HealthyGamerGG - Why You Self Sabotage

Episode Date: August 11, 2022

Dr. K talks about self-sabotage, insecurities, rationalization, effect of success, and more! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So, so like now something weird is happening, where they're like the part of you that is afraid that something is like fundamentally off, the more successful you become, the more you're afraid that someone is going to look at you and be like, where's the catch? Hello, my friend. Hello, Dr. Kay. How are you, buddy? I am doing okay. Thank you very much for giving me the chance. And thank you for everything you do. It's amazing and it's helping me and a ton of other people. Well, you're very welcome, and thank you very much for being here because what I do requires people like you to come on. So thank you so much, man. It's a privilege.

Likewise. And what do you go by my friend? You can call me Trend. That's okay. Trend? It's my username. Yeah, absolutely, Trent. So tell me, what's holding you back? So in short, the way I summed it up was a fear of success in the sense of every time I seem to get close. or within reach of something I really want, I seem to self-sabotage in some way or another. Okay. In a way, maybe a more practical example that I gave earlier was,

for example, let's say in a dating context, you start dating somebody, and then they seem to be okay. Then maybe I see it going somewhere, and out of nowhere, maybe I start seeing things in them that maybe I make it up, just like defects or things, red flags that are there might not be there just because I'm kind of worried of what an actual relationship might be in that sense or in a work context it might be taking on a project with confidence at the beginning. And then once I kind of move forward, I start to realize that maybe I have bit a little bit more

than I could chew. But, you know, I've done things successfully in the past. So it's just kind of a self-perpetuating belief maybe down the line. Okay. So that sounds, first of all, I commend your insight. into recognizing a potential pattern that you've come up, but that's not easy to do. What's your understanding of why you're afraid of success? How do you come to that conclusion? Well, obviously, I've used a lot of your content over the past couple of years to kind of ask myself

relevant questions, and that has helped me a ton in understanding a little bit why I might do certain things. In my estimation, it would be something like the fear maybe of responsibility that comes along with success, the fear of the hard work that goes into it, even though I'm not afraid of hard work per se. I'm quite diligent worker. I wasn't very good in school. I got by, but once I moved out on my own, I kind of became more responsible as a necessity. But I do enjoy responsibility when it comes to and I don't mind taking on other people's problems that much. It's just when it comes to myself, I see there it'd be easier to stay in my comfort zone, which is I'm not very happy in some aspects. Can you help me understand what your comfort zone is? Okay. I can be more

specific to my situation in particular, which in this case would be dating in particular. Sweet, that would be very helpful. So for me, I'm, well, I'm 28, so I'm not young, let's say, by any, you know, I'm not one of the younger members of the audience, but I don't catastrophize as to like my life is over or this or this or that. It's just more like I've put off dating for a while. I moved out from my parents' house. I focused on getting a place of my own, a job.

I jumped between a few jobs until I found a career I liked. So I put a lot of effort into my career, into my, you know, I work out. I try to meditate every once in a while. I try to stay into the whole like self-improvement loop. But when it comes to dating, I find it very difficult to make maybe the first, take the first step because I have this perfectionism problem where if I do, let's say, do meet somebody I like, I don't know where that would lead. I'm worried about the potential kind of ramifications of getting involved with somebody. I've had relationships in the past, but that was a while back. And so it's just been a gap where now I'm worried that the success in that relation,

in a potential relationship, I don't know what that would entail, for example. I'm being a little bit more vague now. Yeah, well, I think it's an ordinary, for, so first thing, Trent, I thank you so much for sharing everything you've shared. I think it's very helpful. And I think part of the reason that we're vague sometimes is that we can articulate very well up to the barrier of our understanding. Right?

And so like it's naturally going to be like any time we discuss we're trying to figure something out, it's not precise. Like if we had understood everything, then, you know, we would have moved past it. So I think it's totally fine. So let me ask you a couple of questions. questions. So actually, let me just try to. Let's start with us a quick summary. So what I'm hearing is that you're like, generally, it sounds like you're doing pretty well in life. You've put in a lot of effort. You know, you've had a couple bumps in the road. You've overcome those. You're sort of

taking care of yourself physically. You're advancing professionally. You're really like working on yourself and have seen a lot of progress. I'm also hearing that you can like, you're not, you don't avoid responsibility, you don't even necessarily avoid challenges or things like that, you're really able to kind of rise to the challenge and progress and grow. Is that fair? Correct. Yes. When it comes to dating, though, you're noticing that like as things kind of move forward, and here's where I'm a little bit confused, because earlier you kind of said, like, once things get started, you'll start noticing red flags that maybe aren't there excuses to get out of a relationship. But then just recently, you said that you have trouble sort of starting things. Can you help me understand where does the

problem arise? At the starting or like once things are kind of rolling? Yeah. So that's, yeah, you made a great point. So the way I would put it is I've had a couple of first dates here and there. I've had a couple of like interactions, whether my friend set me up or I met somebody off at dating up or something like that. Sometimes I felt pressured into, you know, catching up on that end because I feel like I'm behind my peers when it comes to the relationship aspects. So in the sense, I'll like jump into the situation and then pull back when I realize that, hey, maybe, you know, I'm not sure that this is where I want to go with this person, but I took it because it was better than nothing.

So I really have a fear of like doing things because it's better than nothing. Or I don't subscribe to the whole like being with somebody because I don't want to be alone. I'm very good at being alone. I am not bored I don't feel like I necessarily need other people but it's definitely something that I would like to work on because my goals are definitely to have a relationship to have maybe a family someday.

So where that ends up going is that I with somebody I would potentially really care about my insecurities start coming up whereas with people that I don't care about that much as bad as that may sound, it's a lot easier to kind of give it a try and then pull back when, you know, like I see something wrong or I assume there's something wrong. Okay. Can I think for a second trend? Of course, please. Okay. Can you tell me what you mean about, you said that your insecurities come up more

when you're, when there's someone you're more invested in? Can you help me understand what kind of insecurities you're talking about? Yeah. So specifically probably, and I've watched a couple of your in-sell videos as well. And I think having to explain to somebody that, you know, I haven't been in a relationship in a while, that's something that I worry might pop up when I get more invested with somebody that I might like, actually. That's one of them. Another one might be just fear of being judged for even though like on my metric and what doesn't help somehow reversely is my friends telling me that like oh you're so great or you know my family oh you're so great somebody would be lucky to have you and I'm like oh yeah great thanks

thanks for that so I don't have anybody like um it's it's very much a self-inflicted thing maybe but it's definitely that feeling of either being not good enough uh on some level that I can't understand or it's the having to explain to somebody that hey you know like I've been working on myself but maybe that's just an excuse for why I've been alone maybe I've been alone for other reasons that I can't understand and that somebody else might see trend do you feel ready for a relationship definitely yeah I think so okay because in the past I've definitely felt not ready so like I know I felt the difference between not being ready and then being ready.

Okay. Whatever that may mean, you know, it's a question. Let me ask you something, Trent. If you met the one tomorrow, how would you feel? Static. I disagree. Nervous, nervous.

Terrified probably. Okay, now we're getting somewhere. Help me understand. What are you terrified of? Of ruining it? Very good. Right? So if you're afraid of ruining it, so here's the thing.

Here's what I'm hearing for you. You let me know, I mean, very good as I'm assuming I'm right here. So you're the judge, right? So I'm going to put for something forward to you. Here's the thing. So Trend has been putting his life together. Trend has a good career. It's working out.

The thing that I'm really hearing from you, what you're really concerned about is that you're not, what I'm really sensing from you is that if you were to meet the one tomorrow, you're not confident that you could make it work. You're concerned that if you met the one, she would ask questions like, tell me a little bit about your dating history. And you're like, yeah, I've never really been in a long-term relationship,

but it's been many, many years. And then she's going to like look at you, and I'm assuming you're heterosexual for a moment. Is that a fair assumption? That is a fair assumption. So she's going to look at you and she's going to be like, oh, my God, like this guy looks so good.

great. Like he may exercise and he may have a decent career and he's got a silky smooth voice, but there must be something wrong with him because he hasn't, you know, had a decent relationship. Do you ever, like, does that kind of resonate with you? Absolutely. And I think maybe that's the way I see myself in a certain way. So tell me about that. How do you see yourself? Exactly as you said, where, you know, all of the above, but there must be something wrong with him because he didn't have a long-term relationship. And yeah, I might rationalize, hey, I've been working on myself. I've been doing this.

I've been doing that. But that's just me and the way I think. You know, I don't know how other people think. I completely agree with what you said earlier also of, you know, the fear of not getting it to work. Because practically speaking, I don't have the experience to know, like, the ups and downs of relationships and how to manage them. Okay. So I might run into. Can I think.

Sorry, sorry. You're just saying so much good stuff. I don't want to lose any of it. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. Okay. Keep going.

Sorry. If you can, if you can't, that's okay. I know I interrupted your frame of mind, but you're, you're a fool. So let me ask you a couple other questions. So you said rationalize it to yourself. Right? So like if you're rationalizing, oh, I've been working on myself, is that really the reason you've been single? Well, at, I.

On the spot, I can't think of, like, I'm sure I felt like I couldn't add much to somebody else's life before, whatever, you know, that may mean. I had the, because also my initial relationships were very much based on kind of a negative attraction to people that maybe we were both having issues. So I was in the much, let's, oh, no, I don't want to dramatize too much. but I was like in the darker place. I was relating to people more on a kind of a sad level, you know, like trauma bonding, stuff like that. Unhealthy foundations of connection. Unhealthy. Yeah, unhealthy foundations.

So that didn't end up going very well because my standards were very low and probably theirs were as well. It was, you know, I would take anybody that would like me. I was blown away the first time somebody actually liked me. So, you know, so that I. put that to the side for a while after that. I ended up getting involved with a couple of people that were, you know, they were nice people and all of that, but they just weren't for me for whatever reason. And now that I'm, I've seen myself as having put in the work, I'd like somebody who was also put in some amount of work, not necessarily like, you know, they don't have to have this

amazing career or this or that, but, you know, somebody who's self-aware and somebody who's emotionally healthy-ish enough, you know. Okay. Beautifully said. So, Trent, let me, let's try to tease things apart a little bit, okay? Okay. So I'm going to put forward just a couple of observations and let's see let's see how we can understand a couple things. So question number one. Oh, so observation number one. Oddly enough, the more invested you are in someone, the more likely you are to self-sabotage. Correct or incorrect? Correct. Okay. The more, the less, the less, invested you are in someone, the more likely you are to advance the relationship, correct or incorrect?

Correct. How do you understand that? I don't fear the consequences of losing it that much. Good. Okay. So that makes a lot of sense to me. Right? So you don't, and what kind of consequence are we talking about?

Regret. What would you regret? having missed out, like having ruined something potentially good. Right. Or, you know, as you're going back to your one example, kind of. You believe in the one? I believe there's ones. You know, there's like multiple people that we can have.

Okay. There's compatibility and different other things. So I used to believe in the one. What happened? Um, I, uh, the reality happened. Okay. Okay. Interesting. No, that's fine. So let me put it this way. So like, let's understand this first thing. Do you play video games trend? Yes, I do. What do you play?

I mainly play Dota 2. Now I play in Valerant these days. Beautiful. Okay. So this is going to be easy to understand. You know in Dota 2, you can queue up for ranked and you can queue up for unranked, right? Absolutely. Okay. So what you're doing in your relationships is you're never queuing ranked. Never. You're always queuing unranked. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yes, very much.

Explain it to us. Well, in unranked, even if you lose, there is no real consequence in ranked, which I also don't do in Dota these days. So it does apply as a peril. Right? But yeah. It's interesting. So if we're talking about self-sabotage like so and you want a relationship, let's just like understand that this makes perfect sense. And yet it's kind of bizarre that you're more, you pull away.

from relationships that have the highest value of success or probability of success, the relationships that you actually want are the ones that you're least likely to engage in. Correct. Right. So that's like kind of weird. And the more that we tunnel down into that, the more that we realize that I think on some level, you're afraid of screwing up the right relationship. And so you're happy because like, and this will get to this in a second.

So you kind of feel somewhere inside you that there's like something fundamentally that isn't great. Right. Yes. And so, like, if there isn't something that's fundamentally great, like, you've got to level up and unranked and, like, learn how to play the game. You're 28 years old. You haven't had a whole lot of healthy relationships. You're falling a little bit behind. You're not, like, doom and gloom kind of stuff where it's, like, too late for you.

But it's sort of like, I kind of see both of the pieces, right, where there's the part of you that's, like, a little bit doom and gloom. And now you've started to work on that. But it's still sort of there. So now we're going to get to the really tricky thing. as you become more successful, do you think that exacerbates this problem or improves this problem? I know it's kind of a weird question. No, it's a perfect question because what I was thinking of also was I've had milestones that I thought if I hit, it would kind of unblock me. So I thought that when I moved out of my parents' place and got my own place, well, my parents have divorced.

So when I moved out of like one of my parents' place, I got my own place, that would help. because I would be able to kind of show that I have my own place. When I got a good job, I thought that would help me. When I got in shape, I thought that would help me. So I just kept hitting milestones expecting, you know, something to break the cycle. And it just seems to keep going in that way. So as I move forward in life, which, you know, under some metrics I am, then my obviously tolerance for the unranked is going down.

down a much more craving and ranked experience. Hold on, but use two different words that are very different. Is your tolerance for unranked going down? Because craving intolerance are two very different things. I don't doubt that you crave ranked, but can you tolerate ranked? The more successful you become. Does that make it easy? No, no, no, no.

But just like, for example, I'm much quicker to end things when I see that it's unranked. Let's say it that way. rather than continue forward. Got it. As I would before, now I'm much, like, I'd rather just, hey,

you know, like, I'd rather not play than not play ranked. Okay. Makes sense. So let me ask you again, do you think that becoming more successful helps with this problem,

or does it not help with this problem? I don't think it's helped me that much. It's definitely giving me a little bit more confidence, but like, it's not, a one to one at all. Yeah. So let me ask you something, Trent.

Let's say you meet someone who looks like the one, right? So she's got her stuff together. She's attractive. She's, you know, done a lot of like she physically takes care of herself. She's got her career going well and she's 29. What's in the back of your mind when you see a 29 year old who's single and has their stuff together? I mean, I'd be lying if I didn't have some judgment. Very good.

What's your judgment? You know, why didn't they prioritize that? Like, if they were, you know, if everything is so great, why aren't they with somebody? Exactly. Right. So you have an insecurity. And interestingly enough, the more, this is the really paradoxical thing. And I appreciate so much that you called in.

I appreciate that you've been a part of this community because we don't usually get to this part with people who are in like early members of our community. community. Thank you very much. So, so like now something weird is happening where they're like the part of you that is afraid that something is like fundamentally off, the more successful you become, the more you're afraid that someone is going to look at you and be like, where's the catch? So it's kind of bizarre because as you succeed, you were sort of assuming that like the internal sense of like something is off is going to get fixed.

And oddly enough, the more milestones you achieve, the better you look on paper, the more you're concerned that if you meet the one, she's going to look at you and be like, wait, something's off here. This guy is too good to be true. What's on the other side of the coin? What do you think about that? Does that resonate with you? Probably.

I also don't like to show people my weak side in any way. or sure. Like, I don't, like, I always like to paint the picture that everything is fine. I have no problems. If anybody, I'm very good at, like, dealing with other people's problems. But when I don't like help, I don't like accepting help from other people. And so when I show myself to somebody who might be a prospect in dating, I'm going to paint the picture that everything is perfect. What is the weak side? I don't know. I like the insecurities that we were talking about, I guess. The fact that I, you know, obviously I do have, I'm sure issues. I'm sure I have some sort of blind spots that I can't see. I'm sure there's stuff that I don't even know about.

So for me, what I try to hide and suppress is probably my need for any sort of reassurance or help or anything like that. Okay. It's getting a little, we're adding layers to it to the onion. but let me ask you something. How are you sure you have issues? Kind of drawing from the conclusion that if I didn't, I wouldn't be in this situation.

Okay. So like here's the weird thing. Let's assume that like there's a certain amount of this that's RNG. Yeah. How would you tell if like how are you going to know whether you have issues or don't have issues? How would you be able to tell the difference? I wouldn't. So like this is,

This is important to understand, friend. So, like, it's kind of weird because it's like, you believe you have issues because you haven't found a relationship that is long lasting and fulfilling at the age of 28. But, like, you may not. And then that belief that there's something in you that is left unresolved is exactly what you're afraid is going to screw up meaning the one. Yes.

Right? Yes. But then, like, this is kind of a weird self-fulfilling prophecy because, what if you actually don't have issues? So then you have nothing to worry about in the relationship because you're 28 and the average age at which people are forming long-lasting relationships is like statistically increasing. Yeah, no, I completely see your point kind of shooting myself in the foot. Right?

So I think that you're because it's kind of weird because when I ask you like, how are you sure you have issues? They're like, there must be a blind spot because I don't see anything, but it's got to be there. That in and of itself, that conclusion is coming from. the insecurity that there's something fundamentally broken. Yeah. And then we get into this situation where, okay, so like, let's just, let's take a step back and run it from the beginning. Somewhere along the way, you were concerned that you could not offer some, that's not

the right phrasing. Somewhere along the way, you are concerned that despite being a successful, good, caring human being, that there's some part of you that is going to screw up a relationship. and that someone would like discover at some point and then break up with you. There's like something fundamentally messed up with Trend. Yes. Okay. That's in a nutshell.

Okay. So then Trend did what a good person is supposed to do. They started working on themselves, right? That's what we tell everyone. Work on yourself. And Trent worked on himself. So he started exercising, hopped jobs for a little while, found a good career, grinded at it, you know, did a lot of self-development work.

Now has a decent career. now is in decent shape, is a good friend, can accept responsibility, can face challenges, can support people emotionally, right? And then each of those things you thought, okay, at some point, this is going to fix the fundamental insecurity. Yes. And it didn't fix the fundamental insecurity. So now we've got this kind of weird situation where you don't even know what to fix anymore because everything that you saw that was wrong, you've worked on, right? Yeah, yeah, in a sense. And so now the confusing thing is like there's some part of you that feels that something is off.

And that if you date, if you run into the one, like eventually they're going to look at you, you're 28, they're going to say, this guy looks perfect. What's the catch? What's the catch? What's the catch? And you don't know what the catch is, but you're afraid they're going to figure it out. And so then since you're fundamentally afraid that you may not succeed in a relationship because there's this big boogeyman in the closet that you don't know what it is,

have a blind spot to it, you've worked on everything that you know how to work on, you're afraid that they're going to look at signs in your life, like 28 career exercises, single, like, there's got to be something. Yeah. Right? And so, interestingly enough, like, then what happens is you've got a choice when you start dating. And the people that you're more attracted to, you're afraid that you won't be able to, that they're going to discover this thing.

It's almost like you're an imposter. You're like a broken person pretending to be a put-together person. Yeah. Does that resonate with you? I had that in my job at the beginning when I started as well, very much of an imposter syndrome for the first like six-month-ish of that. So until I kind of got enough confidence by, you know, succeeding and taking on challenges and failing sometimes, of course, and learning from failures.

You know, I'm not perfect by any means. But it's just that, you know, at least I felt like I had, I was given the chance to kind of try and learn. And I felt like in a relationship, perhaps, it's, you know, if I mess up, then that's it. Yeah. So who's not giving you the chance to try and learn in a relationship? Oh, me. 100%, right?

And you're even, so even then, Trend, you're doing, you're doing, in a sense, quote, quote, the right thing, which is that you keep on cueing for unranked. Yeah. Right? So you're like, and it makes perfect sense because you don't want to risk. Like the possibility of the perfect relationship while you're inexperienced. You want to work out all of these kinks with people that you're not even invested in. Yeah.

And so you're queuing up for unranked where people are like drunk and smurfs and feeding and like trying out wonky things. They're not playing the game seriously. And now you've even gotten frustrated with that because you've realized this is actually not what I want to play, but you're afraid to queue up for ranked because what if you lose a game. What if the one comes across, they see that you're broken. They see that, oh my God, Trent is just faking it. He's faking it. He's faking it. He's pretending to have his stuff together, but deep down, he doesn't have his stuff together. You're afraid of risking it. So how does your mind

protect you from screwing up the perfect relationship, trend? What does it do? Don't even try. 100%. And what is not trying, how does it convince you not to try? You're going to fail or yeah, probably that. I think this is where the red flags come in. Oh, I see. Yeah, it finds faults in other people. 100%. Right?

Yeah. It gives you reasons. It says, oh, because it's going to protect you because there's no way that your mind is going to let you. Because imagine how you would feel if you met the one and you screwed it up. How would you feel? horrible horrible it's just going to reinforce and confirm the fact that you're fundamentally broken you're not actually but so that's not really a fact yeah so and your mind is like oh crap we love trend we want to take care of trend we don't we can't we can't let him realize that his deepest

darkest fears are true and so what it does is it finds red flags it says oh no no no no no no no that's not the one you see all these things that are wrong with them, don't bother. But then something subtle happens. As you point out red flags, do they moved into the unranked category in your mind? Yes. I don't think so. Oh, okay. Right?

So maybe they do. But what I'm sort of saying is there are people that you're invested in and people that you're not invested in. People that you're not invested in, you can date. But when you meet someone that you're invested in, you find red flags, you actually knock them completely off. You don't move them into this category and start dating them. Yeah. No. I don't even give them a chance at that point. Exactly. Right. So it's not actually unranked. It's not, you're not moving him into the low value category. You're right. You're right. You just avoid them entirely. Correct. Right. And that's to protect yourself from the rejection and

the confirmation. It's not just the rejection. It's the confirmation that you can't succeed in a relationship. That something's fundamentally wrong because that's going to like, because he's Here you are putting together your life, hoping for the confidence, hoping for the confidence, hoping for the confidence, and you never find it. So in the back of your mind, there's this thing that's like, oh, crap, what if something actually is, you know, busted? Yeah, absolutely. And as long as you never queue up, you are never going to be truly rejected.

And then there's the hope that actually, like, if you keep working on it, keep working on it, keep on, you know, playing unranked and getting better career and getting better this and better that. There's a part of your mind that says, okay, the confidence will come eventually. But the interesting paradox, what really keeps you stuck there is that the more you succeed in the rest of your life, the more that this other complex pops up, which is like, where's the catch? Yeah.

So you really seem like you're, you can't move in any direction, right? You can't actually queue up for ranked. You can't actually give a real relationship a shot because what if you screw it up? even if you keep on working on other dimensions of your life, that's going to just terrify you more that the more put together you are, if you become a, you know, multi-millionaire, and then you've got a super nice house and you're, you know, super in shape, and you've got you're very emotionally available,

and you've got a fancy car and all this kind of stuff. Like, the more that you, like, meet people, the more they're going to be like, what's wrong with the sky? So paradoxically, even advancing is, like, reinforcing the insecurity. Definitely, definitely. I think external expectations are also increasing around me for, you know, I'm getting to that age where a lot of people, my friends are getting married or getting into serious relationships. My family, I'm sure you've heard this many, many times, but they're starting to ask, you know,

when are we going to have a Mrs. Trend? Where are we going to have, you know, little grandchildren and all that? Yeah. Yeah, so we're going to have, you know, and sure, like I'm not, you know, super, super pressure, but I definitely feel it from all sides. And internally, it reinforces this, oh, you know, like, I better get moving or, you know, or not even that. It's more like, why haven't I gotten moving? There it is. Well said, Trent.

Right? That's, it's beautifully put. So now, trend, okay, so now we understand it. What are we going to do about it, bro? Well, like you said, I think I've been stuck paralyzed between the, you know, the idea of not taking a risk because I'm too worried of the consequences of it failing. But the only way I can see is to just give it a chance. It's a lot easier said than none, of course.

But one thing for sure was to acknowledge that I don't want to waste other people's time. Like, I don't want to just be not serious with somebody because they don't mean that much to me. I don't want to hurt other people. I don't want to compromise their emotions. So I'd rather just kind of aim. more carefully for and recognize more carefully somebody who might be a potential for me and that way if I do kind of set my eye on somebody and they like me too and I can see you know I'd have to be more self-aware if I'm making up certain things about them like is this person actually this this and

this or are they just you know maybe they're having a bad day or maybe they're you know maybe I'm making it up or isn't this my fear of messing it up because I can see this is going somewhere. Good. So let's try to make it a little easier for you. So I think essentially it's the right answer, but let's try to like, I mean, there isn't a right answer, but it makes a lot of sense to me. So let's try to help you become aware. Let's try to detail out what you should be aware of.

The first is notice that your mind is making red flags for people. Okay. Okay. Now, here's the thing. When you see a red flag, then you have to try to figure out as a, this a real red flag or is this an artificial red flag? And so the key thing there is to ask yourself, is this red flag a way, an excuse I can use to end a relationship with someone that I really want and I'm afraid I'm going to screw up? I realize that's a long sentence. But like, no, no,

it makes perfect sense. Right. Is this like, is this my mind's way of protecting me? Am I going to reject them before they reject me. Excellent. They said, yeah. Right? Yeah. And so if the answer is yes, then I'm not saying that you have to date them, but at least acknowledge that and ask yourself, okay, like, can I actually, am I, like, is the fear too strong?

Or can I actually, like, give this a shot? And the neat thing is when you notice that your mind is doing that, the power of that is actually going to decrease and the fear will be easier to overcome. Okay. The next thing to kind of think through is that notice that, you know, all of your successes don't necessarily deal with the source of your insecurity. Right. So this is a somscar. So like when you develop a lack of confidence that comes from one part of your life, fixing another part of your life doesn't translate into fixing this insecurity.

So here's the tricky thing is you started to believe at some point that you were like unlovable by people that are important to you. Now, that may have something to do with divorced parents like you never really know. I'm not saying that they didn't love you, but the child. It might have. Right? So like it's like little things like, you know, parents, like if you're moving houses and things like that, there may have been something where your dad swapped a weekend or your mom swapped a weekend so that they could go. on a date. And like, that's where you realize, like, oh, like this person, you know,

cares about other people more than they care about me or something like that. We don't necessarily need to go into that. My point is that the source of the insecurity cannot be fixed directly by putting together other stuff. So you may need to look into the source of that insecurity. Do you have a sense of where that comes from? I did some, so I've been using the Healthy Gamer Guide to kind of analyze myself. I've done. a little bit of therapy as well in the past good for you couple years just a few sessions here and there uh it definitely helped understand that a lot of these things come from childhood my you know my parents as you said they did get divorced i'm sure it had some sort of an impact they lived also in

different countries so i didn't get to see one of my parents for like six months at a time um you know there's a lot of stuff there and nothing you know extremely traumatizing but stuff that would make you kind of understand how I would get to the point where I feel like I either needed to be the best kid to get attention, you know, or to be responsible for one of my parents' emotions. So I had to be like always the good kid. So that kind of developed into something down the line, I would say, that therapy kind of helped me realize. Very good. So like this is very common, but being the best kid to get attention reinforces the idea that. that fundamentally you don't deserve attention.

And so interestingly enough, I think that could relate to what we were saying, what we were saying earlier about the more success you actually have, the more concerned someone may be that there's like something that they're missing. Right? Because it's sort of artificially, it's using achievement to justify attention. And so the more successful you become, it's kind of the same parallel where it's like, there's this external sense which should justify you wanting to be in a relationship with me. But does that kind of make sense?

Absolutely. And I think what you touched on earlier of the trying to make up for one lack with another success is definitely what I've, I didn't think I didn't even realize I was doing that until you just said that. But that's definitely my mindset maybe might have been, which, you know, brought some positive things, obviously. But didn't make up for the initial problem. Great. So you're in a healthy place trend because I think now you've realized that being seen. successful in part is to in a sense make up for the fact that you feel insecure. And so that can give you a lot of success, which is fantastic.

But now you need to grow past that, right? Now you need to realize that and this is where sort of dealing with the source of the insecurity, hopefully you'll kind of understand that, you know, the person who's the one, and we'll get to this in a second, the person who's the one is going to be okay with the fact that you're not perfect. because a good relationship is not about two perfect people getting together. It's about two people who are works and progress helping each other in a positive way. That's very comforting, honestly.

I don't expect perfection from my partner at all. I don't know why I see that. I don't see that in reverse. But you want to give them a perfect product. Yeah, exactly. So I don't expect it from them, but I expect it from myself for them. Yeah. And so next thing to consider is, you know, when you are dating that person, we'll just kind of like double down on that point.

Is that, you know, this kind of goes back to like the logical trap of blind spots, right? So you've worked on everything that needs to be worked on. And now we're doing a little bit more work, which is good. But you've got to be super careful about the way you conclude that, you know, you're not ready for a relationship. Because if you were ready, you actually wouldn't know because you just assume that there's another blind spot. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Like the next one. Exactly. So like how do you know when you're ready if you're always assuming that there's going to be a blind spot or there's something that you missed or there's something fundamentally wrong with you, which is why you're 28 and single? Hmm. And so interestingly enough, I think that's because that comes from the feeling and you can't

logic your way out of a feeling. There's a feeling that there's something wrong with me. And as long as that feeling is there, you're going to continuously think that you're not ready for a real relationship. And so just kind of be aware of that and recognize that you're setting yourself up for a standard that you will never be able to meet. Because no matter how much you work on yourself, no matter how successful you become professionally, no matter how handsome you are, no matter what happens, there's going to be a part of your mind that may still be like, oh, but what about this? We may be missing something. And since you don't know what that is because you fix everything you've seen, it's so paralyzing to actually go into a real relationship. Because it's like there's something wrong and I can't see it.

I can't see it. How can I possibly enter a real relationship and screw it up until I fix this thing? Perfectly said. Right? But then how do you even know that something's wrong? Where do you get that idea? You're enlightening me, honestly, because I think I'm, I've just been working off the, like, from the conclusion backwards of the, if I, if there was

nothing wrong, then I wouldn't be in the situation coupled with the whole, you know, initial trying to insecurity, which I was trying to make up with other things in my life. Very good. Right. And so, you know, going forward, the last thing I'll kind of leave you with trend, and then you're welcome to ask questions and stuff if you've got them is like, even if there is something wrong with you, that's okay. right so so what i want you to really be reassured by is not you're not perfect i mean no one's perfect

and that's okay what i want you to really appreciate if you can is that when you enter a relationship with someone that you're actually like invested in what you're giving them is not a finished product but what you're giving them is someone who's willing to work to move forward and so no matter what the flaw is no matter what they say about your you know like why are you single because the question will come up. You know, and that's where you can even be a little bit honest and you can say, like, I'm not entirely sure. You know, for a long time, I thought there was something wrong with me. And then, like, I put my life together in a really meaningful way. But, like, I feel like I'm missing something, but I just don't know what it is. And it's okay to say that. And then you can even

use a little bit of a, you know, Dr. K technique and you can sort of ask them, like, what do you think is wrong with me? right and how do you feel about asking that question to someone you care about well it goes back to the you know friends or relatives when i would ask them you know they they would tell me like hey you know like you know why aren't you with anybody that you know like you seem like to be doing great you seem to be you know moving on with your life you seem to be quite well off not necessarily financially or anything but just like as a human being um So, like, if I were to ask them, I would be genuinely curious to know, you know, if the potential partner let's say, and I ask them, hey, what do you think is wrong with me?

And the answer, if they told me nothing, I would somehow have doubt in that. Like, I would somehow doubt their answer. Not because I distrust them fundamentally, but, you know, I hate to say this, which seems so pessimistic. But I would be like, well, you know, you just haven't seen it yet. which I mean again, seeing something I don't even know about. Yeah. So then how are you confident that there's something there to see? Exactly.

No, that's basically the right. I'm stuck in. Yeah. So I think asking a potential partner is going to be really, really potentially important to you. And here's why. Trent, there's a big difference between asking your mom, what's wrong with me? And they're saying, oh, you're so beautiful, beta. You're trend.

You're so handsome and your catch for anyone. that's actually not going to reassure you. But the whole point is that when you ask someone that you care about and they say, like, because that's the opinion that matters, right? This is what you're afraid of. Yeah. And when you ask them like,

hey, what do you see, like, do you see something like fundamentally wrong? Because like, I'm not sure. Yeah. And when they say,

I don't see anything, that's when you need to like be a little bit careful. Right. So that's where like you got to think about where you are in the relationship. And you can say like, I'm happy to hear that. the right answer is, you know, if at some point I do something that makes you feel like, you know, is out of line or anything like that, please let me know because I'm working on myself. Yeah, definitely. And I'd be completely open to that as well.

Perfect. I'm always open to feedback and to kind of working on things that either I or other people see in me. Yeah. So you want to, it's okay for you to doubt, right? Because like you're going to need to hear that from them a couple of times. And at the same time, just because this is like, I theoretically an early stage romantic relationship, you don't want to double down on, you're wrong. You just haven't seen it yet.

No, that would be internal. Right. So good. I'm glad you're sort of separating that. And then eventually, like the second time you have that conversation, the third time you have that conversation, it's useful to also use, like, language. Like, there's a part of me.

So, you know, the third time you have that when you're feeling more confident in the relationship, you can lean on that person to help you, you know, deal with that, build that confidence. And you can sort of say there's a part of me that, like, is terrified that one day, like there's something I did not expect that I'm going to kind of screw up. And don't own it as truth. Acknowledge that it's a part of your mind that has an insecurity. Yeah.

Because you don't want to put the burden of fixing all their, all of your insecurities on them in one conversation, which is sometimes the way that we actually sabotage relationships. Yeah. Sound good? Absolutely. Questions before we wrap up? No, I think that was really, really, really helpful. And I really appreciate your time and everything that you're doing.

And thank you so much for hearing me out and for doing everything that you do. And thank you to everybody. Hopefully this helped somebody else as well. Oh, Trent, I think it's going to help a ton of people. I'm happy. And hopefully I'll implement the things you were talking. talking about as well. Can I offer you a kind word as well? Absolutely. So I just want to say thank you for coming on because I think that this is the kind of thing that we talk about issues of

lack of confidence with people who really, really struggle with confidence. What I really appreciate about you calling in is that as we work on ourselves, interestingly enough, it doesn't just fix all the problems. And even as we work on ourselves, the way that we build confidence, we really have to sort of tackle it head on. But ironically, we can't really tackle it head on until we've tried to fix all the other dimensions of our life. And so I really appreciate all the work that you've put in because I think we're getting to explore a level of insecurity and relationships and self-sabotage that oftentimes we don't explore. And so I'm so glad that you put in the work. And I'm actually like very hopeful and oddly enough confident, even though I don't know you.

I'm confident that you really can end up in a very positive, healthy, long-term relationship. Thank you very much. It means a lot to me. And I wish you a great day. You too. Take care. Take care. Thank you.

Bye. So let's just do a quick summary. So when we grow up with a lack of confidence and when we struggle with dating, we're told, put your life together. You know, focus on yourself. And so we do all those things. And as we put our life together, something kind of tricky can happen is that as we start to put our life together and we're sort of ready to date as we crave dating, sometimes what we'll do is actually create artificial red flags in our mind to step away from the relationships that we actually want. We'll sort of self-sabotage when we're really like when there's someone that we have a potential of having a real connection with.

And that self-sabotage actually comes from a place of paradoxically like protection. Because despite the fact that we've grown in a lot of dimensions, sometimes growing in a lot of dimensions doesn't solve that fundamental insecurity. And then we get into a very interesting trap, which is that the more that we put our lives together, the more we start to be afraid that something is like wrong with us and that someone will see through all of the false work that we've done. If I'm 28 years old and I have it,

a successful career and I'm in shape and stuff like that. And I start to date someone that I care about. We're terrified of the question, why are you single? Why are you still single? You know, why haven't you? If you're so perfect, like, what am I missing? And it's the fear that they're going to see that. And the fear of rejection when they sort of realize that we're not everything that we pretend to be, that causes us to actually withdraw from the relationship. And so even though we want that relationship, we actually will come up with excuses to not date the people that we actually want to date with. Because we're afraid that something, like, they're going to realize that there's something going on here. So paradoxically, sometimes the more successful we become,

the more we sort of start to be afraid that something's fundamentally wrong with us, because I'm so successful, why am I still single? Well, in order to balance that out, right? Because if I'm becoming successful over here, in order to balance that out, I need something very, very negative. And I just don't know what it is because I fix everything that I needed to work on. And so paradoxically, like, the more we succeed, the more we feel paralyzed in terms of dating. And sometimes that can manifest actually as self-sabotage. So fantastic caller. And thank you very much for calling again.