“So, when are you having kids?” my aunt asked me. At that point, I was 30 and had just been married for a few months. I didn’t even know if I wanted kids, much less when I was having them.

So I simply said, “I haven’t decided if I want kids.” I would spend the next hour listening to horror stories about women who (1) regretted not having children because they had put it off until it was too late, and (2) had difficulty conceiving because they had waited too long, basically suggesting that I was going to regret it if I didn’t work on producing children right away.

This would be my life for the next few years, where I would receive constant questions revolving around “When are you having kids?” from friends and relatives, followed by a bizarre, almost ritualistic attempt to persuade me to have kids.

If you think that this stops after having a kid, nope. The people who previously told you to have “just one kid” will now tell you to have one more. It just seems like it will never end.

The problem with “When are you having kids?”

I can understand why people like to ask this question. Find a partner, get married and have kids. This is the path we’ve been taught to follow since young. This is the path we’ve been told is the way of life.

This is especially so in the Chinese culture where having kids is seen as the ultimate goal in life. Sayings like 生儿育女, which means to birth sons and raise daughters, and 子孙满堂, which means to be in a room filled with children and grandchildren (often used to symbolize the peak of happiness), all support this belief.

A multi-generation family, often used to symbolize the peak of happiness in the Chinese culture

So after you get married, people automatically assume that this should be your life path. Without thinking, they jump in and ask “When are you having kids?”, as if really expecting you to give them a straight answer.

The problem is that it’s rude, invasive, and presumptuous.

1) Having kids is a personal matter

Firstly, having kids is a deeply personal matter. Whether someone wants kids or not is something for them to discuss with their partner, and not anyone else’s business. Whether you’re someone’s best friend or relative, you shouldn’t be asking a question like, “When are you having kids?”, because (a) you’re assuming that the person wants kids when they may not, and (b) you’re assuming that they even want to discuss this with you, when they may well not want to.

Even if you’re asking this with the intent of having a heart-to-heart, something like “Do you have any plans for kids?” or “Are you guys thinking of having kids?” would be more appropriate. The question should be open-ended and not presumptive, because, believe it not — not everyone wants kids.

2) Having kids is not the only path to happiness

Secondly, everyone has their path in life. The path is not the same for everyone and that’s okay. Some people want kids while some don’t. Some think that having kids is the greatest joy in life, while some see kids as a burden.

Having children is a decision with lifelong impact and will take away significant time, energy and resources from the parent(s) for the first 20 years or so of the child’s life. Anyone who has kids — and has raised them themselves — can attest to this. There are many ups and downs of having kids, and for some, the downs are too much and it’s simply not practical or realistic to give up so much of their lives to have kids. For some, it is better to remain child-free rather than have kids for the sake of it.

To assume that everyone should have kids, just because some other people think that having kids is the great and awesome, is rude and disregards an individual’s own wishes for their life.

Take for example, Oprah Winfrey — philanthropist and talk show host. Oprah chose not to have kids and dedicated herself to her purpose of serving the world. She produced and hosted The Oprah Winfrey Show, the highest-rated daytime talk show in America, for 25 years; founded a leadership academy for girls; and started her television network OWN. Through the years, she has inspired millions and become a champion for people worldwide. As she says,

“When people were pressuring me to get married and have children, I knew I was not going to be a person that ever regretted not having them, because I feel like I am a mother to the world’s children. Love knows no boundaries. It doesn’t matter if a child came from your womb or if you found that person at age two, 10, or 20. If the love is real, the caring is pure and it comes from a good space, it works.” — Oprah^[1]

Is her life not purposeful because she doesn’t have kids? No, not at all. In fact, I dare say that her life is much more purposeful than many in the world, including some people who have kids.

Many famous celebrities have chosen not to have kids as well:

• Chelsea Handler is a talk show host who chose not to have kids. She has said honestly in interviews that she doesn’t have the time to raise a child, and she doesn’t want her kids to be raised by a nanny.^[2][3]
• Betty White was a famous comedian who chose not to have kids because she was passionate about her career and she preferred to focus on it.^[4]
• Ashley Judd is an actress and political activist who chose not to have kids because she feels that there are already so many orphaned kids in the world. To her, her resources can be better used to help those who are already here.^[5]

And then there are others like Chow Yun Fat, Marisa Tomei, Renée Zellweger, Rachael Ray, and Jennifer Aniston. These people choose to be child-free for different reasons, such as because they’re already pursuing paths deeply meaningful to them, because they do not wish to be tied down with a child, or because they just don’t feel a deep desire to have children.

Not having kids has not prevented them from being happy, and people need to stop painting the narrative that one must have kids to be happy. Doing so has caused many parents to suffer dissonance when they have kids and realize that reality is far off from what they were told. There are people with kids who are deepy unhappy, and there are many who live deeply fulfilling and happy lives without kids. There is no one path to happiness, and it is up to the individual to define what makes them happy.

3) You may cause hurt and pain

Thirdly, you never know what others are going through.

Some people may want kids but are facing fertility struggles. For example,

• Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan went through three miscarriages before having their firstborn.^[6]
• The Obamas had a miscarriage before they had their daughters via IVF.^[7]
• Friends star Courteney Cox had a total of seven miscarriages before having her daughter, as she has a MTHFR gene mutation which raises the risk of miscarriage-causing blood clots.^[8] In fact, she went through a miscarriage while filming the episode about Rachel giving birth. As she said, “It was terrible having to be funny.”

About 10% of women have difficulty getting pregnant or staying pregnant^[9] while 13.5% of known pregnancies end in miscarriages, with the figure rising as the maternal age rises.^[10]

For some, the journey to conceive is fraught with deep pain as they experience miscarriages, go through round after round of invasive fertility treatments, and wait in vain for a successful pregnancy.

And then there are people who cannot have their biological children due to genetic issues, illnesses, or problems with their reproductive system, which could have been there since birth. For example, Charmed star Shannen Doherty was unable to have children due to her cancer treatment.^[11]

Barack and Michelle Obama had a miscarriage before having their daughters via IVF

While you may be think that you’re being helpful or funny by asking people when they’re having kids, your question may well trigger hurt and pain. As Zuckerberg said,

“You feel so hopeful when you learn you’re going to have a child. You start imagining who they’ll become and dreaming of hopes for their future. You start making plans, and then they’re gone. It’s a lonely experience.”^[12]

4) Not everyone is in a place to have kids

For some, having kids is simply not something they can consider due to their circumstances in life.

• Some people may lack the financial resources to have kids, a reality in places like Singapore.
• Some people may be facing serious issues with their marriage, in which case their priority should be to work on their marriage, not to have kids.
• Some people may be so burdened with caring for their dependents that they are unable to consider kids, at least not at the moment.
• And then there are people who may be facing health issues, issues that you don’t know and can’t see, that would make pregnancy difficult due to the toll it would take on their body.

For these people, they may look like they’re in a perfect place to have kids due to their age, job status, etc. But the reality is they can’t due to very serious, legitimate reasons, and you don’t know because you aren’t them.

5) Some people could still be thinking

Lastly, there are people who are neutral to the idea of having kids. This was me when I just got married. These people need time to think it through, because having kids is a permanent, lifelong decision with serious consequences. There’s no reason to assume that having kids should be an automatic decision because you’re bringing a whole new life into this world. This is a decision that would change your life forever, as well as the life of the child you bring into the world.

I personally think one of the worst things someone could do is to simply have children for the sake of it, and then afterward give their child sub-standard care, something which I feel many people do.

For those who have yet to have kids, they need the space to figure out what they want — not have people breathe down their neck day in and out about having kids.

My experience

For the first few years after I got married, I wasn’t thinking about having kids. Firstly, having a child is a lifelong decision, and I wanted to enjoy married life before diving into a decision as serious as that. Secondly, my husband and I were happy spending our lives with just each other — we didn’t feel the need to have kids, certainly not in the way our culture obsesses over it. Thirdly, my husband was dealing with some personal problems and I was fully focused on supporting him through them. These were issues that we needed to sort through before considering kids, if we were to want kids.

Yet I kept getting nudges to have kids, even though I never said anything about wanting them.

“So, when are you having kids?”

“This person’s baby is so cute, isn’t it? Why don’t you hurry up and birth a baby?”

“When is it your turn?” (In response to news that someone else just had a kid)

It was as if I was some vehicle, some machine to produce kids, where my own views in the matter didn’t matter. It felt dehumanizing, even degrading.

The most frustrating thing was that I kept getting this question, while my husband — as a man — would never get it, even when we were in the same room together, even from his own family members.

It was as if my sole reason for existence as a woman was to have kids, and until I had them, I was regarded as unworthy or incomplete.

The decision to have kids

Yet the decision to have children is a personal and complex one. It is also a decision that will permanently change the lives of the couple, especially the mother.

It is not a decision that one should be pressurized into making because their mom wants grandchildren or because their grandma wants to play with kids. It’s a decision that a couple should make because they genuinely want to bring a life into this world and nurture it to its highest level, and are ready to overcome all odds and challenges in the process of doing so.

Because when a child is born, the people bugging others to have kids aren’t the ones who will be caring for the baby 24/7. They are also not the ones whose lives will be set back by years (even decades) as they care for the new life. Neither will they be the ones responsible for every decision concerning the child for the next 21 years.

It will be the couple.

And the people who aren’t ready, who were pressured into having kids because they were told that it was the best thing to do, may have to deal with regret as they are stuck with a decision they cannot undo. Because there are people who regret having kids, and we need to be honest about that. These people regret, not because of the child’s fault, but because they were simply not ready to have kids, be it financially, emotionally, or mentally. Unfortunately, the children are the ones who eventually suffer, from living in dysfunctional households to dealing with issues of violence, abuse, and anger.

We need to recognize these realities and not make parenthood seem like it’s a panacea that solves a lack of purpose or life’s problems. Things don’t magically get better because people have kids; existing problems usually worsen as having a child puts a huge strain on a couple’s lives. Digging into people’s plans to have kids, and pressurizing them into one of the biggest life decisions they can ever make, will only stress them out and perhaps push some into depression. As this redditor shared,

“I have a friend who went through six years of miscarriages and fertility treatments before the doctors figured out the problem and she had her son. The nosy ladies at her work and her in-laws questioned her constantly. The depression from that made it harder for her to conceive.”

Stop asking couples when they’re having kids

So, if you like to ask others when they’re having kids, it’s time to stop that. It’s rude, invasive, and disregards other people’s need for privacy. It’s also none of your business.

The reality is that if people want kids, they will work on having kids. They don’t need you to prod them.

If they don’t have kids, it’s either because

1. they don’t want kids,
2. they haven’t thought about having kids but don’t need you to prod them,
3. they are not in a position to consider kids right now, or
4. they want kids but they are facing some struggles.

For people in group (d), they aren’t going to share such deeply personal experience over some afternoon tea, and certainly not by you asking, “When are you having kids?”

The best thing you can do is to give people space. Understand that having kids is a personal decision, and people don’t have to share or explain anything. Respect that others have their right to privacy. Respect that people are individuals on their own path, and this path may not involve having kids. And this doesn’t make them incomplete or lesser in any way.

Instead of asking people “When are you having kids?”, talk to them like you would to a normal person. There’s no reason why conversations should suddenly revolve around childbearing after marriage; it’s not like a person’s identity changes to revolve around having kids. A person still has their own passion, goals, and dreams. Talk to them about what they’ve been doing. Understand their interests. Know them as a real person, not some random being here to fulfill society’s checklist.

If you’re really interested in someone’s plan to have children, like I mentioned in the beginning, you can simply ask, “Do you have any plans for kids?” If they wish to share more, they will do so. If they give a half-hearted or evasive answer, then take the hint and move on.

Ultimately, having kids or not doesn’t change one’s self-worth. A woman is complete with or without kids. A man is complete with or without kids.  A marriage doesn’t need kids to be deemed complete. Having kids should be a conscious choice, not a result of external pressure. Don’t judge people by whether they have kids or not. Some people will have kids and some won’t. Some will have kids early, while some will have them later in life. All of these are different paths and there’s nothing wrong with them.

For me, I (we) eventually decided to have a baby and we now have a baby girl. Yet other people’s comments and nudges on when I’m having kids didn’t make me want to have children; it only irritated me and made me want to avoid these people, because having a child is a personal decision and has nothing to do with them. It was after my husband and I enjoyed married life without kids, and had the space to actively pursue our goals and interests, that we finally felt ready to have a kid.

In the meantime, I hope all of you are doing well. There are things that I’m working on that I look forward to sharing in time to come! Sending lots of love to you, and remember that whatever life challenge you’re facing, you have it in you to overcome it.

Have you ever felt this way before? That nobody loves you? If so, you’re not alone. I’ve felt that nobody loves me before, and in fact felt this way during many of my down moments in the past, such as times when I felt neglected or pushed aside. It was only lately that I learned to break out of this thinking pattern, and today I want to share how you can do so too.

In this episode of The Personal Excellence Podcast, I share

• Why there has been a lack of updates lately (and my apologies about it!) [0:22]
• Why I would feel that nobody loves me [2:47]
• How I addressed this negative thinking pattern, and how you can too [4:49]
• Why it’s not true that nobody loves you [5:26]
• Where true self-love should come from [10:48]
• Why celebrities face self-love issues despite having the love of millions of fans [12:13]
• What happens when you pursue a relationship for the sake of feeling loved [13:17]
• Getting to the root of why you think “nobody loves me” [15:21]
• My childhood experiences that led me to this belief [16:08]
• Times when I was bullied in school [20:19]
• How I resolved these negative memories [23:31]
• My gratitude to you guys [28:52]
• An exercise for you to dig into the belief “nobody loves me” [30:35]
• How to start building up your self-love [34:51]
• Why there is no dichotomy between self-love and personal growth [37:14]
• My reminder to you [38:36]

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Podcast Addict, Overcast, Castbox, or subscribe to the RSS feed.

The Personal Excellence Podcast

Nobody Loves Me

Show Podcast Information

Read the transcript for this episode here.

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Nobody Loves Me [Transcript]

Welcome to The Personal Excellence Podcast. The show that’s all about helping you be your best self and live your best life. Now, your host, Celestine Chua!

Celestine Chua: Welcome to The Personal Excellence Podcast Episode 17, I’m Celes from PersonalExcellence.co!

First off, I want to apologize for the slow updates in the past months, if not year. For those of you who are not on the PE newsletter, do join — it’s at personalexcellence.co/newsletter. Even though there haven’t been many updates on the blog, I’ve been sending out email updates that are not posted on the blog. So maybe you don’t see as many updates there but there have been emails sent out — sometimes weekly, sometimes fortnightly, sometimes monthly. If you are on the newsletter, you’ll get access to all of that including announcements of live courses that I’m running.

All that said, I totally recognize that there has been a lack of updates on PE. A large part is because I’ve been busy working on things in my personal life. Things that I feel are important, that deserve my full attention, as opposed to repeatedly running in a rat wheel and working on things that are urgent but may not be as important. I felt that I needed to take time out to work on these things.

But I want to let you know that I have not abandoned PE. Not at all. Those of you who are longtime readers will know that PE is my life. It is what I’ll be doing for the rest of my life, and I’ve just been taking this temporary time out to work on personal things, personal issues, which I look forward to sharing more in time to come. I want you to know that I’m here to stay and I’m not going anywhere. :)

Thank you for your positive reviews on Tunes — reading them has really inspired me. In fact, I was thinking what new content to produce — Should write a new article? Create a new podcast? Or create a new video? — and reading all your podcast reviews has inspired me to return to the podcast and talk to you guys again.

Today’s Episode: Nobody Loves Me

On to today’s episode, about “Nobody loves me.” Have you ever thought that way before? Where you feel that nobody loves you? If so, I can understand. There have been times when I felt this way, particularly during my down moments or times when I felt neglected or disregarded.

For me, one of the reasons I would think this way is due to my childhood upbringing. When I was young, my mom was pretty much emotionally unavailable. She cared for me and my brother in terms of how a housekeeper or house carer would — like she did all the functional duties like laundry, cooking, etc., something that a traditional Chinese mom would do. And I’m really grateful to her for that, for raising me and my brother along with my dad. But she was pretty much emotionally unavailable, and I’m not sure if she ever is [emotionally available]. For the record, both my dad and mom are alive today.

So whenever I needed something from her, needed to talk to her, or wanted to talk to her in any way, she would be very angry and scold me for no reason, or just be very critical and angry in general. Any contact with her was explosive if caught at the wrong time, and as a daughter I never really got to talk to her much, if at all.

This weird dynamic, along with the fact that I grew up in an angry household (something that I mentioned in my anger series where my parents argued every single day in a very volatile manner), cultivated this feeling in me (growing up) that nobody loves me. It was only when I took the time out to address this feeling that I was able to break out of this negative thinking pattern.

If you sometimes find yourself thinking “nobody loves me,” I want to let you know that you’re not alone. Here I share the steps that I have taken to work through this belief, and I hope you’ll find them helpful.

1) It’s not true that nobody loves you

The first thing I want to say is that it is not true that nobody loves you. When we are too trapped in our problems, it is often easy for us to forget or miss out on the love and the good that are around us.

For example, when I was thinking things like “nobody loves me,” right beside me would be my husband who loves me with all his might and has always been there for me. It’s interesting to see that when we are so stuck in our own problems, we miss out on these obvious things — the people around us who love us.

Love here doesn’t have to be romantic love. These people can be friends, co-workers, relationship partner (if you are in the relationship), mentors, teachers, an acquaintance (someone you don’t know well, but this person may adore you or admire you or like certain things you do), or even just a stranger — someone who is admiring you from afar.

So there can be all these people loving you, admiring you, and adoring you, and it is totally not true that nobody loves you. If you stop and think and look around you, chances are you’ll find at least one person who loves you. Who supports you, and who is there for you or has been there for you, and it’s just that you haven’t been focusing on this love or this person. You have been too wrapped up in your own pain, which then leads to the thought of “Nobody loves me.”

It’s important to recognize this first and foremost because when we are too stuck in our own pain, that makes us block out the love that’s around us. When we block out the love that’s around us, that makes it difficult for us to receive love into our life.

Exercise: Think of someone who loves you

Here, stop and think. Think about the people around you. Think about your friends, your family members, your co-workers or your schoolmates, your mentors/teachers, your acquaintances, or just anybody in general. Think of at least one person who shares positive feelings about you. This can be feelings of love. Of admiration. Of like. Of support. Of encouragement. It doesn’t have to be romantic love because love isn’t just about romantic love, but here it’s love in terms of human universal love.

Think of at least one person who loves and supports you.

Chances are you’re going to think of one person. This can be someone who has supported you before. Encouraged you before. Been there for you before. It could be an ex-friend, a friend whom you were in contact with before and then somehow lost touch. It could be someone from your past. It could be someone in your present now.

When you start recognizing this, it starts to change this dynamic, this thought of “nobody loves me.” Because then you realize, Hey this may not really be true in the way that I think it is true.

At the end of it all, I want you to know that I love you. That’s important for me to say to you because the very premise of why I started PE is that I truly, truly believe in your potential for success in life. That’s why I create all these resources at PE, be it the free resources or the paid courses. These are resources that I’ve dedicated my whole life, my whole self into creating because I believe in your own personal ability and personal power.

So I just want to put it out there that I love you. But most importantly, there are people in your life who love you. Be aware of these people, beyond what I’m saying here. Be aware of these people and start being open and recognize love around you as and when you see it.

2) True self-love should not come from an external source

The second thing I want to share is that love should not come from an external source.

Now, even if you truly think that nobody loves you, well that doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t matter because love (for ourselves) shouldn’t come from an external source. True self-love should fundamentally come from within us.

This is important to recognize because we shouldn’t be looking upon the outside world for the feeling of love. So it’s not about whether you have love from one person or 10 people. It’s not some competition where you try to get as much love as you can from others. True self-love should come from within.

And when the love isn’t coming from within, or there’s something stuck inside keeping the love coming from within, then it doesn’t matter how many people are loving you right now. You would still not truly feel the love from around you. You would still feel those moments of self-negativity because it hasn’t clicked on the inside yet, in that you haven’t resolved this inner issue or the inner turmoil, and that’s something I talk about in tip #3.

Example: Celebrities dealing with self-love issues

An example would be celebrities. It’s not uncommon to see news about celebrities dealing with addiction, overdoses, or deep inner problems. Oftentimes this is because of personal inner issues that they’re working through. Issues of self-love. Depression. These can be people like Selena Gomez, Justin Bieber, Demi Lovato, and even celebrities in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. This is nothing to be ashamed of. It’s important to seek help for this.

But it is important to recognize that these celebrities have millions, hundreds of millions, and billions of fans adoring them. Even then, despite all the adoration they get from the fans and their huge popularity, they still feel moments of such intense negativity that lead them to their personal issues.

This is also why in Soulmate Journey, which is my course on finding love, one of the very basic foundational modules is the importance of self-love. Because if we seek an external relationship on the basis of wanting to feel love, that’s not really going to solve the problem. It’s going to attract fear-based people. Or put you in a codependent relationship where you often seek your partner’s attention to feel loved. And when you don’t [get that], then you feel needy and clingy or you feel unhappy and upset.

This brings me to this quote by Ayn Rand, which is “To say I love you, one must first know how to say the ‘I’.” Here, the point is not to focus on how supposedly “nobody loves me.” Because it is not about whether nobody loves you or somebody loves you, but why would it matter whether somebody loves you right now? Why would this matter, if not for the fact that there is a feeling of emptiness within that’s causing you to feel this way?

Now this doesn’t negate what we are talking about in tip #1 which is to recognize that there is somebody who loves you. But rather, when we stop to think about the people around us who love us, and that there are people around us who love us (be it love, admiration, adoration, support, or encouragement), and yet we still find ourselves thinking “nobody loves me,” then it suggests that there’s some kind of gap, issue, or blockage within that’s stopping us from receiving the love.

3) Understand and address the source of “nobody loves me”

This brings me to my third point, which is to understand and address the source of this feeling. Here is where we really get to the root of it: understanding the source of this belief, “Nobody loves me.”

• How did it start?
• When did it start?
• Why is this thinking there?

This may take a while to unravel, and it may even go deep into your childhood. Because this is where most of our foundational beliefs start forming, and this forms the basis of a lot of the work that I do with my participants in my courses.

My experience: Growing up with an angry mother

For me, when I think about this thought “nobody loves me,” there are probably two key sets of experiences leading of this.

One of which I shared at the beginning of the podcast, which would be my childhood upbringing, where my mom was just not really there. Like not there in terms of the spirit, if it makes sense. I felt like she was there in terms of someone who performed the functional duties of a mother — which I am grateful to her for, for raising me and my brother — but it was somewhat damaging to me, I think, the way that she raised me in terms of the other elements of her behavior. Such as her anger outbursts and how she would often shut me off, even in times when I needed her.

So there was a time when I had fever and I think I was 13 or 14. I was a young kid and running a somewhat high fever. She was going to take me to the doctor, like I told her about it and the next step would be to take me to the doctor. On the way to the clinic, she started shouting, criticizing, and reprimanding me for walking slowly. And I was already dizzy and walking in the hot sun and trying to keep up with her fast walking speed. So that was one memory.

Another experience I shared in my article on childhood stories. When I was young, and I was six or seven at this time, there was soap that went into my eyes and I thought I was going blind. I was smarting in my eyes and I already knew from past experience that my mom would tell me not to disturb her while she went about her household chores. But in reality, she was never free. My mom was just never available regardless of what was happening.

So I knew from experience that I shouldn’t talk to my mom, or that I should avoid triggering any negativity by simply not talking to her.

So that was a moment when I was really scared. I was scared that I was going blind. So I started to tell her about this, and true to that, she started shouting at me, saying that I was disturbing her. When I pressed on further because I truly was feeling discomfort in my eye(s), she just quickly looked at me and said I was fine, and then brushed me away and continued doing what she was doing which was laundry at that time.

All these moments added together, along with the constant arguing in the household between my mom and my dad on a daily basis, all these moments created a feeling of void and emptiness. And this was not something that I was aware of at that point as a child. I think as children, we are just not aware of the feelings going through [our minds]. But that doesn’t mean that these feelings are not happening. We are not aware of these feelings forming, but they do affect us in our life, if not at that point in time.

So thinking back, when I thought about why I would have this recurring thought “Nobody loves me,” I realized that a part of the reason is that all these moments, this upbringing, created a feeling of void in the family and made me feel like nobody loved me.

Another experience: Bullying in school

So there would be one set of experience, family. A different set of experience would be — and this would be to a lesser extent, like the main set of experience is my childhood and my family upbringing — school.

Because of all these things happening at the family level and parental level, that make me a very awkward child in school. In the sense that my mom, in addition to what was happening at home, inhibited me from talking when I was a kid. Like literally talking in any way, and this would be a separate topic for a separate post or podcast.

But she basically inhibited me from talking, so I never really got to speak or develop my communication skills as a child, except in school. So when it came to school and forming friendships, I was very socially awkward. I couldn’t really express myself or my thoughts in the way I would have if I was given the space to naturally talk as a kid.

So that made me socially awkward and made it difficult for me to form proper friendships. So I was bullied in school. You know girl cliques and all these very childish behaviors that would go on in school. And there were guys and guys being nasty to girls and all that too. So there were a lot of these experiences where I would be negatively teased, bullied, put down, or criticized and I never really knew how to handle these situations. These contributed to me feeling worse about myself.

So these two sets of experiences hand in hand cultivated this feeling of “nobody loves me.”

It was when I was 18 years old when I started having the first moments of liberty because that was when college started and I entered university. I started having the starting reins of independence. Of being given the space to handle my life. I guess it was when I was 18-19 when I also truly started the journey of conscious self-development, which I feel should have and could have happened much earlier. But for me, that was when I really started conscious self-development and learning about myself, my life purpose, figuring out my values, and so on.

Debunking these negative memories

When I think back to these core moments that caused me to think “nobody loves me,” challenging these thoughts became important. Because it is not true what I had concluded at that point.

a) Debunking my negative childhood upbringing and the conclusion “Nobody loves me”

For example, with the way my mom treated me, how she was emotionally unavailable and so on, when I thought about it, it’s not true that her behavior meant that nobody loves me. I would say a large part of it had to do with herself. Her and herself, and her stories, and maybe the way my grandma raised her. I have no idea how my grandmother raised her; my grandmother has passed away, and to be honest, I don’t know much about the past because these are simply not things that my parents talk about in any way. But I do believe, thinking back, that my grandmother probably treated my mom in a very similar fashion when she was growing up.

And there are obviously a lot of baggage and negative stories that come from being part of a low-consciousness upbringing. My parents came from very low-income households and I was raised in a low-income household, and I think that there are a lot of difficulties and problems that come associated when you’re dealing with [deep financial] struggles in life.

So I would say that my mom’s own emotional unavailability, issues, and anger, they had more to do with her and her stories, and the kind of upbringing that my grandparents put her through rather than it being about me.

Now as a child growing up, the only conclusion that I could derive at that point, from my own [limited] subset of life experiences then, would be that nobody loves me. Nobody loves me. That I’m alone in this world. That maybe my mom hates me. That people hate me.

So thinking back, clearly this is not true. My mom did the best she could. Despite the limited circumstances, she did her best and that’s something that I’m grateful to her for. Similarly, if my mom didn’t love me in the way that she could or my dad didn’t love me in the way that he does, then they wouldn’t have worked so hard in the routines that they were in to raise me. My dad was always busy working in a low-income job, raking in the dough, supporting the family financially. My mom was always busy with the household chores, the laundry, the cooking — just toiling her 30s, 40s, the good parts of her life away to care for the household. These are not easy jobs at all. So clearly this belief is simply not true.

b) Debunking my negative school experiences and the conclusion “Nobody loves me”

As for my experience with school, basically these were just kids struggling in their own personal growth, their self-identity, discovering who they were on the inside. Just as I was working through my own problems, the other kids were also working through their own problems. Not really being self-aware. The people, the kids who were being critical or nasty, they were just doing their own thing, figuring themselves out.

And there was really no need to interpret, even if subconsciously, that any of these experiences had any meaningful meaning because they pretty much didn’t. They were really just a bunch of kids growing and figuring themselves out in life.

So thinking back and addressing these stories then helped me break out of this belief of “nobody loves me.” Because it’s simply not true. It was an erroneous belief that was formed from a bunch of random incidences that just happened that way, that really had nothing to do with me.

Objectively seeing these incidences as they were and unraveling them then helped me break out of this thought of “Nobody loves me,” and to recognize the love that’s around me, all around me right now, be it the love from my husband, the love from the people around me, the love from people who love me, and the love from you guys. My readers.

Gratitude to you, my readers

I want to express how grateful I am to you guys for allowing me to do what I do. Thank you for being patient with me in the past one year or more, where I haven’t really been updating the blog much, where I’ve been busy working through things, and I’ve pretty much been silent. I felt that if there’s nothing good to share, then just don’t say anything — and by that I mean in terms of content. I didn’t (and still don’t) believe in writing and churning out stuff for the sake of it. I wanted everything to matter especially if I’m writing out something and many people would be reading that. I wanted to make sure that it counts for something, that I’m treasuring your time spent in reading my material. And I just want to thank you for supporting my work and allowing me to do what I do.

So whatever it is, whatever capacity that you support the blog, be it by just listening to my podcast, reading the emails, buying my products, or joining my courses, I’m grateful for that. I just want to let you guys know and put this out there so thank you so much. :)

Exercise: Probe into the feeling, “Nobody loves me”

Now back to the point which is to understand and address your feelings for thinking this way. If you think that nobody loves you and you have moments when you think nobody loves you, I would like you to start questioning this thought. Start thinking further and probing into this feeling, “nobody loves me.”

Because is it really true?

Think back to when this feeling started. Chances are it’s going to go back to childhood.

• Probably from some childhood upbringing.
• Some experience you had when you were a child.
• Maybe some comment someone said to you.
• Maybe a series of experiences that you had.
• Maybe from how your parents raised you.
• Could also be to do with school experiences.
• It could also be from the lack of experiences that you had with your parents, with your mom, your dad.

Try to pinpoint and understand where this feeling came from, when it started.

As you do that, question this assumption or conclusion of “nobody loves me.” Is it true that because Event A happened that “nobody loves me”?

You saw how I shared my breakdown just now. I shared the experiences, or some of them, when I developed this thought, even if unconsciously. At the point when I was a kid, I wasn’t aware that this thought was formed, but as an adult looking back and thinking back, I realized that some of these moments might have led to the conclusion, “nobody loves me.”

So then, question the thought: Is it true that because this happened, that Event A happened, that nobody loves me? Chances are you’re going to find that it’s not true. You’re going to find that it was an erroneous conclusion made at that point when you didn’t know better. When you could only conclude things in this way. And then looking back as your adult self today, you’re able to break apart that incident and recognize that this feeling of “nobody loves me” might not really be what you think it was. That it was more of an erroneous conclusion formed at the point in time when you didn’t know better.

The above might sound a little bit confusing, and I go into these things much deeper in my courses, but hopefully you understand what I’m trying to say here. There were incidences that happened when we were a child that made us think a certain way, but often time these incidences don’t mean that. And we only concluded that conclusion, that thought, that belief, because we didn’t know better at that point in time. Because there was limited data. And when we truly go back and question that experience, then we find that our belief was formed from a set of poorly formed conclusions, a set of poorly understood experiences.

Really take the time out to understand and address your feelings for thinking this way. This tip is super, super important because this forms the foundational basis of how we see ourselves, really addressing this belief of “nobody loves me.”

4) Work on your self-love

My fourth and last tip is to start working on your self-love.

So we have already addressed and looked into the fundamental basis of how this feeling of “nobody loves me” got formed. The next step is to work on your self-love, because we can never stop working on that.

If we ever feel that nobody loves me, remember here it’s about first loving ourselves. When we love ourselves, and we start loving ourselves, then we’ll be able to truly appreciate and see the love that’s coming from around us.

So ask yourself: Are there things that you are doing that’s keeping you from self-love? Come up with a list of actions that you can take to start loving yourself. Maybe you are often really hard on yourself — and this may be something I want to do a podcast on, about not being hard on yourself — but maybe you’re just often being hard on yourself. Maybe you’re often pushing yourself. You’re often berating yourself. You’re often being critical of yourself. And these are things that you shouldn’t do to yourself. These are things that shouldn’t be happening. And these are things that you can stop doing to herself.

Now instead, start appreciating you.

• Start loving you.
• Start loving your body, if you aren’t already doing that.
• Start loving your beautiful facial features.
• Start loving your hair, if you aren’t already loving that.
• Start loving your face.
• Your whole self.
• Your work, what you create.
• Start loving your behavior.
• Your actions.
• Start loving your goals.
• Your attitude.
• Your beliefs.

There is no dichotomy between self-love and self-improvement. We can love ourselves and also be working on our personal growth at the same time. It is from truly loving ourselves that we see this opportunity for personal growth.

And personal growth not initiated or rooted in a place of fear or competition or feeling that we are not good enough. But rather, personal growth rooted in seeing all the unlimited potential we have and how we can simply be better.

So here, as you work on your self-love, also work on the things that you love to do. The goals that you wish to achieve. The things that you wish to do for yourself. Taking the time out for self-care. Taking the time out to support yourself in your endeavors. Taking the time out for your personal goals.

Think about the things you love to do. And the things that you can do to start loving yourself or to love yourself more. And start working on them today.

Closing Note

We’ve come to the end of the podcast. If you think that nobody loves you, or you have moments when you think that nobody loves you, I just want to remind you that this is not true. There is someone who loves you and most importantly, you love you and you should love you.

If ever there’s something blocking you from loving yourself, then it’s simply about understanding what it is. Why this blockage is. Where this blockage is. And then addressing that as I’ve shared in the tips of this podcast.

I hope you’ve found this podcast helpful. I’ll be including links to related articles and resources in the show notes, so you can check them out.

If you’ll like today’s podcast or you appreciate The Personal Excellence Podcast, I would truly appreciate it if you can take the time out to leave a positive review on iTunes. That would truly mean the world to me and help spread the podcast to more people out there.

I look forward to speaking to you guys soon, this time definitely not one year later! Let me know what episodes you guys are interested to see, what kind of topics you guys are interested to see. Or even, you can record a question for me at personalexcellence.co/podcast — there’s a link where you can send a voice question over to me.

So until next time, remember you’re beautiful, you’re complete, you’re perfect the way you are. Whatever it is, I love you and most importantly, you love you and you should love yourself. Talk to you guys soon. Bye guys!

Endnote: Thanks for listening to The Personal Excellence Podcast! For more tips on how to live your best life, visit www.personalexcellence.co

Related Resources:

• What Childhood Stories Are You Replaying Today?
• How I Found Peace in My Relationship with My Parents (series)
• My History with Anger and How I Let Go of It (series)
• How To Deal With Moments of Negative Self-Worth [Podcast]

(Images: Girl with teddy, Lotus bud, Child alone, Girl in classroom, Woman in forest)

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“Firstly, I hope you will respect my wish for confidentiality and will therefore refer to me as ‘John.’

I have known that I have been bisexual (leaning towards men) for a while now. I have always wanted to keep it secret (because I don’t agree with bi/homosexuality), but it is becoming harder to do so. My parents don’t mind what or who I am, but I don’t want to let them or me down. Furthermore, a major issue is my social status. Both myself and my friends are seen as ‘cool’ and I worry they may discard me. We have gone to plenty of discos together, and I have been with a fair number of women in my time.

But in my heart and soul, I want to be with them. My straight best friends. Telling them might make them realize I like them and that isn’t a risk I’m willing to take. Another problem is my girlfriend. I don’t want to let her down. She is smart, funny and beautiful (a rare combo, I know).

My life looks perfect on the outside, but inside it’s a permanent battle. Please help me.” — John

Hi John, thank you so much for sharing this deeply personal problem. I see that there are a few layers to this problem, so let’s look at them one by one.

Your Social vs. Real Self

Let’s start with the central theme of your issue, which is,

1. Who is John? Who is the real John?
2. And does the real John correspond to the John that others know, the social side of you that you display to others?

I’m going to jump to the second question first, and the answer seems to be a “no” — no, the real John seems different from the John that others know. While most people have two sides — a real self and a social self where they show filtered aspects of themselves to others, especially to people they don’t know well, in your case this difference is so stark that it has made life a struggle.

That’s because firstly, the difference between your real self and your social self centers around a core part of who you are — your sexuality, which in turn linked to your relationships, what you can say, everything. While for other people, the difference between their real self and social self can be small things like being chatty in a social setting while being introverted on the inside, for you the difference is a fundamental part of who you are. Pretending to be chatty despite preferring to be quiet does not hugely affect one’s life other than that the few interactions with those friends. On the other hand, pretending to be straight when you are bisexual (and leaning towards men) affects you in more than just those few interactions. It’s a facade that you need to keep up with across all meetings and interactions. It affects your romantic relationships, what you can say to others, and who you can be.

Secondly, the reason we have a social self is to fit into social groups, especially when our real personality is very different from what is socially “accepted” or “welcomed.” That’s because individual social groups ultimately have their personality that may not fit with our real self. For example, I love talking about personal growth, how to live a meaningful life, and social issues that go beyond our individual selves. However, some of my friends have no interest in such topics and I don’t talk about such things when with them. I obviously my true, unfiltered self when with my husband and very close friends.

But for you, your social self is someone you show to everyone, including your loved ones. Your parents, your inner circle friends, and even your girlfriend, someone you are supposed to be the closest and most honest with.

While for most people, they are their 100% natural selves when with close friends and family, for you, you are your social self the whole time. Your social self has taken a life of its own and shaped your entire life around it. Instead of you being your real self with most people and showing your social self only in certain interactions, you are your social self the whole time and never your real self. There’s no “off” switch, so to speak. This is why life has become a permanent battle as you have no way to connect with the world as the real you.

Acceptance of Self

This brings me to my next point, which is something you said: “I have always wanted to keep it secret (because I don’t agree with bi/homosexuality).”

My question to you is, why? Why don’t you agree with bi/homosexuality?

While I don’t normally question people’s views on bi/homosexuality because everyone has the right to believe what they want, here I have to probe as your view on bi/homosexuality is intrinsic to your relationship with yourself. If you identify as a bisexual but you don’t agree with bisexuality, that’s a problem — a big, big problem.

Let’s look at various views on bisexuality (and homosexuality). For some people, they think of bisexuality as a choice, where people choose to be bisexual and they are simply deviating from “God’s intended design.” For some, they think of bisexuality as a result of a person’s biology, something they are born with and don’t get to choose. I believe most bisexuals/homosexuals can relate to this. Some may think of bisexuality as a state of mind, a result of people being experimental, and it’s something they should snap out of. And then there are religious and societal views, where some religions outright condemn bi/homosexuality and some conservative cultures deny its existence.

For me, I think humans are incredibly flexible — as much as we are biological beings, we have the ability to shape our lives in vastly different ways due to our highly developed minds. I believe that there are people who are born bisexual and it is part of their biology. I also believe that there are people who adopt a certain sexual orientation due to past childhood trauma and experiences, and it makes the most sense for them in this world. In the same vein, I believe there are people who are born with an open sexuality or bi/homosexual and become heterosexual to fit in (similar to what you are going through), just as there are people who are born heterosexual and hence stay heterosexual (since this is the default configuration of society).

All these don’t matter though, as it’s about your views on bi/homosexuality. I can understand if someone doesn’t agree with bi/homosexuality if he/she isn’t bi/homosexual — without walking a mile in others’ shoes, some people may not understand something that’s not in their day-to-day awareness set.

However, if you are bisexual and you don’t agree with bi/homosexuality, then why is that? Is it because of your religious beliefs? Is it because this is what you were taught growing up? Is it because this is against what society believes in? Is it because you don’t believe that this is biologically the right way for a human to be?

Whatever the reason, as long as you don’t agree with bi/homosexuality, you will forever be stuck in a self-battle. As Carl Jung said, “What you resist persists.” To achieve the state of self-acceptance, you need to uncover your resistance towards bi/homosexuality and work through it. Bisexuality is not something abnormal, just as homosexuality isn’t something abnormal. It is just different, something that most people don’t understand if they don’t have any bisexual/homosexual friends. Unless you accept yourself, all of yourself, it becomes an uphill battle trying to find happiness outside of you.

Who Are You?

This leads me back to the first question, which is, Who are you? Who is John?

Is John the cool guy often seen with his cool guy friends? Is John the guy with a beautiful, smart, and funny girlfriend? Is John the guy with a perfect life and a nice social status?

Or is John someone more than that? Someone who transcends these social definitions, who doesn’t need people’s perceptions to define who he is? 

Even though you are afraid to tell your friends and girlfriend about your sexuality, you have to ask yourself: What it is to you, and why does it matter? Because if your friends are with you because you are seen as straight, and they may discard you when they know your true sexuality, then are these friends you want to stay with? Perhaps not, or perhaps they should be seen as social buddies rather than close friends. Because don’t you want to focus on friends who care about you as you, rather than friends who judge you based your sexuality?

With regards to your girlfriend, I do think that you owe it to her to tell her the truth as she is committing herself to you by being in the relationship. You have to ask yourself which is the more important value: being Truthful, or being Agreeable (not wanting to let her down)? If both of you decide that you are not right for each other, then it’s better to break things off now rather than waste her time and your time. You didn’t mention your ages, but a woman has a biological prime for childbearing, so if she is in a relationship with no long-term future, that’s time taken away from her dating journey. Whether or not having kids is what she wants, it’s important for her to know so she can decide what to do and whether she should further invest in this relationship. For you, I believe you want to be with someone you truly love and want to be with, which may or may not be your girlfriend (since you are with her under a concealed sexuality).

With regards to your parents, the great thing is that they don’t mind what or who you are. This means that the battle you are really fighting here is with yourself, as I shared above. If your parents don’t mind what or who you are, then why are you so bothered about possibly letting them down? What is it that you are “letting them down” in — is it from not being “like other sons”? And in terms of what, your sexuality? Why would having a different sexuality be a let down in any way? If it’s because of social stigma, I believe (given what you said) that your parents’ love for you is stronger than what society or religion says. Whether or not there is negative stigma from others, this is something that your parents and you can work through together, as a family. Just because you are fearful of societal’s views doesn’t mean that you should hide your sexuality from them — especially if you have an open, honest relationship with your parents to begin with. It’s about telling them the truth and then working through this together.

Bringing Your True Self to the World

What does this mean? Does it mean that you should just “come out” to the entire world?

Well, it depends. It depends on where you live and whether the society around you is ready. In certain conservative cultures, people outright condemn bisexuality and homosexuality. For example, same-sex sexual activity is illegal in India and sex between men is criminalized in Singapore (though this law is not actively enforced). In Singapore, The Pink Dot (an LBGT-affirming event) has faced many challenges in recent years as they try to spread awareness of the community to the broader society. Depending on where you live, you may have to be careful in how and who you reveal your bisexuality to.

But no matter what people around you think, you have to (a) achieve self-acceptance and (b) give your true self a way to connect with others, even if starting in a small way. Such as only revealing it to certain close friends and family members first. Such as connecting with like-minds online, albeit under an anonymous handle, like in pro-LGBT forums, Facebook groups (this would require registering a different Facebook account to stay anonymous), and commenting in pro-LGBT YouTube channels (also under a different anonymous Google account). In a way John, you are already letting your real self get heard by sending in this Ask Celes question, so I thank you for that. :)

While society may not be fully ready for you yet — the aspect of you that is bisexual (because it is different from the “default” configuration that is heterosexuality) — that doesn’t mean that you should do the same to yourself. Society generally moves at the pace of lowest denominator, which means there’s often a need to accommodate for conservative views and less progressive behavior patterns. For example, environmental groups have been highlighting for ages the damaging effects of plastic use, yet governments, commercial groups, and the average person continue to condone, use, and discard non-biodegradable plastic bags and cutlery in the name of profit and convenience. Despite the emergence of green cars, most people still don’t use them because the default cars on sale are cheaper and easier to purchase. Even online, we are weighed down by a low quality of conversation because there are always the 0.01% trolls and spammers generating a lot of noise.

What does that mean? Does it mean that you should only wait until everyone is ready and accepting of bisexuality/homosexuality before you accept yourself? No, of course not. What if this happens in only 50 years? Are you going to wait for 50 years before you can accept yourself and embrace your bisexuality? That’s terrible and also incredibly damaging to your mental well-being and growth.

My advice is this: Don’t wait for others’ approval or acceptance for you to be who you are. Start to accept and love yourself, all of you, including your bisexuality. Figure out what’s blocking in your acceptance of your bisexuality, and address that. The problem isn’t with your family and their views (as you said they don’t care who or what you are), your straight guy friends and their possible rejection of your friendship, or your girlfriend, but how you see bi/homosexuality and as a corollary, yourself.

As you work on your self-acceptance, decide who you want to open up to about your bisexuality. Your girlfriend for sure, because you owe it to her to tell the truth. Your parents possibly, because they are your parents and you said that they don’t care about who or what you are. Selected friends whom you can trust. Your straight guy friends — if you are ready and you want them to know. Alternatively, you can choose not to tell them about your true sexuality and continue to hang out as social buddies. But you should most definitely find new buddies who non-judgmental about different sexualities, because good friends are people who care about you as you, not your physical or social attributes.

As you work on your self-acceptance, you will stop being troubled by others’ perception of bisexuality and of you, even though these may continue to be obstacles in how you can connect with the world. For example, you want to share your bisexuality only with trusted people and if it’s safe to do so, depending on the social environment you live in.

Obviously, the best case scenario is to live as your true self and have the society accept you 100% as who you are, but the reality is often not perfect. It isn’t for many people, even for heterosexuals. Many people today live with limitations caused by factors outside of their control, be it where they are born, their race, the opportunities they were given growing up, genetic health problems they had no say over, or in your case, having a sexual identity that’s not as widely understood or accepted as the default sexual identity. In the face of these imperfections, it’s about finding an equilibrium between living life as best as you can and managing the imperfections. Rather than hate the world for what it is, or hate our lives for what is not perfect, let’s try to make the best out of what we have and manage the other things that are not that great yet. Because we can’t control the cards we are dealt with, but we can choose how we deal with these cards.

I hope this post has been helpful in some way and you are able to pick the right way forward for yourself. Keep me posted on how it goes okay? :)

When we get angry with our loved ones, we often say or do things that we later regret. We isolate ourselves from our partner/parent/child/friend, fuming and feeling upset — yet deep down, what we yearn for is to reconnect with him/her.

This sculpture, created by Alexander Milov for the Burning Man Festival 2015, captures just that. Titled “Love,” it features two wire-frame adults after a fight, distanced and sitting with their backs facing each other.

What’s interesting are the two children inside the wire-frames, trying to reach and touch each other — despite their physical bodies facing the other way.

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Milov says:

“It demonstrates a conflict between a man and a woman as well as the outer and inner expression of human nature. Their inner selves are executed in the form of transparent children, who are holding out their hands through the grating.

“As it’s getting dark (night falls) the children chart to shine. This shining is a symbol of purity and sincerity that brings people together and gives a chance of making up when the dark time arrives.”^[1]

More pictures of the sculpture:

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In many ways, it is true. When we get angry at a loved one, we may seem irate and repelled by them. But deep down we really care. Our love is just not being manifested in a constructive or healthy way. If there is a way for us to reconnect, to be back together in peace, we would want to do that. But first, we have to put aside our adult egos and pain.

Some gentle notes for all of us:

1. The next time you are angry at someone, focus on the loving spirit of your inner child. Remember that underneath your anger is love for the other person.
2. Learn to regulate your emotions. If you feel angry or upset, find ways to manage and release these emotions without throwing them at your loved one. Give each other the space to cool down. Leave the room, go for a walk, close your eyes and breathe, or do something else.
3. Focus on the conflict. What’s causing the conflict? How can you solve it? What help do you need from your loved one? What actions can you take? How can you resolve this together?
4. Repair. Nobody’s perfect. There will be times when we say or do something we didn’t mean to (such as yelling or sniping at him/her). Focus on repairing the relationship by talking to our loved one after the event: state what happened, why what we did was wrong, and what we’ll do differently next time. Take responsibility for our actions and don’t blame him/her.
5. When the dust has settled, reinforce your love for each other. Talk with a cooled head and figure out ways to solve the problem and avoid such outbursts next time.

The forgiving, open and free nature of children is your true nature. Inside each angry person is a hurt child trying to connect. Remember that when you are with your loved ones.

Share this post with your loved ones to let them know you care. Read as well:

• How Anger Affects the Brain and Body [Infographic]
• How to Let Go of Anger (series)

FOMO — or the fear of missing out — has become a pattern in today’s world. We are constantly on our phones, glued to social media feeds and checking what other people are up to. The more updates we see, the more anxious we feel. We see people living this exciting life, achieving this new milestone, doing that exciting activity. We feel like we are missing out, that we are not living a good enough life, and we have a compulsion to keep up.

So we keep up… buying, keeping up, and absorbing as much information and updates as we can. And this addresses our anxiety… or does it?

Can you relate? Well, today’s episode is just for you. :) In this episode of The Personal Excellence Podcast, I cover

• What is FOMO [0:29]
• Signs of FOMO [1:27]
• 4 reasons why FOMO exists [4:39]
• 5 strategies to tackle FOMO [15:06]

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Podcast Addict, Overcast, Castbox, or subscribe to the RSS feed.

The Personal Excellence Podcast

How Social Media Creates a Fear of Missing Out (And What To Do About It)

Show Podcast Information

Read the transcript for this episode here.

If you find The Personal Excellence Podcast helpful, please take a minute to leave a nice rating on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to the podcast. Your rating makes a difference and will help spread the message of conscious living to more people out there. Thank you! :)

Fear of Missing Out [Transcript]

Welcome to The Personal Excellence Podcast. The show that’s all about helping you be your best self and live your best life. Now, your host, Celestine Chua!

Celestine Chua: Hey everybody, welcome to The Personal Excellence Podcast! This is Celestine Chua from PersonalExcellence.co. Today we’re talking about the fear of missing out, otherwise known as FOMO.

Have you heard the term FOMO before? I’m sure some of you have. But if you haven’t, FOMO refers to the apprehension that one is not in the know, or one is out of touch with some event, experience, or interaction. This compels the person to constantly want to know what’s going on, what’s happening out there, and whether they’re missing out on something.

In today’s world, FOMO exists on some level in many of our social media habits and online behavior — even if you don’t realize it. This is why I want to discuss this topic today because I feel that FOMO has become such a prevalent issue.

Some Signs You Have FOMO

Some signs of having FOMO include

• Continually refreshing your social media newsfeed to see what’s going on, what’s the latest update, and the new things that people are discussing right now.
• Feeling the need to know what so-and-so people are doing. This can include the people in your social network. It can also include the people you don’t know, such as celebrities or famous people.
• The constant feeling that you’re not satisfied with your life, and because of that you keep looking outward at what others are doing.
• Feeling that perhaps you are not doing enough.

So as opposed to enjoying your time right now with the people you are with and the life you have right now, you are constantly checking and seeing what others are up to, because you feel that otherwise, you may be missing out.

Why FOMO is Unique to Our Era

I feel that FOMO is a phenomenon that’s unique to our digital era. FOMO as a term was coined in 2003 and it was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2013. That’s just a few years ago. So why is FOMO unique to our era?

Imagine in the past, way before the internet was invented. Say it’s a Friday night and you just finished work. What do you do?

Perhaps you would read a book. Perhaps you would do some simple activities. Maybe you like to knit so you knit. Maybe you watch a video of your favorite movie. Or you have a quiet conversation with a loved one. So you do that and you sleep. And you could be feeling pretty satisfied with your Friday night, doing something that you like.

Nowadays, everybody is connected. You can see what anybody is doing and everyone’s updates. With the Internet today, typically what happens is this: It’s Friday night. You could be browsing your social media newsfeed and your Instagram newsfeed.

• You see this professional coach or guru going to some event, achieving some new level of success, getting this new interview, living the high life.
• Or you see this celebrity, this person partying at some gala event, living in some mansion, doing some new photoshoot, or having some brand new product launch.

So you could be excited and feeling satisfied with your Friday night, reading a book, knitting, talking to a loved one, whatever it is. But now you are left feeling like you’re boring and lousy because you’re not doing all of these things that these “exciting” people are doing. And that, in essence, is FOMO.

4 Reasons for Fear of Missing Out

I see FOMO as the result of a few factors.

1) Prevalence of Fast-Speed Internet

First, the wide prevalence of fast-speed Internet. It’s incredibly easy to get information today. In the past, when the internet was new, it was slow and we were on dial-up modem. Some of you guys may still be on dial-up.

But in the past, dial-up was the norm. Over the years, as the government, societies build up the infrastructure, high-speed internet became more easily accessible and at a lower cost. Many people around the world have fast internet today.

So you can easily get information at the click of a button. With that, you can easily see what people are doing with the click of a mouse. What Brad Pitt is doing right now, what Angelina Jolie is doing right now, what the Kardashians are up to. All this information, just easily accessible at the click of a button.

Because of that, you can instantly know what others are doing. This starts this whole comparison cycle and behavior because now you can easily compare and put side-by-side what other people are doing and what you are doing. This starts to create a feeling of lack, a feeling of inferiority, that maybe you’re not good enough.

2) People displaying a perfect version of their lives

The second factor would be people using the Internet to exhibit their best selves. Along the way (in the 2000s), the Internet became this platform where people get to share about themselves. But now, instead of people sharing about themselves, people are using the Internet to exhibit a very manicured version of themselves. Sometimes this version may not even be true to reality.

So there’s a very heavy level of self-monitoring and self-altering behavior going on.

We have magazines out there isn’t it? In the media industry, with the magazine editors heavily photoshopping magazine covers, they create this “picture-perfect” version of beauty and very narrow definitions of beauty. That’s the magazines and it’s enough that media industry is doing that.

But now, instead of this being an issue isolated to magazines (and the media), we have people everywhere on Instagram, Facebook, etc. editing the photos that they upload. Instead of it being an authentic moment — which it used to be, where people were genuinely sharing what they were doing as part of connecting with others — now it’s become a situation where people are sharing very edited, manicured, and perfected versions of what’s going on in their lives.

So they could be living their day and essentially doing mundane activities — as with most people living their lives. Some of the things they’re doing will be mundane and usual, nothing to shout about. Then they have this one hour when they are doing something exciting, and then they will take some pictures of that and edit that, make them perfect, add filters, and so on. And just highlight those moments.

When you have people everywhere doing this online, it creates this impression of, Oh this is what’s happening in everybody’s life all the time. So I’m missing out! My life is not good enough! This creates a really skewed and warped sense of reality.

3) Existing social issues magnified by Internet

The third factor contributing to FOMO is there are simply existing (social) issues that the Internet exacerbated. As opposed to the internet creating problems, I would say there were existing problems such as loneliness or low self-esteem. The Internet, with the way it has brought the entire world closer and stripped away many boundaries, exacerbated this issue as we no longer have a strong sense of boundary or space. People who already feel lonely or low in self-esteem may feel more isolated, while people who felt slightly lonely at times may have this feeling magnified in the presence of everyone else’s success and “exciting” life.

4) How today’s websites are designed

The fourth factor contributing to FOMO is how companies have designed their websites.

To understand how this works, it boils down to this underlying principle. Essentially, most companies operate on profit. Well, the essence of a company is to be profitable because if you’re not profitable, you’re out of the game.

When companies focus on profit as their sole objective — without regard for their audience and adding value to their lives — their number one goal becomes to maximize each user’s time spent on their website. This is particularly true for platform companies like Facebook, Snapchat, Netflix, Instagram. The more time you spend on their site, the better it is for them, the more advertisers they can get, the more revenue they can get.

What’s the best way to maximize the time spent? By maximizing interaction, maximizing the number of engagements you (as the user) have on their site, be it by making you click from one place to the next within their site. Whatever keeps you within the site and gets you clicking, interacting, commenting, and spending as much time as possible on the platform itself — whether it’s Facebook, Snapchat, or Netflix — even if it’s to the point of detriment of your well-being, your productivity, or the utility value you’re getting from the website.

This is particularly so when a company starts to focus on profit and what it gets off its user base rather than having the users’ best interests in mind and designing its services around them. This is where profit supersedes value — where companies focus on profit rather than giving value, as opposed to creating value as the priority and earning profit as a result of that.

So platforms are now creating site designs to build addiction. We have Facebook — or any of these large attention companies really — having large teams of growth hackers, where their sole job every day is to get together to discuss, find ways to hack your brain, and figure out how to break down your mental barriers, so that you’re constantly glued to their platform. Getting you to stay on their site, making you feel compelled to come back, and making you feel, Oh I’m missing out if I’m not coming back to the site. I’m missing out if I’m not clicking this notification.

So it could be

• Facebook popping up a message and saying, “You haven’t been here for a while” or “You haven’t posted on your page for a while. Do you want to interact with your followers (if you have a Facebook page)?”
• Snapchat. They introduced a streak feature in the past couple of years where they encourage you to continue this streak of messaging someone consecutively each day or over a period of days, so that you can maintain the streak.

Some of these are questionable. Because, okay, Snapchat has this streak feature to message this number of times or this frequency with someone. But does this help forward your relationship with that person or help you live a better life? These are questions to ask ourselves.

So we have these companies coming up with all kinds of strategies. Many of them implicit — you don’t know they are happening unless you take a step back to think. Or unless you run a website yourself, where you become conscious of these issues. Ultimately, they are there to suck you in. To get you addicted. To make you feel like you’re missing out. Hence, the feeling of “missing out.”

So you constantly refresh your social media feeds to see what you are missing out. You feel, Okay! When I refresh and the thing is loading in my browser, I’m doing something with my life. Something is happening and I’m seeing all these updates! The page is now loaded, you see this barrage of new updates. Okay! Now I feel marginally fulfilled. Then 30 seconds later, you are back doing the same thing, loading the webpage and seeing the next wave of updates.

Social Media Updates — Junk Food for the Brain

All these are very much what I call, junk food for the brain. It’s like you eat junk food, and maybe for a few seconds, you feel satisfied. After a while though, you feel, Hey I need more! Like, This is not satisfying me.

Why is that? It’s because these little pieces of updates are inherently not satisfying or nourishing. Junk food is not nourishing for our body. Media news sites and the attention companies, or any of these websites using these strategies to maximize attention and it can include content mills with very low-quality articles, designed to make you click from one thing to the next — these are junk food for the brain.

When you have all this junk food content and you’re consuming it, the quantity may be huge and there may be many pieces of such content everywhere. But because it’s not nourishing for the brain, you have to keep clicking and refreshing and returning just to keep this “nourishment “going. Because it’s so ungratifying, you’re not being fulfilled, and hence you need to do it so many times.

Compared to if you are reading a piece of high-quality content, you can be just reading a short amount and that’s food for thought. There’s something you have gained, that makes you think for the next few days.

So these four factors contribute to the phenomenon of FOMO. Even in the online business world, FOMO has created the shiny object syndrome. Where you feel this need to constantly buy that next app, that next plugin, that next web service, hoping that you’ll create that next big breakthrough in your business. I’ve shared before in an article on the magic bullet — there’s no secret sauce or magic thing that’s going to transform or create some huge results. Ultimately, it’s back to the same fundamentals and it boils down to the strategy that you use and how you approach your business.

5 Strategies to Tackle FOMO

So how can you tackle FOMO? I have 5 strategies.

1) Stop comparing yourself to others

Stop comparing. I know it is difficult because all this information about people’s lives is everywhere, and social media companies have made it so easy for us to access this information. When you come online, you have all these companies hungering to grab your attention, even if it’s to the detriment of your productivity. You have all these companies fighting and eliciting you to, “Come and click, come and click over to my website.” It becomes really difficult because you are fighting all these forces: the macro forces and also the internal force in you, where perhaps there is a sense of dissatisfaction or feeling that, Okay, maybe there’s something out there that I need to know.

So I know it’s difficult, but it is important to stop this behavior from within. This can include limiting your social media usage and controlling the way you use social media which I’ll talk about in tip #3.

With regards to not comparing, two episodes back I talked about our unique path in life. In that episode, I talked about how everybody is on a unique path. You are on your unique path. I am on my unique path. We are all on our unique paths in life. Don’t feel like you need to compare because perhaps you’re not making the best of your life.

Sure, you can benchmark. Benchmark meaning you reference and look at what others are doing as an indication of what you could be doing.

But don’t compare in that you keep looking towards what other people are doing as the reference point for where you should be. Because we are all different. We all have our unique paths. We have our individual aspirations, our individual paths to realize.

You can be the fastest swimmer on Earth. If you keep looking at the bird in the sky and wondering why you can’t fly, you’re just putting your God-given talents in swimming to waste. This is the same between the bird and the swimmer. The bird can be in the sky flying, with the ability to fly and soar, but instead, it looks at the fish in the sea and wonders why it can’t swim.

So the fish gets to explore the wonders of the marine world. The bird gets to explore the wonders of the sky. Everybody is on their individual path to self-actualize and self-realize, and this path may not be comparable in many instances because it’s just unique.

Unfortunately, we live in a society right now with the tendency to diminish and condense people to a metric, and try to simplify human worth or value to some number or statistic. But there’s something for you to keep in mind: We are not statistics and we should not be condensed to a number. Even if society or government or media tries to do that to us, we are not that. Each of us is unique and we are unique individuals on our unique path to contribute and create massive value to the world.

Always remember that and don’t compare yourself to other people. Don’t try to alter yourself or shape your life so that it looks like other people’s lives, because you have your life and you are your unique individual, and it’s about embracing that.

2) Fill your schedule with meaningful activities

My second tip is to fill your schedule with meaningful Quadrant 2 activities. I talk about this in my article Put First Things First. It refers to the activities, tasks, and goals that are the most important in your life, but not necessarily the most urgent.

Why aren’t they the most urgent? That’s because the most important things in our life rarely become urgent until it’s too late. They include our health, our relationships, our biggest life aspirations. Fill your schedule with meaningful Quadrant 2 goals or tasks, whatever they may be. This requires you to take a step back to really think, reflect, and ask yourself:

• What are my Quadrant 2 goals?
• What are my most important life goals?

For those of you with Live a Better Life in 30 Days, many of the tasks (especially in Week 1) are about goal setting. Assessing your life right now. Identify what is your ideal life, your ideal goals. Creating a life map and your vision board. And so on. All the 30 tasks in the program are meant to get you to think about the different Quadrant 2 aspects of your life. For those of you with the program, review the tasks inside, and start thinking about your Quadrant 2 goals.

When your life is exciting and filled with meaningful Quadrant 2 activities, you will automatically not be interested or very interested to see what other people are doing. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t know what others are doing. To do that would be to isolate yourself from the world and that is just swinging from one end to the other. But you won’t have this constant or unhealthy compulsion to keep seeing what other people are doing and filling your life with this filler information. Because you are living your life. These Quadrant 2 activities could be, say, being with your parents. Having a meal with them. Being with your loved ones. Social activities. Volunteering work.

One of my recent coaching clients went on a six-week volunteer trip in Taiwan. He’s from Australia. He was in this rural village at a homestay, taught at a rural school, and ran some conferences. From this trip, he gained so many insights about his future goals, what he wants to do for the next 10 years and beyond, and what he wants to do as his life direction. That’s because the work was inherently fulfilling and it was something that he was personally interested and passionate about. Pursuing and doing this gave him insights on what he would want to do in the future. That was a huge Quadrant 2 activity. He could have spent these six weeks in a frivolous way or just doing nothing — which is fine too because sometimes relaxing or taking time out for ourselves is important. But he could have just wasted six weeks away. Instead, he used it in a meaningful way, in his own definition. That helped him gain so much insight on what he wants to do for his long-term goals, his 10-year goals, and his future life direction.

Quadrant 2 activities can also include exploring a new place you haven’t been to before. Learning a new skill. Doing something you like, whatever it is.

So fill your schedule with these meaningful activities, as opposed to filling the entire day with refreshers of your social media newsfeed or what Kylie Jenner is doing. Ultimately, this won’t fulfill you. But taking action on your personal goals in life? That’s going to fulfill you.

3) Cut down on social media usage

My third tip is to cut down on social media usage. I mentioned just now that the Facebook newsfeed is like fast food for the brain. Tickles you and keeps you busy. May taste well in the first bite. May even make you think that you’re satisfied. But there’s nothing much there and it will ultimately kill you in the long run.

That’s why people need to keep refreshing and seeing their newsfeed so regularly. Because it’s inherently not fulfilling. That’s why they need to keep seeing it over and over and over again, hoping that it will bring a different result each time — except that it doesn’t. It’s not much different from pulling the slot machine at the casino. In fact, many elements of Facebook and a lot of these leading social media sites today are designed with reference to the addictive elements of a casino or gambling dens.

To avoid being in this negative spiral, limit the time you spend on social media. Think about it: when you are in Facebook — and I’m using Facebook as an example, but it can be any website with the agenda to maximize a user’s attention without taking into consideration their personal goals and life. So you could be in Facebook’s “walled garden,” and this is a common term used to describe the way Facebook has designed their site. It’s like a “walled garden,” to keep you inside their universe and away from the outside world. Once you step into Facebook’s “walled garden,” it becomes an uphill battle to gain control of your conscious self and you have lost the game. Because now you’re up against this seemingly innocuous but very meticulously and strategically designed website, designed to suck you in and get you to stay there as long as possible.

The best way to avoid this is to limit the time you spend on social media. 30 minutes, 10 minutes, I don’t want to set a specific time limit because it depends on why you are using social media, whether there’s something you need to get out of the site at the moment. It could even be not using social media on some days. So it is subjective. But the underlying principle is to limit the time you spend on social media. Because when you step inside, you’re going up against 100 or 1000 different strategies put in place to suck you deeper and deeper into the site. Because all of us have a limited amount of mental energy per day, it becomes a downward spiral. It very quickly drains you, and soon you find yourself in this loop where you are just refreshing and seeing the next new update and so on.

So, limit the time you spend. And remove notifications except for crucial ones or for crucial apps. Most websites and mobile app notifications today, they’re useless. They don’t serve a role in our life except to get you to go back to the app. They don’t tell us about anything important or significantly urgent. You can check these apps once in a while, whenever you remember to. But there’s no real need to have notifications alerting you every single time someone messages you or some update is rolled out. This is a call that you make, but I personally feel that most notifications today don’t have a role and they are not really useful.

4) Stop following people who promote an unhealthy lifestyle

My fourth tip is to stop following people who promote an unhealthy lifestyle. Again this requires you to be conscious of how you are using social media and how you’re approaching your Internet usage. Take a step back and evaluate the people you follow and the kind of lifestyle and messages they promote. This includes people on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, websites and so on.

As you are doing that, ask yourself:

• How do you feel when you see the updates?
• Do you feel inspired or do you feel bad or negative about yourself?
• Does it make you feel like you’re not doing enough when you see these updates? And not in a good way but in a negative way?

Once I was following this guru. At first, it was interesting, seeing his updates. But after a short period of time, it started feeling “off.” I realized that he was constantly talking about his achievements, and not in a once-in-a-while way. It’s fine to talk about what you’re doing and what you’re achieving — it’s fine to share that.

But his updates felt sort of like he was… bragging? It was constantly namedropping and talking about how he’s really awesome for having achieved certain things above and beyond other people. After a while of seeing that, it started to become toxic. Because he created this feeling like I wasn’t doing enough, or maybe I wasn’t doing enough to build my business.

So instead of it being a positive experience, it became a toxic and negative one where seeing his updates made me feel like somehow I wasn’t good enough or that I wasn’t doing enough. I wasn’t sure if it was just me, so I asked two other people who knew this person and both of them got the same vibe too. The overall sense was an off-putting one. Looking at this person’s updates made me feel a great sense of FOMO.

After that, I stopped following this person because it was a negative experience all in all. I wasn’t getting any positive messages from it. For me, as someone who has a platform and shares messages with my audience, I have a certain standard in the kind of messages I send out and the intention of my messages, and I felt like this person’s updates wasn’t congruent with what I expect of my own platform.

Or it could be a totally different type of message. For example, you could be following people who promote a materialistic lifestyle or a way of life that is not very healthy or not in line with your values. If so, you want to limit your exposure to these people. Maybe they are constantly getting you to buy things, buy material goods. Or showing off branded stuff or insinuating that somehow having certain branded goods or possessing certain physical possessions validate yourself or a certain part of who you are… which wouldn’t be a message that you want to carry.

When you are exposed to and following these people, this would keep creating the FOMO feeling. This fear that you’re missing out. That you are not buying this thing (but you should). That you’re not being good enough. That you’re not living it up. That would naturally perpetuate the feeling of FOMO in you.

Another example: with the people you follow, maybe they present a very skewed version of reality. Maybe they constantly photoshop images or present a very cherry-picked aspect of life. And this cherry-picked aspect is a little bit twisted and not accurate to reality. So you’re no longer learning or seeing an authentic side of the world and people’s lives, but a very manufactured version of reality. This will naturally skew your perception of the world.

When you are following people and their updates, know that these are things that you are allowing to enter your consciousness. Ask yourself: Are these the kind of people you want in your living room, with you? Are these the people you want right beside you, in your daily life? If no, why do you want to see these updates on such a regular basis?

So be conscious of who you follow, the updates you see. If people’s updates keep making you feel negative, fear-based, that somehow you’re not good enough, that you’re missing out, that you should be doing/buying/getting that thing, take a step back and ask yourself: Are these the kind of people you want to follow?

Maybe’s it’s good to unfollow them. Limit your exposure to these people. Instead, follow people and content that inspire you to improve, as opposed to making you fearful or feel that you have a lack, because that is not true at all.

5) Consume information in a targeted way

My fifth and last tip is to consume information in a targeted way. The Internet today is characterized by an explosion of information. We have all kinds of information around us now. You want to be conscious of how you consume this information.

You want to receive and focus on content that’s tailored to you, that helps you in your life. For example, some of you may be in Facebook groups. When you join a Facebook group, Facebook automatically makes you follow that group, that group’s updates, and automatically adds you to the group’s notifications.

The way I do it is whenever I join a group, I will immediately unfollow the group’s updates and remove the group’s notifications. So I’m still in the group, but I just don’t see its updates by the second. Instead, I go into the group whenever I want to look at what it is up to. Why do I do that? This helps me to be conscious of the kind of updates I see when I enter Facebook’s main page. So firstly, I limit my usage of Facebook. Next, when I enter Facebook, I want to be conscious of the kind of updates I see on the front page. Facebook has its own algorithm and it cherry picks and selects whichever updates fit that algorithm. Typically these are updates focused on increasing and maximizing engagement, and that’s not necessarily what I want. Sometimes I want to see everything that the group has so far, discussions, etc. so that I can zoom in on the ones that are relevant to me. As opposed to having an algorithm that pre-selects and pre-filters, and the pre-filtered material may not be what I’m looking for.

So being conscious in terms of how you consume information. You pick and choose the sites that you want to see, the updates you want to see, the groups that you want to focus on for today or for a week. That’s the same for websites you follow, newsletters, YouTube channels that you subscribe to. You don’t need to be following everything. You don’t need to be subscribed to everything. You want to ask yourself: Which are the [sites/channels/etc.] that give you great value? Where you genuinely feel uplifted by the content? And the content helps you to live a better life, live a conscious life?

These are the channels/websites/newsletters that you want to stay subscribed to. Don’t worry about missing out because there’s just so much information out there. Your role today is to pick what works for you. Tuning into the information, the updates, the activities that are relevant to you. Rather than feeling that you need to be in the loop of everything. I feel the websites today — how conglomerates have designed their websites — are created to elicit that feeling that you’re not seeing enough, that there’s more content you need to see.

Because of that, we need to learn to draw our boundaries. Deciding that, Okay today I just want to consume this ABC piece of content. And that’s because this channel is something that I like, this website is a high-quality one. Hence I consciously choose to read and follow these things. Beyond that, I’m doing other stuff.

Closing Note

So that’s it for today’s episode. I have a few articles that are relevant to today’s episode that I’ll be linking to them in the show notes.

If you have found today’s podcast helpful, I would really appreciate it if you can leave a review on iTunes, and that’s at personalexcellence.co/itunes/. Doing so really makes a difference. It helps to spread the message of conscious living out there to the world. And I feel that is something that we massively need today.

If you are interested in living a better life in just 30 days, check out my 30-day life transformation program, Live a Better Life in 30 Days. I’ve packed my 30 best tasks on life transformation and that includes some of my best exercises that I share with my life coaching clients, to help them discover your life direction, discover their life goals, review how you are doing in your life, evaluate your routine, transform your to-do list, expand your comfort zone, discover their values, and many more. So you can check that out at personalexcellence.co/courses/30dlbl/.

Thank you so much for listening. I truly appreciate you. If you have a question for me, you can post it to me via the podcast page on personalexcellence.co. Until next time, remember: you are beautiful and you are perfect the way you are. Thanks so much guys. And I see you guys in the next episode. Bye guys!

Endnote: Thanks for listening to The Personal Excellence Podcast! For more tips on how to live your best life, visit www.personalexcellence.co

Related Resources:

• How Technology is Hijacking Your Mind
• 6 Tips to Deal with Digital Burnout
• Our Unique Path in Life [Podcast]
• Put First Things First
• Stop Looking For a Magic Bullet For Your Goals

Imagine my surprise when the CEO responded to me directly:

“Celes, you probably don’t remember but you coached me during some of my tough times. You and Tony Robbins helped me tremendously. You helped me do the limitless. :) ” — Deep

Surprised, I quickly scanned my mind for all the clients I’ve worked with before. Deep? From 2009? The details came flooding back. I recalled that Deep had signed up for my coaching 8 years ago in 2009. At that time he was a manager at a top bank, but felt empty with his work and life. During our sessions, we worked on finding his life direction, creating his career vision, and building his business plan, among other things.

After our sessions ended, Deep left his job and freed himself from his baggage. He traveled for a year, worked on his personal growth, and then started to build a software, which led him to found his company today. With over 15 million orders processed, he is helping thousands of business owners today, and the number continues to grow.

Planting Seeds

When I looked back at our coaching logs in 2009, it’s remarkable to see Deep’s vision turn into reality. Here’s what he wrote back then:

• His life vision: “To generate enormous wealth to help the human community.”
• His business vision: “To make awesome tools, information products, and online marketplaces to help small business owners across the world. To be a preferred choice for all our clients, customers and partners.”

This is exactly what he is doing now.

It got me thinking about the concept of planting seeds. How a seemingly small action can blossom and lead to some unimaginable, amazing outcome later.

Corn seeds, ready to be planted into the soil (Image)

For Deep, when he decided to act on his emptiness in life, he didn’t have a big brand plan to start a world-class business. He just wanted clarity on what to do next. He planted his first seed — to act on his unhappiness. His second seed was when he took the leap of faith to sign up for my coaching. After all, he didn’t know me personally, and the only thing he knew about me was through my articles.

During one of our sessions, I told him: “Don’t restrict yourself with your situation in life. Don’t worry about whether something is possible, realistic or logical. Just imagine this as your anything-goes menu where you can order anything you want from the universe.”

This really struck him. Following this direction, he opened his heart, wrote his vision and was extremely inspired by what he wrote. This was the third seed planted.

Subsequently, we discussed other things during our calls, including his goals, values, and plans. These planted seeds would germinate and grow into his company today, with him being the CEO of a team of 12 employees across the United States and India.

It is the same for other goals in life. Every goal, no matter how big, starts off as a seed.

• Dating — You want to meet the love of your life. It starts by clearing your limiting beliefs surrounding love. Then opening your heart to others. Then meeting new people. Then building relationships. Then assessing the right guy/girl, if the connection is for you. These are some of the things I teach in Soulmate Journey, my course on finding love, and some of my participants have been updating me on their new-found relationships and upcoming nuptials.
• Friendship — Having best friends you can rely on doesn’t happen overnight. It starts by being there for others first. Giving without expecting to receive. Being responsive. Making the effort to maintain your friendships. 
• Health — Having good health doesn’t come from exercising and eating healthily for one single day. It’s something that you build over time. Choosing healthy over unhealthy food each day. Choosing to be active. Many seeds planted over a long period, every day.
• Family — Having positive family relationships takes time, especially if your family relationships aren’t perfect to begin with. Caring for them. Doing little acts of kindness. I had a client who made the decision to work on her estranged relationship with her mom. One year after our coaching, their relationship is now in a much more positive place, where they talk with love and understand each other more.
• Career — Getting an amazing job doesn’t happen overnight. You have to first plan your career. Build your skills and talent stack. Then network and build relationships with industry peers, recruiters, and headhunters.
• Business — Same for a successful business. It starts with a vision. Then taking an endless series of steps to build your empire. Making endless iterations, adapting every second. Being open to failure and criticism, because these will always be there no matter what you do.

For each seed, you nurture it by giving water, warmth and sunlight. As you do that, it grows into a seedling. Then a plant. Then a sapling. Then a tree.

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The tree here refers to what you want to achieve — run a successful business, have a great career, have a great relationship, have great friends, have great health, be financially abundant, be a prominent figure in your field, have your TV/talk show, move overseas, travel around the world, or some other goal.

The seeds here refer to your first steps to make your goal happen.

Many people often look at the trees, wondering when they are going to get that. Nice, big, gorgeous trees that they want in their garden.

But that’s missing the point. The critical point is not the manifestation of the trees, but the planting of the seeds. Because if you are not planting seeds, how can the trees grow? How can you expect to get results, when you have not put in the effort to get things moving?

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Planting Seeds in Your Life

This brings me to these questions:

1. What goals have you been meaning to pursue, but are putting off? In Love? Health? Carer? Business? Family? Friendships? Pick two areas.
2. What is the first seed you can plant to get it going?
3. How about the next 3 seeds? What can you do to keep this momentum going?

Say you want to switch to a career in Machine Learning. However, your past experience and skills are not in this area. A possible seed you can plant is to take up a course in Machine Learning. I have a friend who is doing a two-year Masters course in Machine Learning for this very reason — to switch to this field after he graduates. 

If you have an aptitude for programming, you can self-learn with free materials online and tools like TensorFlow. You can develop open-source tools using machine learning, get user feedback and market results (e.g. X number of downloads, featured on XYZ magazine), and highlight these achievements in your resume as validation of your skills in this area. This is exactly what my husband did in the past year, though in a different field, and he’s now able to pivot and switch his career to this new field.

Or say you want to get married at some point. You are 35, single, and constantly tied up with work. Maybe a good first step is to draw some boundaries with work. Stop working all the time and create a cutoff. Set aside a few hours each week to meet new people. Examine if you have inner blocks to love, which is very common for long-standing singles, and engage a coach to help you address these blocks. Staying immersed in work, without opening yourself to others, will not help you get into your dream relationship.

Not all the seeds that we plant will blossom. Sometimes there are seeds that just don’t germinate. For example, when you reach out to a friend to build a connection, but it’s not reciprocated. When you want to build a relationship with someone, but he/she is not interested. When you start a project and put in the due effort, but it doesn’t turn out the way you want. When you try to help someone, but get a negative or lukewarm response. When you open your heart and trust someone, but he/she bites you in the head.

But that doesn’t matter. Not all actions will lead to results. But some will. The goal is to plant as many seeds as possible in pursuing your goal. To plant the right seeds by getting advice from the right people and sources, because these shape your day-to-day thinking and long-term direction. To create so many avenues and possibilities for success, that success is imminent. To never stop taking action.

So… what seeds do you need to start planting? Can you get started right away today? Because the sooner you plant your seeds, the sooner you water them and care for them, the faster they will germinate, grow, and blossom. And how your future will be, 10, 15 years down the road will be shaped by the seeds you plant today.

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Recently I was sharing a problem with a good friend over text. Not only did he respond right away, which I didn’t expect because it was late his time (he lives in a different timezone), but he was very thoughtful in his reply. Some things he did that made me feel better:

• He didn’t assume, but asked questions to understand my situation.
• He didn’t judge but understood things from my perspective.
• He considered the situation from various angles.
• He gave me helpful suggestions on what could work.
• He sought to share my feelings, which were unhappiness, hurt, and frustration, rather than dismiss or brush them away, which I find common when I share my problems with other friends.

I later realized that he had woken up midway through the night and saw my message, and seeing that I was in need, chose to respond rather than return to sleep. Our conversation ended up being over an hour long. Needless to say, I was very thankful and later texted him, “Thanks X. I really appreciate having you as a friend. :) “

How to Have Empathy

Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person. Having the ability to put yourself in other’s shoes, and to relate and understand where they are coming from, even if you have not been in the situation before.

It goes without saying that being empathetic is an important skill. I have shared personal problems with friends before but got replies that made me feel worse, and made me deeply regret sharing my problem. I have also made casual remarks that people would pick up, which later turned into heartfelt conversations, like with my good friend above.

When you are empathetic towards others, you help them feel better about themselves. You let them know that they are not alone in their problems. You also strengthen your relationship with the person, because when you seek to share the feelings of the other, you allow thoughts and emotions to flow between the both of you.

So how can we be more empathetic? Here are 8 tips to be empathetic to our friends, colleagues and family.

1. Put yourself in the person’s shoes. It’s easy for us to comment and judge. We can say “This is no big deal” or “I don’t see why you feel this way” or “You’re over-reacting.” However, put yourself in the person’s shoes and walk a mile. Maybe they are undergoing great pain and difficulty. Maybe they are experiencing deep problems from other areas of their life. Maybe there are little issues that led them to behave this way. Without knowing the full details of a person’s problem, how can we make a conclusion? Imagine you are the person. Imagine going through this problem right now, and try to understand things from their perspective. This will allow you to connect with their emotions and perspective better.
2. Show care and concern. When someone tells you a personal problem, chances are he/she doesn’t feel well and needs your emotional support. Show care and concern. Ask, “How are you feeling?” to show concern. “Is there anything I can do for you?” is a great way to show support. If you are close friends, offering to talk on the phone or meet up, can make a big difference to them. If he/she is your partner, give him/her a hug and be there for him/her.
3. Acknowledge the person’s feelings. One of the biggest problems I find in communication is that many people don’t acknowledge the other person’s feelings. Acknowledging means to recognize the importance of something. So for example, someone says “I feel so frustrated with X.” Acknowledging this feeling means saying, “Why are you frustrated?” or “I’m sorry to hear that. What happened?”
   
   On the other hand, when you brush off or dismiss that emotion (e.g. “Relax,” “What’s the big deal?”), or you try to avoid the topic or say something irrelevant, you are not acknowledging — or respecting — their feelings. Think about emotions as the connecting point in a conversation. How you respond to an emotion is central to whether the person continues to share or closes off. When someone expresses an emotion, like “I’m sad,” “I’m angry,” or “I’m frustrated,” acknowledge the emotion. For example: “I’m so sorry that you are feeling this,” “This must be really frustrating,” or “What happened?”
4. Ask questions. Questions open a conversation. When someone gets the courage to share, especially a personal problem, asking questions encourages them to share more. Think about what the person said and ask meaningful questions.
   
   For example, say your friend confides to you that she just broke up with her long-term boyfriend. Asking questions like, “What happened?”, “Are you okay?” or “Why did you guys break up?” can help her open up. It also tells her that you want to hear more. On the other hand, giving nondescript remarks like, “I see, hope you can move on,” or “Breaking up is normal,” or “Rest well and take a break” are not only unhelpful, but shuts them from opening up further.
5. Mirror. A big conversation stopper is when someone types 10 paragraphs of text while you respond with one short line. Same when you respond to a deeply personal message with a mono-syllabic response, like “I see” or “Ok.” That’s because the person is being very open, while your response is closed off. You are not responding in resonance with the person.
   
   This is where mirroring comes in. Mirroring means to imitate someone’s nonverbal signals — gesture, speech pattern, or attitude  — to build rapport. In my opinion, NLP practitioners have made a bad rep out of mirroring. They teach people to replicate a person’s mannerisms from head to toe. But this misses the point — mirroring is about connecting authentically with others. The goal is not to “copy” someone’s mannerisms blindly, but to use it to build rapport.

   For example, if your friend shares a personal fact, reciprocate by sharing a personal fact of your own (if relevant). If they make eye contact, reciprocate by giving eye contact. If they look away, look away and give them some private space. Don’t copy every aspect of their body language without thought. Instead, adjust your behavior to match their tone and vibe.

6. Don’t run ahead of the conversation. A big mistake I notice people making when someone is sharing a problem, is that they simply jump to the end point of the conversation.
   
   For example: Someone tells you he just got retrenched. You reply, “I see. Hope you can get a job soon.” What’s wrong with this? Firstly, the person just got retrenched, so he’s likely feeling hurt and depressed. The more empathetic thing to do is to understand how he is feeling first. Secondly, the person may be retrenched because the job market is bad. Saying “Hope you can get a job soon” can feel like you’re rubbing salt into a wound, because it reminds them of the uncertainty ahead.

   What will help is to (a) connect the person based on their current emotional state, and (b) move them forward with forwarding questions. In the retrenchment example, a good way to approach the conversation will be asking the following questions, in this order: “I’m so sorry to hear that. What happened?” → “How are you feeling now?” → “What are your plans?” → (and if he wants to look for a job soon) → “What kind of jobs are you looking for?” Insert other questions in between, depending on the exchange.

   Another example: Someone just ended a long-term relationship. Saying “Cheer up and be happy” right away is insensitive as it downplays the person’s pain. Instead, ask questions like “How are you feeling?”, “Are you okay?”, “What happened?”, or “Do you want to talk?” to move them out of their pain. While you may have good intentions in telling the person to be happy, it doesn’t help as you are not acknowledging their pain. It’s the same as denying their emotion and trying to tell them that their pain is not real, or not justified. Put yourself in the person’s shoes and imagine how they feel (tip #1). Pace and match the person’s emotional state, rather than trying to rush the conversation to a specific end point.

7. Don’t judge. Judgment shuts off a conversation. This is the same for prejudgment, which means forming a judgement on an issue (or person) before you have adequate information. For example, say your friend gets into an argument with her boss, and you assume she is in the wrong because her boss is a manager. Or say, your friend scored poorly for exams, and you assume that he didn’t study — even though there could be other reasons like family problems. The best way is not to pass judgement. Give the person the benefit of the doubt. Everyone is struggling to do their best in life, so why judge and bring someone down?
8. Show emotional support. Last but not least, give emotional support. This means, give them your trust and affirmation. Encourage them. Let them know that no matter what happens, you have their back. A supportive statement I often get is from my good friend R is: “Knowing you, you always consider things very carefully. So whatever happens, I will support you.” Sometimes, what people are looking for is not answers. It’s also not solutions. Sometimes, all people are looking for is empathy and support. That in this big world of strangers, filled with fear and uncertainty, that there is someone here to support them, without judgement or bias.

How can you apply the above to your relationships today? :)

Read:

• 10 Rules of a Great Conversationalist
• How to Have More Best Friends: My Heartfelt Guide
• How To Give Constructive Criticism: 6 Helpful Tips
• Feeling Disconnected

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A while back I received an email from my client C:

During our recent session, you asked me when was the first time I feared not being heard or being mocked. I’m currently introspecting about this.

There’s a moment from my past that I don’t know if I experienced it or not… I wonder if I had witnessed my father beating up my mother before.

This morning, when I was in the shower, I got my answer. I did witness it (this was many years ago). However, I did/said nothing to help my mom at that time. I wanted to tell my dad to stop but I couldn’t speak up because I felt that I wouldn’t be heard and also, I was too small then. I think this is the root cause of my fear. Realizing this made me feel guilty for not helping her. I felt so helpless that I cried.

This is a terrible memory. What should I do? I’m afraid of situations of violence towards women and I think it’s too much for me to handle.

Do you have some precious advice for me?

Subsequently I had a few exchanges with C which gave me more insight into the situation. Apparently her dad had been hitting her mom since C was a kid (it’s not clear whether it’s still going on since she no longer lives with her parents), and she witnessed many of these incidents. C never told anyone about this nor interjected except for one time. However, this did not solve the problem as the abuse continued after that.

When C told me this, I immediately empathized with her. This is not an easy situation to be in. On one hand, she loves her mom and wants to stand up for her. On the other hand, there is her dad, whom she cares about too, but who had been harming her mom. And then there are other struggles and considerations on what to do. Call the police? But what if others get wind of this shameful incident? Stop my dad? But what if he hits me too? Talk to my mom? But what if she denies it? But what if this continues?

These didn’t change my advice for her though, which is that domestic abuse should never be tolerated or allowed to continue in any form.

Domestic Violence Statistics

Domestic violence (also domestic abuse, spousal abuse, family violence) is a pattern of violent or abusive behavior by one person against another in a domestic context, such as in a marriage or during cohabitation. Allow me to share some stats on domestic violence from National Coalition Against Domestic Violence:

• Every minute, nearly 20 people are victims of physical violence by a partner in the United States. This equates to more than 10 million women and men a year.
• 85% of domestic violence victims are women.
• Historically, females are most often victimized by someone they knew.
• Nearly 7.8 million women have been raped by an intimate partner at some point in their lives. And this is a figure from 2003. An estimated 201,394 women are raped by an intimate partner each year.
• On a typical day, more than 20,000 phone calls are made to domestic violence hotlines in U.S.
• Sexual assault or forced sex occurs in approximately 40-45% of battering relationships.
• Intimate partner violence (i.e. abuse by a significant other) accounts for 15% of all violent crimes.
• Almost one-third of female homicide victims are killed by an intimate partner.
• One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime.
• Last but not least… most cases of domestic violence are never reported to the police.

While these stats apply to the U.S., they give you an idea of how widespread domestic violence is.

As a woman, domestic violence has an emotional place in my heart. It’s not because domestic violence tends to happen to women (I imagine I’d be equally passionate even if I were male), but because (a) I dislike people who abuse their strength to harm the weak, and (b) physical violence goes beyond what we should do as conscious beings; it’s inexcusable.

I’ve never been in domestic violence situations, but I have heard of stories from my clients and a friend who grew up in abusive households. For them, it was their dads who hit their moms. When they tried to intercept, their dads would beat them up too. And my friend is a girl. The abuse decreased as they grew up, probably because they are now adults who can fend for themselves. But there’s no telling when their dads would flare up again.

Signs of Domestic Abuse

We hear of people dealing with abuse and we get outraged, wondering why these people put up with the situation. But for the person in the abusive relationship/household, it’s not always clear-cut because you see both the good and bad sides of the person. Things can get blurred. The abuser can be nice to you but abusive to your family member. The abuser may make you think it’s your fault. Your culture may normalize abuse and make it seem like it’s normal (it’s not). Or you may be traumatized by the ordeal and block it off mentally, like what happened to my client C.

Here are some signs that you are facing domestic abuse:

• The clearest sign is of course, violence. Hitting, slapping, punching, pushing, or any violent physical contact is abuse. No one has the right to hit you, not even your parent. This line gets blurred in the Chinese/Indian culture, because harshly caning or hitting your children is considered normal in the name of discipline. This is something I disagree with after growing up and learning more about human rights. Light discipline at home, coupled with proper explanation and counseling is different from publicly hitting your child and screaming at him/her, or repeated physical discipline.
• Abuse can also happen through words. Threats, shaming, and intimidation are abuse. No one should make you feel less as a person. If your parent/partner shames or threatens you repeatedly, this is emotional abuse. Constant hurling of vulgarities is also a form of abuse.
• Disregard of the abuse. The person denies the abuse is happening, or even blames it on you. He/She may normalize the behavior and make you think that the abuse is normal.
• Control of your actions. The person controls your behavior to a large degree. For example controlling who you can see, what you can do, where you can go. Isolating you from others. Demanding that you do certain things. The abuser’s goal is be the center of your universe and gain dominance over your life.
• Threats. The person threatens to leave you, hurt him/herself, or kill him/herself or you if you don’t comply with his/her demands. If you have children, he/she may also threaten the safety of your children.
• Addiction. While addiction to alcohol or drugs doesn’t mean the person is an abuser, these behaviors often go hand in hand. Alcohol and drugs alter a person’s mood and makes someone more prone to violence.^[1][2]
• Frequent anger outbursts. The person gets angry so easily that you worry about what you say, do, in order not to trigger him/her. You constantly “walk on eggshells,” doing everything you can not to trigger him/her.

More warning signs of domestic abuse here, here, and here.

It doesn’t matter if the person exhibits the above 1% or 10% of the time. Abuse is abuse, and justifying it with the person’s good side (which I’m sure is true) downplays the gravity of the situation.

How To Deal With Domestic Violence

If you are dealing with abuse or witnessing abuse in your household, please don’t ignore it. Here are my recommendations:

1. It’s not your fault. People who are abused often downplay the situation. They “normalize” the abuse and think that their experience is normal, or that it’s their fault. Well it is not your fault. Do not accept, deny, normalize the situation, or blame yourself.
2. “It only happened once” is not an excuse. Once is one time too many. When someone becomes abusive, that means he/she has lost control of his/her better senses. There’s no telling when he/she will flare up again. If you witnessed an abusive act, this is worse as it means that the abuse has probably been going on for a while. Report it right away.
3. Stop wearing a mask. Tell someone. A domestic violence victim is often living in a bubble. This bubble could be self-created (the victim cuts him/herself off from others to normalize the abuse) or created by the abuser. This first step to get out of the bubble is to tell someone about your pain. This person can be anyone you trust — your friend, relative, colleague, neighbor, family. Just talking to someone can give you clarity and the power to act on the situation. Be wary of bad advice, such as if your confidant tries to downplay the abuse or convince you that it’s okay. It is not okay and it’s not normal. Speak to those who can give you sound advice and a good listening ear.
4. Talk to the victim. If you witnessed abuse, talk to the victim asap. Several reasons: (a) The victim may feel trapped, with no one else knowing about this. While you may think that you are invading his/her privacy, chances are he/she will feel relieved as he/she is no longer alone in the problem. (b) You help the victim realize that the abuse is wrong, something he/she may be normalizing. (c) You can help the victim identify practical next steps. Do not wait as this only perpetuates the abuse.
5. Call the police. Domestic violence is illegal in many countries, and new laws are drawn up to protect the victims. In the UK, a new law targeting people who psychologically and emotionally abuse their partners, spouses, or family members came into force in 2015.^[3] Instead of taking matters into your own hands, call the police and let them know that you are in danger. The police would have a process for handling abuse. For example, helping women to get an injunction, and serving as referral agents to other professionals, such as a domestic violence and abuse agency, a woman’s refuge, and family justice center.^[4]
6. Document the abuse. This is important to make your case later in a police report or for child custody. Get as much evidence as you can of the abuse. Keep a diary and note down the dates/times of the abuse, get videos/pictures of the abuse, get pictures of any injury, and get pictures of weapons used if any. Read: Building Your Case: How to Document Abuse
7. Call a domestic abuse helpline. The people at a domestic abuse helpline are equipped to advise you and provide remedies based on your local laws. (See the end of the post for helpline numbers.) If you can’t find a helpline in your country, talk to a healthcare professional, such as a doctor, therapist, or counselor. If there’s a woman’s shelter, seek help there.
8. Leave the relationship. I understand for some women who are locked in abusive relationships (e.g. having no family in a foreign land, having financial struggles, having children in the same household with nowhere to go), it’s not possible to leave the relationship right away. It may also get you killed. I’d like to share some verbatims from domestic abuse survivors (who left their abusive relationship)^[5]:
   • ‘Do not put up with it. You are worth more… if someone is making your life hell and miserable, don’t put up with it, there is no excuse at all… and you will be happier… I can promise you, you will be happier.’ (Jacqui)
   • ‘You don’t have to be hit to be abused ….ring a helpline.’ (Sarah)
   • ‘…Tell somebody you trust …there’s help out there, whether it’s a GP, a parent, or a trusted friend, even just somebody at work, they can see it from another perspective. [My counsellor] opened my eyes to what was actually going on.’ (Mandy)
   • ‘Get help even if you have the slightest inkling.’ (Catherine)
   • To quote domestic abuse survivor Tina, things will get ‘worse and worse and worse.’ You may not be able to leave the relationship now, but it doesn’t change the fact that you need to leave. If you can’t leave right now, plan for a time when it is safe to do so. Call the helplines, talk to professionals, talk to friends who can provide good support, and work out an escape plan.
9. Create a safety plan. A safety plan is your plan to remain safe at all times. Have a survival bag — with copies of important documents, an extra set of keys, clothes, some money — that you can grab and leave at any time. Have important contacts on speed dial. Set a code word with your neighbors/friends that you can use when in trouble. Have an escape route where you can easily get out of the house. Keep weapons and dangerous objects inaccessible. Read: Create a Safety Plan

Resources for domestic abuse:

• Women’s Experiences of Domestic Violence and Abuse [Health Talk]
• Getting Out of An Abusive Relationship [Help Guide]
• Is This Abuse? Abuse Defined [National Domestic Violence Hotline]
• Life after domestic violence and abuse: taking back control [Health Talk]
• Helplines:
  • Singapore: Call the AWARE Helpline at 1800 777 5555 (Monday – Friday, 3pm to 9.30pm)
  • United States: Call The National Domestic Violence Hotline (US) at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) (toll-free, 24/7)
  • United Kingdom: Call the National Domestic Violence Freephone Helpline (UK) at 0808 2000 247 (24/7)

If you are an abuser, you need to stop what you are doing. Read: How To Stop Being Abusive to Your Partner

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“Hi Celes, I recently recovered from what my college counselor referred to as an ‘identity crisis.’ I went to school for a teaching degree for the majority of my college years with hopes to pursue a ‘stable’ job and have a decent life, or at least I was told by my parents (I have very traditional and authoritative parents).

However, during the last semester of my senior year, I made the decision to quit and graduate with a non-teaching degree because I realized how unhappy I was trying to enter a profession that I had little to no passion for. I do not regret this and am relieved to have made the decision for myself. However, this led to a series of conflicts between my parents and I. They feel that by not obtaining a degree with a “professional” title, I was giving up the opportunity for a stable full-time job and I will never be financially stable unless I return to school.

Currently, I work in two part-time jobs that I really enjoy with an income of around $1500/ monthly but I feel the pressure financially, having to contribute to my family’s new house, which I still live in.

I am currently doing Live a Better Life in 30 Days to rediscover myself, reading career books, saving money, etc. with the hopes that one day I will discover what I want to pursue in life, and move closer to my purpose. However, I feel stuck by the fact that my parents have an agenda of their own for me…. Go to school — Earn money to support the family — Marry…

I am at a point in my life (22) where I want to see and experience more of what is out in the world, moving away from the obedient child I once was. But what can I do about my parents’ limiting behavior towards my plans and vision? I have communicated numerous times of my plans and visions but every time they just brush me off…. What is your advice on dealing with parents who hold you back and disallow change when you want to make a change?” — Ting

Hi Ting, I can empathize with your situation. What you’re going through is something that many in their 30s and 40s, and not just their 20s, face. While we may face restriction from our parents growing up, for others this restriction can come from others, such as an unsupportive spouse, unsupportive teachers, and naysayer friends. But unlike negative friends we can distance or cut off, cutting off family ties isn’t exactly logical. While most of us love our parents, it’s very demoralizing when your own kin is unsupportive of your dreams.

When Your Parents Don’t Support Your Goals

When I told my parents I was quitting my job to start my business, my parents objected strongly. Their initial reaction was,

“You won’t have any income, NO!”

“Starting a business is very risky, you shouldn’t do it!”

“Your job is so good with a great pay, why do you want to quit???”

“Having a job gives you CPF; CPF is good!” (CPF is a compulsory savings plan in Singapore, partly meant for retirement needs.)

Their comments didn’t faze me since I had already made up my mind, and I wasn’t looking for approval. I told them that I knew what I was doing, that I wasn’t sharing my plans with them for their approval, but to inform them. At the same time, I understood their concerns regarding financial stability, which I had already factored into my business plan.

After 9 months or so, my parents stopped dissuading me. After my first or second year, they roughly understood that I was doing this for life. It’s been 10 years, and for the past 8 years, they’ve never probed nor asked me to do anything different. In my family, when you don’t get negative criticism or vehement discouragement, that means acceptance.

Similarly, when I told them about my plan to travel around the world, to switch to a vegetarian diet, among other plans, they would disapprove vehemently at first. But after a while of pushing forward, asserting myself, and moving forward with my goal, they would come to accept them.

So what do you do when your parents don’t support your goals? If you have unsupportive parents, here are my 9 tips:

1. Understand your parents’ concerns. Even though our parents may seem like a nag, they usually come from a good place, with a good reason for objecting vs. them objecting for the sake of it.

   For example, say your parents object to your career choice. Try to understand why. Ask yourself, “Why?” Why do they object to your new career path? → Because they feel that you won’t earn a good and stable income. Why is this important? → Because income stability is important in life. → Why? Because many things in life (housing choices, day-to-day living, and life options) depend on money, at least in our current world. Your parents, being older, have likely seen the problems that come with financial instability, which makes them resistant when they see you walking down a potentially negative path.

   In another example, say your parents are fixated on you being a banker, accountant, or engineer, and become disapproving when you opt for a different degree. Why? Because they feel that these careers will give you financial stability. Is it true? Maybe not entirely, but they probably think this way because of what they hear from other parents and from reading the news. This mindset is very common among Asian parents. It doesn’t mean that banking/engineering/accountancy are the only financially stable careers, or that everyone in such jobs are financially stable (no to both), but that these are simply careers that your parents were taught to associate with financial stability.

   Of course, many parents tend to miss the other half of the picture. A career is more than just about the money, but about your interest too. They may think that you can’t earn good money with your new life path, but maybe they are wrong and you will be even more successful doing this. They may think that a particular diet is inferior but research may indicate otherwise. But understanding your parents’ concerns, and making sure that you address them in your plans, is an important first step to bridging the gap.

2. Talk to them. Perhaps you tried talking to your parents to no avail. But try again. This time, apply these tips:
   • Understand, don’t accuse. Don’t start off with an accusation, but focus on understanding. For example, don’t go, “You are so close-minded” or “You’re always objecting to everything I do!” Rather, ask, “Can you let me know why you disapprove of [this goal]?” Then listen without bias. Understand as best as you can, by asking questions and listening to their side of the story.
   • Allay their concerns. After understanding the full picture, allay their concerns. If they object to your career because (a) they are afraid you’ll face financial stability and (b) they don’t want you to suffer in life, let them know your career plans, how you plan to safeguard your finances, and your backup plan if things don’t work out. Let them know that you are not doing this on a whim, but you have things mapped out. (If you don’t, work out a plan first then!) If they object to your new diet because they think it is flawed, then let them know why this isn’t so. If your parents are close-minded, this will likely not be wrapped up in just one discussion, but at least you can get the discussion going.
   • Educate your parents. We grew up in a different era from our parents. My parents grew up in a world where there were no computers and internet. They are fluent in Mandarin and Hokkien; they don’t read/write English. On the other hand, the internet is part and parcel of my life. My entire business is built online. 90% of my daily communication is in English. Because the world has changed immensely, it has naturally led to different behaviors, mindsets in just one generation. And that’s fine, because it’s about educating your parents of these changes. Even though our parents may be outdated in their thoughts, it’s about updating them on what’s happening.

     As best as possible, explain to your parents what you are doing, why you are doing this. Let them know that a career is more than just about financial stability, and there are other things like personal happiness and fulfillment involved. Let them know why your career choice isn’t scary, and show them examples of people who have pursued similar paths and succeeded (gather newspaper clippings, print outs from news sites, etc.). In fact, do this regularly. If they only read Chinese/Malay/Tamil/other languages, then look for stories in these languages and print them out.

     Similarly, if they object to your diet, educate them on the benefits of this diet, and people who have thrived on this diet. Show them examples of Olympian medalists and body builders who actually consume such a diet 24/7. Show them the scientific health benefits of your new diet, and examples of people living to ripe old ages, with great health, following such a lifestyle.

     The more you do this, the more they will realize that there is a whole different world out there, and there is more for them to learn.

3. Get a third party to chime in. When it’s just you vs. them, your parents may not take your words seriously. This is especially so with Chinese parents, where the implicit belief is that children know nothing and wisdom comes with age. If your friends have met your parents before, and/or you are on good terms with your parents’ confidants (like your aunt, uncle, grandparents), talk to them. Explain your goal and why it’s important. Have them chime in about it to your parents, and the pros of doing so, so they can get an alternate view. When it’s a different person speaking, your parents may be more open to listen.
4. Assert yourself. If your parents keep objecting, draw a line and make a stance. Let them know, “I understand you are doing this for my own good, but I have done my research and I have addressed the potential issues. I want to try this out. I hope you can support me, Papa/Mama.” If career is the area of conflict, let them know, “While money is important, it’s also important that I do what I like. I want to discover my path and I will work hard to earn good income at the same time. So please don’t worry, Papa/Mama. I know what I’m doing and I will make you proud.”
5. Know that you don’t need your parents’ approval. To begin with, the success of your goal is not contingent on your parents’ approval. Unless your parents are cutting you off, like throwing you out of the house or cutting off your allowance (if you’re still financially dependent), you can still pursue your path without their blessing. If they constantly discourage you, assert yourself. If you work from home, work in co-working spaces (where you can get good support). Or in very severe objection cases, move out if it is an option, to get some space until your plans take off.
6. Less talk, more action. All talk is pointless if there are no results. If you’ve tried talking but your parents don’t listen, devote yourself to your goal. Let your results speak for themselves. With each discouragement, use it as ammunition to spur yourself to achieve more results. You want your parents to trust you, so show them why you deserve their trust by bringing your plans to live.
7. Update them on your little successes. Your parents won’t know the merits of your choice unless you show them. Whenever you get what I call “success easter eggs,” show them to your parents. For example, when you get your first check, show it to them. When you get a great customer feedback, let them know. When you positively change someone’s life because of your work, let them know. Same for when you get new clients. Or say if traveling is your goal, show them pictures of your different travels, and what you learned in each travel. Or if diet is your goal, and you’ve lost weight and improved on your health metrics since embarking on your new diet, show them these results.

   When my parents started seeing my success — checks coming in the mail, my media interviews and appearances, my continuous work assignments, etc. — they stopped asking me about my new business. They began to understand that I got the ball in my court, and there is no need to worry about me.

8. Get them on board. Show them what you are learning/doing to get them on board. If running your business is your goal, keep them posted on your latest projects, next steps, and upcoming milestones. If becoming a travel writer is your goal, show them your travels, your assignments, pictures, etc. We tend to resist what we don’t know, and when we know more about something, we start to understand that it’s not so scary. When your parents learn more about your path through your actions, they’ll start to be less judgmental and negative, and become more understanding and supportive.
9. Show that you can thrive and realize your needs despite following a different path. The ultimate step to showing the merit of your path is when you show that you are still alive, day after day, despite doing what they thought would be immensely dangerous. Or better still, thrive in it. Being happy every day. Being in charge of your life, and being clear on your goals and plans. Achieving financial success. Being recognized for your work. Making positive change. Not doing anything that would make your parents worry. Showing that you are a wise adult who can now do well in his/her life without any intervention.

Remember, Your Parents Love You

At the end of the day, remember that your parents love you. If they don’t care about you, they wouldn’t bother objecting to what you do at the risk of jeopardizing your relationship with them.

So don’t hate them. Don’t rag on them. Use their objection as an honest source of feedback. I have many articles in my Goal Achievement section on how to achieve your goals in a systematic, strategic manner. If pursuing your passion is your goal, I’ve written extensively on this in my How To Pursue Your Passion (series).

It will take time for them to change their mind, but when they see you succeeding in your path, and feeling happy and fulfilled doing so, they will realize that you are no longer a little boy/girl who requires their constant intervention, worry, and control. They will realize that you have matured into a wise adult who has blossomed and created his/her path in life and knows what he/she is doing. That’s when they start to be more hands off and give you the space to grow and come into your own. ♥

Also check out:

• How To Deal With Unsupportive Friends and Family
• How To Improve Your Relationship With Your Parents (series)
• My History With Anger and How I Let Go of It, Part 1: Growing Up in a Household of Anger

New Release: Be a Better Me in 30 Days!

I’m excited to announce the launch of the upgraded version of Be a Better Me in 30 Days, my 30-day character transformation program! The material has been hugely upgraded, with the guidebook expanding from 230 pages to 308 pages, over 100 participant verbatims added in, workbook updated, and many parts heavily rewritten. 

If you haven’t gotten the program, read about 30BBM here, read the FAQs, or head straight to checkout. Just some testimonials from past 30BBM users:

“Celes, I just want to say that the simple methods you offer in 30BBM have been transformative for me, and I’m in my 50s. People are seeing more change faster than I can imagine.” — Carlene Byron, U.S.

“…The best part was when two separate family members, who had no idea I was doing 30BBM, commented on how much I have changed. The fact that they noticed a change proves that 30BBM has really worked for me.” — Kimberly, Canada

“My boyfriend said to me last night, ‘You seem so much happier recently. Do you think it’s the Personal Excellence work you’ve been doing?’ I told him it almost certainly is. He told me how I seem so much more balanced and calm, and just generally happier. I was so happy to hear that! :D ” – Sarah, United Kingdom

“The whole experience was far beyond my expectations, and I was expecting a lot. From this program, (1) I have learned to use a lot of powerful tools and learned how to face my fears and overcome them. (2) Made huge strides in overcoming negative traits. It is truly amazing to see that I have begun to earnestly be organized, disciplined, focused, purposeful, and a better friend and family member. (3) I am truly striving towards my ideal self and embodying ideal traits. AND, I do not see this as done. I am so looking forward to seeing myself step up the ladder and become a better me.” — Claire R

Thank you to everyone who has purchased the upgraded 30BBM — enjoy the program and your character transformation journey! :) Any questions on 30BBM, let me know here!

(Image: Universal Studios / Entertainment Weekly)

“Hi Celes, I have been reading your blog since 2 years ago. Your tips are amazing and have helped me a lot. There is one problem about me that I haven’t read in any article on PE or any other site.

This is shameful to admit. Whenever I see a handsome man, I feel that he should like me and fall in love with me. I feel terrible to think like that. I don’t do anything to impress the guy because I know it is wrong. I have a boyfriend and I want to live with him.

I don’t want to get affected by handsome men. I don’t want such feelings to exist. What should I do?” — Kristi

Kristi’s problem raises a very interesting question for all of us, which is: Why do some of us feel nervous, or behave very differently, when we see handsome men and beautiful women?

Imagine this: You go to a party and you see someone good looking. You start to feel nervous, unlike yourself. You contemplate speaking to him/her. For guys, maybe you get sweaty palms. For girls, maybe you play coy and hope that the guy comes over to talk to you.

Why? Why does your behavior change based on the person’s looks? And it doesn’t have to be in a party setting too. It can be anywhere, at work, when meeting someone new, when going on a blind date, etc. Perhaps you see someone good looking and you get nervous, excited. In Kristi’s case, she’s anguished by these feelings and she doesn’t want them.

The Truth about Beauty

To understand why such feelings get triggered, we need to first understand the fundamental truth surrounding beauty.

The reality is that everyone is beautiful. Not more or less beautiful, but equally beautiful. This is something that I’ve shared before here. You are beautiful in your own way. I am beautiful in my own way. We are all uniquely and equally beautiful, not more or less than others.

Unfortunately, this message runs counter to everything you learn in today’s world. The basic message surrounding beauty today is that some people are more beautiful than others, and some looks are more attractive than others. If you don’t look a certain way, you are deemed ugly and unattractive, and you should do everything you can to change your looks to fit a beauty mold. Why?

A deep look into the history of beauty tells us that beauty ideals historically started as a way to separate the have’s and the have not’s. When you trace the evolution of beauty standards over time, you will see that

• Being weighty used to be regarded as attractive during the Renaissance era, as food was scarce during those times, and only the rich had plenty to eat.^[1][2]
• Subsequently, being skinny became seen as very attractive when food became abundant and widely available. As everyone started gaining weight, and people became educated about their health and diet, being skinny became seen as the gold standard.^[3]
• During the 1800s, very pale skin was seen as beautiful as only the rich could afford not to work and stay out of the sun. Pale skin was associated with the aristocrats.
• But when tuberculosis becoming the second-leading cause of death in the U.S. in 1900, and doctors in Europe and America began to prescribe sunbathing for tuberculosis, rich people flocked to resorts to suntan. Tanned skin now became seen as beautiful in the West.^[4][5]
• In ancient China, tiny feet became a symbol of beauty as the only women who could painfully bind their feet to keep them tiny were from wealthy families, since they didn’t need to work in the fields.^[6]
• Western features like tall nose bridge, deep-set eyes, fair skin, and angular features are generally regarded as more “beautiful” in Asian countries, and you can see this line of thought pervaded in much of mass media advertising here. This is partly because many Asian countries used to be under the Colonial rule (the Philippines was under Spanish colonization for almost 400 years for example), which created a deep-set mentality of white superiority, and an association that Caucasian-like features are “better” and “more beautiful.” You will never find a person saying that because the conditioning exists at a very implicit level, but more in the form of “Such features are more beautiful, and I’m so envious that [Caucasians] have them but not us [Asians].”

As you can see, beauty standards have historically been used to differentiate one group from another. The attributes of the affluent would be used as the starting point for what was considered beautiful then. The features considered beautiful would change over time, based on whatever was associated with the rich. This was to sieve out the “elite” and “more worthy” from the rest.

How This Relates to Anxiety Around Attractive People

Of course, this segmentation is faulty and not true. Whether a person is born with XYZ features has no bearing on their beauty or worth. Every look is beautiful, and a person’s worth and value is so much more complex than just something defined based on how well a person conforms to a beauty look — and this beauty look is in turn defined based on socio-economic factors that are outside of a person’s control.

This brings me to my main point. If you feel nervous around attractive people, or you feel negatively affected by handsome men (or beautiful women) like Kristi, it boils down to your underlying associations with attractive people.

Let’s say you feel nervous around beautiful women. When you dig into this nervousness, perhaps you perceive beautiful women as better, more worthy than other women. Attractive women are sought after by other men, and they turn heads and are desired by many. This makes you feel inferior because you are worried that if you’re rejected or spurned by an attractive woman, you will be seen as lousy and undesirable. Of course this isn’t true, but your subconscious beliefs are such.

Or let’s say you feel nervous around handsome men and you often wish that every handsome man you meet will notice you and fall in love with you. Why, though? Why would handsome men make you feel this way, but not “regular” men? When you dig into this feeling, it’s because you perceive handsome men as “better” than others because of their good looks. Girls swoon over them; people regard them highly because of their looks. They are the object of attention and affection by other women (and even men). If a handsome man falls in love with you, that means that you are desired, respected, “seen.”

And why would this matter? Because you sometimes feel “unseen” in your life. You wish that you can be “seen,” recognized, respected. And the attention of someone who is visible, desirable, and respected will make you feel that way.

In either case, is the answer to seek affirmation from an attractive person? Of course not. For some people it is, and they spend their entire lives chasing after the affections of so-and-so attractive people, without ever knowing as much as the personality and true self of the person they are in love with. The real answer is to understand your stories surrounding attractive people, and to address your inner voids triggering these feelings. Because it is your stories surrounding beauty and yourself that you are reacting to, not the supposed attractive people.

For example, if you don’t feel “seen” in your life, understand why. Maybe you don’t know who you are and your place in this world. You feel that you are following a trajectory in your life that you didn’t really set for yourself. Uncovering your inner self, and discovering your life purpose and values, is a good start. My Live a Better Life in 30 Days is a great kickstarter program to get you moving towards your ideal life.

Or let’s say you feel low in self-worth. Understand why you have a low self-worth. Perhaps you were never taught to develop your self-worth, but to look to others’ affections, your status, and your achievements as a way of validating your identity. An attractive woman is like a validator of your worth, because she is recognized as worthy by others. Of course this is not true since your worth is not defined by others, but yourself. Read How To Be The Most Confident Person In The World

This is the same for any gap or deficiency you feel in the presence of attractive people. If an attractive person makes you feel negative, nervous, or even unattractive, understand why. Dig into this feeling. Usually it’s because of an unhealthy belief you have surrounding attractive people — perhaps that they are better, superior, more worthy, more desirable, etc. — which isn’t true. Your nervousness mirrors a feeling of deficiency in your life. Understanding it, and addressing it from within, will help you remove this endless push-pull feeling you have when meeting such people.

Endnote

In the end, your goal is to feel neutral when meeting “attractive people,” just as you would with any other person. Or rather, to feel excited meeting them simply because you are excited to meet someone new. You want to connect with people authentically, as themselves. To see someone as who they are, not based on a fantasy or conditioning. Even though majority of society look at people with tinted glasses based on how they fit a beauty mold, these people also struggle with push-pull feelings of infatuation and projections surrounding attractive/”non-attractive” people. In the end they are just living in their own mental projections.

When you do feel excited, happy, or nervous when you see someone, these feelings should come from your personal connection with him/her and your genuine interest in him/her, not based on the projections in your mind. That’s when you see someone for who he/she really is, rather than what you think he/she is. :)

Lastly, remember that every look is beautiful, equally beautiful. You have been taught to perceive conventionally handsome men and beautiful women as attractive, and they are indeed attractive people. The next step is to open your eyes to see other looks as beautiful too — because they are as beautiful as the conventionally attractive people you see. When you do that, you will see that everyone is special, different and just as beautiful, and perhaps that’s when you feel nervous/excited meeting everyone — because you are genuinely excited to get to know them and their story, the same way I feel when I meet everyone in my life. :)

For more reading:

• The Beauty of Self – Why I Used To Feel Inferior about My Looks and Why I No Longer Feel That Way
• Are Looks Important in a Marriage Decision?
• How Can I Stop Feeling Lonely?
• What If I Lack Physical Spark with My Partner?

Couple kissing (Image: stephen frith)

“Hey Celes, I recently broke up with my boyfriend. He broke up with me because he felt that I didn’t enjoy the physical intimacy (like kissing, hugging or even more) and he didn’t feel appreciated, and was no longer motivated in seeing me due to my behavior.

Truth is, I’m not so much of a physical person… and it hurts me because I thought we could connect emotionally and support each other through hard times, only to know that he didn’t see me in the same way. He told me that although emotional support is important, he felt that a relationship wouldn’t go long without physical intimacy and he complained the lack of spark between us. I realized that he is in his early 20s so physical intimacy probably matters to him… but this also made me realize that he didn’t truly love me (and that kinda hurts as well).

May I ask how you dealt with these kind of stuff when you were single? Did any of these issues bother you and your husband? Thank you!” — Madaline

Dear Madaline, I’m so sorry to hear about your breakup. I hope that you have been healing well and that you have already read my moving on series, where I share tips on moving on from a relationship.

So first off, you should never, ever be pressurized into physical intimacy with your partner. It doesn’t matter how much he wants it or how strongly he feels about it. If your boyfriend wants to be physically intimate but you don’t, it’s a no. Even if he threatens to break up, it’s still a no. If anything, him threatening or changing his tone after you deny him intimacy is a red flag of his priorities and real interest in you.

You didn’t share specifics about the “lack of spark” your ex-boyfriend mentioned.

1. Did he want more physical intimacy but he didn’t get that? Did he want sexual intimacy (or more of it) but he didn’t get it?
2. Or did he get physical intimacy, in terms of the kind of intimacy and the frequency, but he felt a lack of chemistry during these times?

Either way, let me address them accordingly.

4 Components of a Relationship

I see every relationship as having 4 components: Mind, Body, Heart, and Soul.

• Mind is intellectual, mental compatibility; the ability to share ideas, talk about them.
• Heart is emotional compatibility; the ability to open up and be vulnerable, to have shared emotions and to empathize easily with each other.
• Soul is spiritual compatibility, which I think is not very relevant for the purpose of this article and is also somewhat abstract, so I’m not going to go into this here.
• Body refers to physical compatibility, which includes physical attraction to your partner and sexual compatibility. By physical attraction, I don’t mean “love at first sight” because contrary to popular opinion, physical attraction can grow over time as you know someone, even if you didn’t find the person attractive initially. I wrote about this before here: Are Looks Important in a Marriage Decision?

For any romantic connection to progress, it needs to have compatibility in at least one area — Mind, Body, Heart, Soul. If there is emotional compatibility, it creates a stable base for compatibility to be built in the other areas: mind, body, and/or soul. Same if there is existing mental compatibility; it allows for compatibility to be built in the areas of body, heart, and/or soul. Same for physical compatibility.

Note that I’m referring to the potential for a romantic connection to progress, not criteria for marriage which is a different thing.

So take for example, someone is a strong intellectual fit with you (mental compatibility) but he is a complete ass. On the other hand, you want a sensitive partner who cares about your feelings. Clearly there is no emotional compatibility here.

But perhaps he is a nice person at heart and behind his blunt words are good intentions. Maybe he is not aware of his bluntness, and if given the chance, he wants to express himself in a more sensitive way. Here, there is potential for emotional compatibility. Even if there is no emotional compatibility now, it doesn’t mean that there won’t be in the future. So it’s not the end of this connection, and it’s about nurturing it to see how it can grow.

But what if there is both emotional and mental compatibility, but no physical compatibility? What should you do?

When There is a Lack of Physical Spark

Three things to note:

1. It depends on how important physical compatibility is to you.
2. It depends on your immediate “expectations” for this relationship, whether you’re looking at it short term or long term.
3. You have to consider that everyone has the ability to grow, so what’s more important is the person’s desire to grow and his/her interest in this area. Just because someone isn’t physically compatible with you now doesn’t mean he/she won’t be forever.

So this is where it gets subjective. There are people to whom physical intimacy is very important. They need physical intimacy, they connect with their partners using sex as their language of love and perhaps as a form of release, and they don’t have any notion for or against premarital sex. So for these folks, one-night stands and flings are a norm, and they see sexual intimacy early on in a relationship as normal and necessary. If you are someone who doesn’t care too much about physical intimacy and sex isn’t your primary language of love, and you are with someone who prioritizes sexual intimacy above all things, then this connection is probably not going to work for long (unless one or both of you change in this area).

But then there are people to whom physical intimacy is important, but emotional/mental compatibility is even more important. To them, sex/ physical intimacy is just one component of the relationship, so they focus on looking for a partner with whom they can connect emotionally/mentally first, before looking at other areas. For such people, they select their partners based on their emotional and mental connection first, and then let their physical closeness with each other build up naturally, rather than filtering people based on physical intimacy.

So I have a friend who was with her boyfriend for 3 years before they got married. During their courtship they weren’t sexually intimate, though her boyfriend was previously sexually involved with his exes. They were, however, kissing, hugging, cuddling, etc.. They are now happily married with a kid.

For myself, my primary language of love is not physical touch; it’s communication and words. I like to speak to connect with my partner, to know how he is doing, and to know him on a deeper level. On the other hand, my husband had many relationships in the past and he was pretty much sexually involved with all his past partners, including flings and one-night stands.

But this disparity didn’t stop us from connecting deeply. For me, when I asked him what he thought about deferring sex, he said he didn’t care because the connection between us is stronger than what he had ever felt before. The whole notion of sex early on in the relationship, later, after marriage, or even never for some bizarre biological reason was a mere triviality. In a different relationship he might have been concerned as he had encountered sexual incompatibility issues with some partners before, but this concern simply didn’t come up for him with us. He said the whole thought of sex or no sex paled in comparison to what we have. I happen to think his views are a little extreme (no sex forever may be too much I think), but I wanted to share this as a differing point of view from the narrative we always hear (that men are all about sex).

Now I’m not trying to say that sexual intimacy isn’t important. Sexual/physical intimacy is important, and it is part and parcel of a successful relationship.

Bu sexual/physical intimacy, for the most part and for most couples, arises out of a strong emotional and mental compatibility. In the cases I’ve looked at, couples supposedly dealing with an issue with a lack of physical spark or physical incompatibility are always invariably dealing with emotional/mental compatibility issues of some kind. Even though they may think that they are dealing with a unique issue in sexual/physical incompatibility or mismatch in sex drives, there are usually underlying factors causing this issue, usually an incompatibility in other areas.

For example, I knew someone who divorced his wife because they didn’t have sex at all in their entire marriage of 3-4 years. While it looked like an issue of physical incompatibility, when I dug deeper, it turned out that there was never a real emotional or intellectual connection from the start, leading to sexual emptiness in the relationship.

It is also important to note that there may be changes in our lives (such as work stress, down periods in life, etc.) that create intimacy issues with our partners. This is again linked to emotional and life factors rather than real physical mismatches.

Which brings me to this point: My sense is that the “lack of physical spark” is possibly not the real reason for your breakup. There is likely a missing compatibility in some other area (emotional, shared visions, shared values, aspirations, whichever it is) that caused physical spark to become an issue and the issue, hence causing the breakup.

Now, this isn’t a bad thing. Rather I think it’s a good thing that both of you broke up, because the point is that there was some incompatibility that caused “physical spark” to be an issue. So say you change yourself hugely to fill the gap in “physical spark” due to your ex’s complaints. Not only would you become a different person from your natural self, but you would also find yourself having to change more things to keep the relationship afloat, to fill up other areas of incompatibility. Or say your ex was truly looking for a lot of physical intimacy and it was the sole and only issue. Then the relationship simply wouldn’t work because that’s not how you naturally are or at least that’s not how you feel when you are around him (and there’s nothing wrong with this).

How to Build Physical “Spark”

So how should we deal with situations where there’s really a lack of physical spark, but there’s a strong emotional/mental connection? Like I said, I think most couples dealing with a lack of physical spark or physical incompatibility are really dealing with issues with other kinds of compatibility. There are exceptions where the gap in physical compatibility is really due to non-relationship factors (like a real biological mismatch or one’s deep-set fear towards physical intimacy), but those are the exceptions. Meaning if someone feels a lack of physical spark with their partner, I’d advise to look at the relationship fundamentals first vs. focusing on the physical component which is usually the effect.

But say you feel emotionally and mentally compatible with someone, and you’re fearful about being physically incompatible with him/her. What should you do?

Firstly, think of physical intimacy as a spectrum, not a binary “yes it’s there, no it’s not there” thing. Meaning, I wouldn’t worry about having instant physical chemistry with someone from that first act of intimacy (kissing, cuddling, etc.), but about building this chemistry over time.

Secondly, think of physical intimacy as having many stages. Kissing, hugging, cuddling, french kissing, petting, and so on. Even within each stage there are various degrees of progression. Depending on one’s comfort with physical closeness, some of these stages may only be done after marriage or later on in the relationship. Either way, you can already work on building chemistry within your range of comfort. For example, maybe you had a weird first kiss with your partner. Slobbery, wet, weird. But adopt a fun-loving, experimental mindset towards it and allow yourself to keep trying.

After a few tries, and as both of you get familiar with each other’s lips and kissing styles, kissing starts to feel normal between the both of you, and it starts to become something that you look forward to! Same for hugging, cuddling, french kissing, and any other physical activity.

Thirdly, let’s say there is zero connection when you kiss, hug, and even when you see your partner — like you don’t feel excited/happy at all when you see him/her. AND, you still don’t feel any connection after many weeks and months of being together. THEN yes, there may be a problem, and this is something you should talk about with your partner, to let him/her know how you feel, that there’s this issue, to understand the blockage, and so on.

Endnote

In short, I wouldn’t worry too much about achieving an instant physical spark with someone or having no spark with future romantic prospects, unless you have some deeply rooted issues with intimacy (which I don’t think is the case for you, and which would be a separate thing altogether). Physical chemistry and compatibility is something you build with your partner, through open communication, understanding each other’s likes and dislikes, and an openness to explore new things.

Everyone has the ability to grow and develop, and one’s physical preference and inclination doesn’t stay fixed forever. Also, when you love someone and you’re emotionally connected, you will naturally want to be close with him/her vs. forcing yourself to kiss/ be intimate with him/her. It’s your role, as much as it’s your partner’s role, to build on your physical chemistry together vs. it being something that magically happens.

Interestingly, by looking at physical intimacy as something that grows organically and adopting an open and fun-loving mindset towards it, it puts less pressure on you and helps you focus on building your connection with your partner, which then provides the foundation on which strong physical intimacy is built on. :)

Also read:

• Are Looks Important in a Marriage Decision?
• I Get Nervous When I See an Attractive Guy/Woman. What Should I Do?

Have you ever had moments when you wished you spoke up and asserted yourself, but you didn’t? Do you feel difficulty asserting yourself sometimes?

I feel this way too sometimes. In this episode of The Personal Excellence Podcast, learn

• 5 tips to build your courage to be assertive without being aggressive
• Why being assertive doesn’t mean you stop being nice [02:21]
• Why being assertive is not the same as being aggressive [03:21]
• 2 key differences between being assertiveness and aggressiveness [4:08]
• The value of your voice [04:56]
• An incident where I got molested and didn’t assert myself, and why I should have [05:54]
• 3 questions to ask yourself in determining whether to assert yourself [10:49]
• An alternate approach for people who assert too much [11:38]
• Why you shouldn’t just “wait” when it comes to high-level career questions like promotion plan and salary rise [12:19]
• Dealing with a parent who keeps pushing their views on you [13:45]
• The face-saving culture and being sensitive to people’s feelings when asserting [15:39]
• What I do when I have disruptive course participants [16:42]
• Using I-statements vs. You-statements [18:20]
• 3 differences between I-statements and You-statements, and why I-statements are better when it comes to asserting yourself or in conflicts [19:36]
• Example of I-statements in a conflict with your partner [22:00]
• Focus on the positive in conversations [23:52]
• How to talk to your boss if you’re facing heavy workload [24:59]
• How to assert to a difficult co-worker [26:09]
• The importance of win-win and how to involve others [28:18]

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, Pocket Casts, Podcast Addict, Overcast, Castbox, or subscribe to the RSS feed.

The Personal Excellence Podcast

How To Be Assertive, Not Aggressive

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Read the transcript for this episode here.

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How To Be Assertive, Not Aggressive [Transcript]

Welcome to The Personal Excellence Podcast. The show that’s all about helping you be your best self and live your best life. Now, your host, Celestine Chua!

Celestine Chua: Hey everyone, welcome to The Personal Excellence Podcast Episode 9, this is Celestine Chua from PersonalExcellence.co.

Today we have a question from reader Saim, who wants to know, how can you be more assertive and stay humble and polite at the same time? So let’s hear from him first.

Hi Celes, this is Saim from Pakistan. For the last 6 years, I’ve been working in Saudi Arabia in a multinational company. Some of my friends recommended me the Personal Excellence website and shared with me some free ebooks from PE. And then I logged on to the website, and I’ve been reading your articles, courses, so much stuff for the last 6 months. It’s really quite interesting and I really appreciate that. It has been helping me excel in my job.

The question I want to ask is, ‘How to be assertive?’ As a person, I’m humble and polite. But there are many situations in the workplace where we need to be assertive instead of being aggressive. I want to know and would appreciate if you can answer through the podcast in details on how to be assertive and techniques to do so.

Hey Saim, thank you so much for your question. Unfortunately, the question got cut off because there is an audio limit for the clips. The good thing is we got to hear your question: How can you be assertive while still remaining humble and polite at the same time?

So firstly, I just want to thank you for reading PE. And I want to thank your friends for recommending PE to you. Your support really means the world to me.

Now I want to make two quick points before I jump into the tips.

Fact #1: Being assertive doesn’t mean you stop being nice

The first thing is you mentioned that you’re humble and polite, which is a great thing. A lot of us are probably worried that when we try to be assertive, we stop being nice. For most of us here, we probably have core values of compassion, being nice to others, being sensitive, and being there for people. And maybe we feel that when we try to articulate our needs, we may come across as pushy. Maybe people don’t like that or they feel that we’re being arrogant.

It’s a common misconception. Being assertive doesn’t necessarily mean that you stop being humble, polite, or nice. It’s about how you assert yourself and I want to share some tips later on how we can be assertive and not come across as an ass.

Fact #2: Difference between assertiveness and aggressiveness

The second point is about assertive vs. aggressive. I love that you are asking how to be assertive without being aggressive. Because there is a distinction between assertiveness and aggressiveness.

When you are assertive, you are voicing your opinions and needs in a positive way while working with others to achieve a common goal. On the other hand, aggressiveness is when you make your point and force it across without consideration of other people’s opinions or feelings. Some people may even attack or ignore other peoples opinions, feelings, and needs altogether.

Here there are two big differences:

1. Assertiveness is the articulation of your needs in a positive way, whereas aggressiveness is negative.
2. Assertiveness is where you acknowledge that people have needs and you want to work with them to understand their needs and achieve this common goal. Whereas aggressiveness, you don’t really consider that people have their own opinions, boundaries, and needs. You don’t respect that either. You just want to push your point across.

In today’s podcast, I want to share several tips on how to be assertive without being aggressive. These tips apply to different contexts be it work or relationships, and it’s about tweaking them to fit your situation.

1) Recognize the value of your voice

My first tip is to recognize the value of your voice.

I find that a lot of us don’t speak up often because maybe we feel that we have to say isn’t important. Maybe people don’t care, or people don’t want to hear what we have to say, or what we’re gonna say isn’t going to make a difference or add any value.

But there is value in your voice, in your opinions, and what you like to share, and it is important to recognize that. No matter the problem you’re facing, if it’s bothering you, then people need to know. Because if you don’t voice it out, nobody’s ever going to know that and you’ll just be suffering in silence, which is not a good thing in the long run.

Example: When I got molested

An example where I didn’t assert myself would be years ago when I was traveling in the U.S., when I was molested. I shared about this at personalexcellence.co/blog/molestation/. There was this guy brazenly touching my thighs and it was in a train carriage where there were tons of people. Now it was at night and everyone was seated. So it wasn’t visible to other people except me.

When I experienced that, I was shocked obviously. How could someone be audaciously doing this in public and behaving as if it was okay? I tried to move away, doing all the indirect actions to convey rejection. But the guy persisted.

This was obviously the point when I should have called for help. But what stopped me included the fear of embarrassment, fear of people not believing me, not being able to get help, or even being accused of creating a ruckus or falsely accusing someone. And I was in a foreign setting, and not knowing what the locals are like, whether they would believe me, a foreigner.

So I stood up, got out of the carriage, and went to a different place on the train where I slept for the night safely and that guy didn’t follow me.

So at the very least, I protected myself. At that time, I was just in my mid-20s. Right after the incident when I blogged about it, I mentioned that if that situation were to repeat, I clearly in hindsight would report him or call for help and let it be known.

Now, let’s put this situation into context.

1. On the whole, I got away safely. So that was no “damage” or harm done to me.
2. I also avoided any public embarrassment because my approach was conflict-avoiding. And I think that is the underlying essence of many incidences when we don’t assert ourselves — it’s to avoid conflict.

But if we look at it in a different context, regarding the first tip to recognize the value of your voice — there is value in my voice. That was value in me asserting myself there and then.

By asserting myself, I would have called out that molester’s actions. There could well be criminals and molesters who perpetuate their crimes simply because they were never called out for what they did. They become more brazen in their crimes and offenses. And it just snowballs and becomes bigger.

So there is value in me asserting, in that it would have called out that person’s actions and driven awareness [of the offense]. Maybe the person would be let off, but at least it’s the first step towards ensuring that such issues don’t happen (again). In terms of sending a message to that molester and also sending a message out to the other people in the carriage. Maybe they see this issue being called out and they know that if this happens to them or they see this happening to others, how they should behave.

Example: Workplace

A different example, let’s say in a workplace context, where you are mistaken for something you didn’t do.

Let’s say you choose not to talk about it. And then over time, you start to become resentful. What’s going to happen when you feel resentful? The quality of your work may suffer, even if you don’t try to do that. Some of us may still give our best performance but this underlying resentment will naturally seep in and cause certain negative behaviors or passive-aggressive behaviors.

Example: Relationship

And then in a relationship setting. Let’s say you’re unhappy with your partner, but you don’t speak up about that. That naturally will cause unhappiness. Because if you are unhappy, that’s going to spill over to your partner and eventually him/her is going to be unhappy, and both of you wouldn’t be able to soar to your greatest heights.

The point is that when you don’t assert yourself and you just bottle things in, it drains your lifeforce and emotions, which affects your ability to be there for others. 

I have some questions for you. If there’s a situation where you are fearful of asserting yourself, ask yourself:

1. Will I be depriving another person or the group at large if I don’t share this input?
2. Will I become resentful if I don’t air this thought?
3. Will I be depriving myself of my needs by keeping quiet?

If your answer is yes to any of the above, there is value in asserting your voice and other people can gain something out of this.

Now there is the alternate situation where someone is constantly asserting themselves. Like someone who is very very confident and sure of themselves, constantly asserting themselves. Then, a different approach is necessary, where you need to weigh out the pros vs. cons of voicing out in every situation. I share more about this in my article, How to Choose Your Battles, that you can read at personalexcellence.co/blog/choose-your-battles/

2) Create the right context to speak

My second tip is to create the right context to speak.

Let’s say you want to talk to your boss about your promotion or salary negotiation. If you’re not assertive, probably you’ll just keep waiting and waiting, hoping your boss will bring it up one day. But it never comes up. Clearly, when you passively wait for the context to appear, it may not work in your favor.

Proactively create that context and make it happen. Arrange for a one-to-one meeting, like a 30-minute time with your boss. Arrange it at a time when people aren’t so busy so that your boss has the mindspace and time to hear what you have to say and help you in the best way possible.

Let’s say you are in a group setting. You’re at a presentation or in a group meeting and everyone is speaking. Have an opener to share your thoughts. For example: “Excuse me can I share my opinion on this?” or “Is it okay if I share what I think?” Doing this creates an opening for you and people know that you have something to share. You are also being polite by asking this question.

Example: How my client asserted herself to her mom

I have a recent client who shared with me about how her mom kept nagging about her relationship status. I’m sure those of you who are single and from Asia, you can relate to that. Where your parents start to ask you — when you reach at a certain age — when are you finding a girlfriend or boyfriend, when you’re getting married, blah blah blah and all that stuff.

So this happened to my client and she had been going through this for a long time where her mom just kept bringing this up once a month, twice a month. She felt really imposed and maybe even oppressed by this.

I asked my client, “Have you ever shared with your mom about how you feel?”

And she said, no she hasn’t. My client had never overtly mentioned to her mom about how oppressed she felt whenever she nagged her about her relationship status and told her to get married.

So here, applying this tip to create the right context to speak.

• One way is to simply mention it during a private conversation. When both of them are alone at home and they are not occupied with something.
• A second way could be the next time her mom talks about this topic, which she does every few weeks, this can be a great context to air her thoughts. Because at this point her mom would be in that zone of talking about this topic, asking her to get married, etc. So her mind is in this space. This would be the perfect time for my client to step in and share how she actually feels, and of course in a non-confrontational way.

Face Saving: Being sensitive to others when asserting

There are things that we should take note. For example, if there’s a negative or not-so-positive thing that I would like to share with someone, I would say it directly to the person rather than in a group setting.

A lot of this comes from the face-saving culture in Asia. Face saving is this concept when you do your best to preserve someone’s integrity. That means not causing embarrassment or making them feel shamed, where they would be “losing face.” It also includes situations where you call someone out on something that makes them look bad or you share negative feedback with them. I do all of these in private as much as possible, so one-to-one via email or in person as opposed to a group.

Example: How I deal with negative course participants

Sometimes in my courses — and this is really rare — but sometimes I have participants who are being strange or disruptive. Maybe they are giving a lot of strange comments or disrupting the flow of the course. Or perhaps making it difficult for other participants to concentrate or get the best value from the course.

I would not call them out in the open because this is not face-saving. The recipient may feel shamed or embarrassed; they may also feel shocked. It prevents them from being able to receive the message in the best way.

So what I do is, if there is such a situation happening, I would speak to that individual after the session to understand what’s going on. How is she or she feeling? Is there something troubling him/her? And so on. As opposed to openly calling out on the behavior in front of others because I don’t feel that that really solves anything.

This works well for me and it always achieves the best outcome. Because it allows me to better understand that individual on a personal level and to intervene and provide solutions on how this can be resolved.

So this is a win-win situation because:

• It doesn’t waste people’s time.
• It allows me to tend to the individual specifically.
• It also allows the individual to openly express him/herself without fear of judgment from others.

3) Use I-statements

My third tip is to use I-statements.

• I-statement refers to the speaker expressing his/her feelings and thoughts in a statement that starts with “I.”
• You-statement refers to statements that start with “You.” It focuses on the recipient, the person you are speaking to.

So, an example of a You-statement versus an I-statement. Let’s say someone is sharing feedback on a report.

• You-statement: “You wrote the report in such a confusing manner that is hard to understand it.”
• I-statement: “I found it hard to understand some parts of the report.”

Here’s a different example. Let’s say someone is sharing her thoughts with her partner.

• You-statement: “You have been neglecting me. You are spending too much time with your friends and your work.”
• I-statement: “I have been feeling neglected of late. I feel like we haven’t been spending much time together.”

Notice the difference between an I-statement versus a You-statement? Here there are three differences.

1. An I-statement is where you own the statement and opinion. A You-statement can sound accusatory especially if what you’re talking about isn’t so positive.
2. When you use an I-statement, you are sharing what you think and letting others decide what they want to do. As opposed to a You-statement where you impose your views on other people, such as, “You are doing this. You are doing that. You should do that.”
3. The third difference is really subtle. When you use an I-statement, you acknowledge that the issue may lie with us. It’s not about being submissive or assuming blame. It’s about being humble and open-minded enough to recognize that sometimes the issue can be due to how we see things — as with many things in life I’m sure.

So when you use an I-statement, the receiver is less likely to feel attacked or intimidated. Both of you can focus on the problem at hand.

Exercise to monitor your communications

I have an exercise for you. For this week,

1. Observe how you articulate yourself when you’re communicating with other people, be in e-mails or conversations.
2. Do you tend to use You-statements or I-statements?

I want to stress that there’s no problem with You-statements. In fact, You-statements are great for building a personal connection or for positive praise and feedback.

But let’s say there’s a conflict or problem. I-statements are more helpful because you are owning this feedback versus attacking the other person.

Example: Argument with your partner

Here’s another example of a You-statements versus an I-statement. Let’s assume that it’s a couple in conflict.

• You-statement: “You are so selfish. You are always doing what you want without regard for my needs. Sometimes I wish you can stop making so many demands and start thinking about me for the first time.”

Notice how accusatory and attacking it seems, even though you may just be expressing your true unfiltered emotions? Using You-statement in a conflict can seem very attacking even though what you’re really trying to do is to assert your boundaries and needs.

On the other hand, using an I-statement where you focus on sharing your emotions and your thoughts — it can sound something like this:

• I-statement: “I feel that you have been ignoring my needs since you changed to your new job and I feel upset about this. I find very hard to manage things by myself and I really try my best. I love you and I want to be there for you. I hope we can spend some time to talk about this when you’re free and work out some possible solutions.”

Here the focus shifts from attacking and accusing to simply expressing your emotions which include neglect, being overloaded, overworked, possibly feeling unloved, also the desire to seek help.

So the next time you need to assert yourself, be it in a conflict or workplace setting, how can you use the I-statement as opposed to the You-statement? Starting your statements with “I,” focusing on expressing your thoughts without attacking someone else or pushing blame to another.

4) Focus on the positive

My fourth tip is to focus on the positive. The intent of this tip is similar to the feedback sandwich method that I share in my article on constructive criticism. You can read that at personalexcellence.co/blog/constructive-criticism/

You want to focus on the positive aspects of the situation while asserting yourself, as opposed to asserting in a negative way.

When you focus on the positive, it opens the conversation on a good note. It’s the same with I-statements. It’s to let the other person know that you are on their side and you’re not trying to attack them. Versus aggressiveness, one of the key differences with assertiveness is that with aggressiveness, you are just making yourself heard at all costs and you don’t necessarily care about that person. You may even end up attacking that person while making yourself heard.

Example: Being overloaded at work

Let’s say you are going through some heavy workload issues with very tight deadlines.

As opposed to talking your boss and saying things like “You’re giving me too much work” or “You’re not being reasonable,” we want to use the I-statement and articulate our views in a positive manner. An example could be:

“I’m really enjoying the work. I’ve been learning so much and I’m really grateful for the opportunities.

However, I’ve been having difficulty managing some of the tasks given the tight turnaround time. I was wondering if you could advise me on the priority areas in my workplan so I can work on them with priority. I’m really committed to giving my best at work. I appreciate any help and advice you can give and I look forward to your response.”

Notice that you’re not trying to sugarcoat. You are being honest. You are outlining the problem and being clear on the help you need.

Example: Difficult co-worker

Let’s take a look at a different example. Say you’re dealing with a co-worker who is not sending you stuff on time. Have you guys dealt with such people before?

A You-statement can sound like this:

• You-Statement: “You haven’t given me the report that I asked for. This is not the first time. You are always sending in stuff late and it’s disruptive for everyone. When can you send this to me?”

Notice here? It focuses on the negative, on the past track record of what the person did wrongly, and also frustration. Here’s how an I-statement that focuses on the positive can look:

• I-Statement: “I haven’t received the report for project ABC. Are you facing any trouble doing it? Is there any area that I can help you in? Let me know. We are here to support you. We do need to submit this by tomorrow latest. So let me know if there’s anything that we need to do to meet the deadline.”

Here, the difference is that you’re focusing on the positive parts. The things that can be done. That you are here to help. Rather than harping on the past, putting blame, or rebuking the person, which doesn’t really help the situation and may turn it into a defensive, accusatory, and angst-filled exchange.

Think about the exchanges that you have had with others and also moving forward as you talk to others. Think about how you can apply this and focus on the positive aspects. The positive things in this situation, the solutions, as opposed to focusing on the spilt milk, the irreversible things, or even fingerpointing and the faults of the person — which don’t really solve anything in the long run.

5) Understand and resolve

My last tip is to understand and resolve.

This is where the second big difference between assertiveness and aggressiveness comes in. If you remember, being assertive is where you voice your opinions and needs in a positive way and you work with the person to achieve a common goal. On the other hand, aggressiveness is when you’re bulldozing, making your point across without consideration of others’ opinions or needs or even attacking other people’s opinions and needs.

In this tip, you want to work with the other party to achieve this ideal outcome. To listen to what the other person feels, to work with them hand-in-hand to achieve a win-win as opposed to just saying, “I have this problem, go fix it” or “I have this problem. You are the reason why I have this problem.”

Let’s say you are team leader in a project. Actively involve your teammates by asking them for their opinions, getting feedback at regular intervals, listening to their viewpoints, and working with them to incorporate the key feedback into what you’re doing.

Let’s say it’s with a partner. You want to be listening to his/her point of view. Here you’ve already shared what you feel and that is your one-sided interpretation and viewpoint (which is important). After making yourself heard, you want to hear what he/she has to say, to understand things from his/her perspective and then you can work from there.

Or let’s say it’s with a friend. Maybe you have an issue with him/her. Maybe you feel that there are times when he/she isn’t being reasonable, neglects you, or doesn’t appreciate you. After articulating yourself, you want to hear what he/she has to say. Maybe he/she has certain difficulties or problems that you want to listen to.

Or even say it’s with a boss and you’re sharing about your workload issues or salary rise/negotiation or about your promotion. Then understand from your boss on the situation, on the what’s happening in the organization, on the areas he or she needs help in, limitations and so on. So that you can understand the role that you can play to achieve the best outcome for your boss and you.

I find questions or statements like,

• “What do you think?”
• “I want to know what’s on your mind.”
• “Your view is important. Let me know what you think.”
• “Our goal is X. How can we work together to make this happen?”

Statements like these open up this channel and conduit for the other party to share their views.

Think of it this way: We have been having problems asserting ourselves and through the tips in this podcast, we then learn to assert ourselves and make ourselves heard. But maybe there are other people who haven’t gotten through this mental block of asserting themselves. We can help out by inviting them to share their thoughts so that we can work together to achieve this common goal. So it is important to honor the other person’s boundaries just like you probably feel your boundary has been infringed when people ignore your opinions and your needs. Here you want to respect the other person’s boundaries too.

As with all communications and relationships, sometimes the solution may not come up in just one discussion. And that’s normal. This is where you keep discussing and keep the conversation open. You work together over time to find that best solution for both of you.

Closing Note

So we have come to the end of today’s podcast. I have some articles to supplement what I’ve shared in today’s podcast.

The first one is on how to choose your battles and win the big war. It’s about knowing when to speak up and when not to. In this podcast, I’ve shared tips on asserting yourself and speaking up. But there comes a time when it helps to speak up, and there are certain moments it helps to let things go and not pursue the matter. And you can read that at personalexcellence.co/blog/choose-your-battles/

I have another article on how to give constructive criticism. Some of the underlying principles and the tips apply when it comes to be assertive. You can read this article at personalexcellence.co/blog/constructive-criticism/

Being assertive can be quite similar to saying no. So I’d like to direct you to my article on how to say no at personalexcellence.co/blog/say-no/

Each podcast takes a lot of work to create. If you have found this podcast helpful, I would truly appreciate if you can take a moment to leave a review and rating on iTunes at personalexcellence.co/itunes/. I would truly truly appreciate that.

So thank you so much for listening and I look forward to speaking to you guys next episode. Bye guys!

Endnote: Thanks for listening to The Personal Excellence Podcast! For more tips on how to live your best life, visit www.personalexcellence.co

Related Resources:

• How To Handle Molestation: A Personal Encounter
• How to Choose Your Battles (and Win the Big War)
• How To Give Constructive Criticism: 6 Helpful Tips
• How To Say No To Others [Podcast]
• How To Say No To Others

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