’s holding you back
15:21
and they’ll help you understand how the
15:23
program could help
15:25
i hope to see you there please go to
15:28
mhvirtualretreat.com
15:31
to learn more find out all about the
15:33
program
15:34
and i sincerely hope that we get to
15:36
spend three whole days of coaching
15:38
together from the 18th to the 20th of
15:40
march
16:00
you
—
This post was previously published on YouTube.
***
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