Her Discussions by Dr Faye - The Psychology Behind Lucky Girl Syndrome | Mini Episode

Episode Date: August 20, 2026

Another Thursday, another mini episode!Every Thursday, we’re sharing the Buy or Bye Bye segment from one of your favourite Her Discussions episodes - a breakdown of what actually works for your health. This week, we're revisiting our episode with Jemma Sbeg, host of the chart-topping podcast, ‘Psychology of your 20s,’ who shares her tips on making your twenties less overwhelming.In the full episode, we discuss:✨ the silent tax of being the eldest daughter💌 whether you should have a 5 year plan☁️ how objective desire will keep you from happiness🌏 navigating long-distance relationships💗 the trick to avoiding comparison cultureListen to the full podcast here:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/69NONPxkzDz2mZesdFPRnE?si=JLUpQy7VRuasoFfL76n_Cw YouTube: https://youtu.be/8_U4__3IA5g Resources & links mentioned:Jemma’s podcast - ‘Psychology of your 20s’: ⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/2HGcJRYrjGnpce6bRp8UXm⁠Jemma’s Instagram - ⁠https://www.instagram.com/jemmasbeg/?hl=enLinks to subscribe / follow:* Apple Podcasts: ⁠⁠⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/her-discussions-by-dr-faye/id1835829612⁠⁠⁠* Spotify: ⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/5viLYizHD4Zy6J42iqtPRo⁠⁠⁠Can I ask you a BIG favour? 💙* Please leave a review or rating. It helps us grow the podcast and bring you more amazing guests.* Share with someone who needs this; it might help them live a happier, healthier life.* Follow us on social media or join the broadcast channel to send us your questions for our guests. I'll leave the link here: ⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/channel/AbY4liwxlLnewx4H/?igsh=MWhuaXFweGtucTB3cA==⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/channel/AbY4liwxlLnewx4H/?igsh=MWhuaXFweGtucTB3cA==⁠⁠⁠🛑 Disclaimers:Opinions are my own. This content is for educational / entertainment purposes and not medical or financial advice.

Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca.ca. I'm going to go into our section called buy or bye-bye. Basically, I will show you a piece of paper,

and I would love to hear whether you would buy this thing, like you like it, or say bye-bye to it, as in like goodbye. I love this segment on the show. Yay! The only rule, if you're already familiar, the only rule is we love nuance. There's not enough nuance on social media. It's all very black or white polarising.

give us all the details we want to know. So first thing, five-year plans. I wouldn't impulse buy it, but I might buy it. Nice. If it's the right one for me. I have a whole episode on this actually that I did way back in the day on like the psychology of five-year plans. And if a five-year plan helps you feel more secure and helps you feel like you

are able to take a couple of steps in a direction, amazing. Because obviously the worst thing you can do is be safe. stagnant. So if this is what's going to motivate you, I would buy it. But if you feel like I have to lock myself into my five-year plan and if things don't go accordingly, my life's going to fall apart. If you are somebody who is a real, like, intense rule follower and once you set an expectation for yourself, like you really have to follow through, I actually wouldn't. I would say bye-bye to the five-year plan because I think it becomes too strict and too claustrophobic for a lot of us. And also, you never know what's going to happen, right?

I'm sure your five-year plan five years ago, did it include the podcast? Maybe, maybe not. Did it include, like, getting engaged? Like, for me, did it include any of the things that have happened? No, and I think I would have said no to some things that would have become brilliant because they didn't fit the five-year plan. Before the podcast, myself and Jevo was talking about me getting engaged and actually how I found it really, really stressful or it wasn't this picture-perfect experience that you hear about.

But one of the things I found most anxiety-inducing was the five-year plan, especially if you're a high achiever girlie, you're quite ambitious. This is one thing getting engaged that you do not know where that falls on your five-year plan. And I probably to my, no, definitely to my detriment, I can be a bit of a control freak. And not knowing where it would fall into my five-year plan and then I'd have to factor planning a wedding was so unbelievably stressful. I would love to hear your take on it. I don't think that's healthy. No, I don't think so either. I think it definitely impacts a certain kind of person more. And that's why I say, like, the people who are more likely to choose that I want the five-year plan are probably the people who shouldn't have one. Yeah, because I'm the same because it's just like the anxiety of having to stick to the plan or like exactly when things come in that are objectively great, like getting engaged, meeting someone wonderful is objectively great. But when you are somebody who is so controlling, any diversion, any different, like anything that changes from how you see your future.

you're going can be like can actually feel really stressful so yeah that's my that's my kind of thought on it just as a segue do you have any psychological tips for managing uncertainty because yeah yeah i always say like there's this amazing and if you ever do any kind of cognitive behavioral therapy this is you will have heard this it's not the thought it's the behavior as well in response to the thought that is so scary so the thought of like my life could go terribly is just a thought. And if you can acknowledge it and be like, well, it could also go amazing, you're probably better off. But it's the behaviors that come from that of like ruminating, obsessing, trying to control everything that really actually make that initial anxiety so much worse.

So I think, yes, thinking what if, but then also thinking what else is so helpful for uncertainty. And having a little bit of a historical take on the times where you really thought things were going to be disastrous and they've turned out so much better off than you would think. And I think that 95% of times that is the case, right? It never happens the way that you think it's going to happen. And just having like a mantra or a reminder around that is like really grounding. Hopefully that helps. Yeah, no, I love that. That was brilliant. Good. Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk.

Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca.ca. Lucky girl's syndrome. I would buy that. Nice. I would 100% buy that. I think that Lucky Girl Syndrome had its moment on TikTok like a couple of, I would say in like

2023, 2024. And I vaguely remember the video somebody made and she was like, well, if I just believe that I'm lucky and I just believe that good things happen to me, they do. And it's essentially the psychology of manifestation and the psychology of attentional control. What you focus on expands because you look for it more. you have a cognitive bias now towards things going well for you, towards opportunities rather than like things not going well for you. Lucky Girl Syndrome, when you really look into like the science behind it,

is like it actually represents so many core psychological principles, like neuroplasticity, attention, principles of focus, like principles of positive affirmation. Yeah, it's huge. I would buy that for sure. Let's get in, sweep. Let's review those psychological principles. because I remember the first time I watched The Secret,

and I remember that it's like the manifestation book. It was my introduction into manifestation, and I am a woman of science through and through to my core. However, I watched this at a place where I think I was just out of a breakup, like lowest of low in terms of my self-esteem, in terms of my uncertainty. The first place that I saw in manifestation, they lost me when there was someone who said that they manifested a parking space

when they turned the corner and there was a parking space there and they manifested it. Now, that was when my woman of science brain left. However, my woman of science brain was hooked into the attention, the neuroplasticity, that side of it. And I don't care how you get to manifestation, whether you believe that putting, writing things down and putting it under your pillow is going to diffuse by osmosis, whatever, into your brain. However you believe it, those principles, that they are backed,

not the diffusion from the piece of paper into your brain. No. But it's so, so powerful. And I saw the benefit in my own life, even in terms of the positive thinking and the control it gave me back over my life and the outcomes. So you mentioned some key psychological principles there. Neuroplasticity. If you were to explain neuroplasticity to a five-year-old, how would you explain it? Essentially, the plants that you water more are the ones that grow, right?

And the plants in this case are your neural pathways. not specifically your neurons, but your pathways. Or another way to think about it is like the path that you walk through the field is the one that becomes more established, right? When you think, not just positively because negatively as well, but when you have a certain way of thinking about your life or a certain way of thinking about what is happening to you or about your luck or anything, that becomes an ingrained belief because every time something happens to you, you'll have a belief that, like, of course this always happens to me,

negative connotation, or if something good happens to you, of course this always happens to me positive connotation. And essentially, we're using like a very pessimistic, optimistic, like, you know, juxtaposition here, but it can be anything. The more you think that, the more of a truth it becomes, because you have to remember, the only truth you actually have about your world and life is the truth that you hold internally. Like, your perspective on life is the truth is reality. Your reality is built on the basis of a repetition of certain thoughts. So with Lucky Girl syndrome, essentially when somebody believes I'm lucky, good things happen to me, that is the path they keep trotting. They stop going down the path of like, well, no, this isn't going to

happen. And the thing is, is when you think, well, I'm not very lucky, well, even when luck does show up, you already have this mindset that would naturally turn away because you say, this isn't for me, this stuff doesn't happen to me, and you don't necessarily take situations and transform them into what would be an amazing outcome. Now, you also have to consider context, right? The only time I wouldn't buy Lucky Girl Syndrome is when somebody thinks that, imagining that one is a lucky person can overcome poverty, can overcome structural and equate. can overcome just any number of things that set somebody back even before they were born, right? But I think that if you were at a point in your life where, you know, a lot of things

in your life feel pretty stable, like you feel kind of financially secure, you're like, you have enough to eat, you have a roof over your head, like you're maybe at uni or you're, you're like kind of going forward in your life, you have good friends. Lucky Girl Syndrome is like just an additive, right? It's just a little, it's like a mental sweet treat that this is the nuance that we need because also there was a celebrity an older celebrity and I can't remember who it was who basically said that they've been bankrupt like eight or 12 times because she just always believes the money will come back and I thought god your poor nervous system your poor nervous system I'm a manifestation girly through and through and she said that she basically

gave away millions and millions of pounds because she was like what the law of attachment yeah she was like money will come back and I was thinking too far too far. There's something so many times that like you get a wish granted, right? There's so many, so many like genies in a bottle. But I actually also don't like that because I'm like, well, when people are like, well, I manifested my way from nothing, it's like, well, do a bit more investigating this person didn't manifest from nothing. They probably manifested from something. Their parents were like college or university educated, you know, they happened to go to a good school where they happen to meet somebody who, like, you know what I mean? So, but, but,

But I do still like it as like a little additive. Next one. Moving abroad in your 20s. Okay, I have a biased answer because I obviously just moved to London. Like six months ago now. It's gone so quick. I don't want to think about the fact that it's... Wow.

This is like our six. I actually think like tomorrow will be six months in London. Oh my gosh. Wow. Okay. Anyways, so that's just like an epiphany. I'm so for it. But I also don't think that you like necessarily need it.

I think a lot of people put like a lot of their hopes and dreams at this idea of like, I'll move abroad and my life will change and I'll become worldly and blah, blah, blah, blah. It's not all that it's cracked up to be. But if you have a clear reason, like, why and what you want to get out of it and you have certain, like, deadlines for yourself of like, when am I allowed to admit this wasn't the right idea? When am I allowed to admit that, like, maybe this was the best idea and, like, have points of reflection? I think it's amazing. Like, I'm having a great time. And I've definitely learned more about myself than ever before, really.

Yeah. Ever. And I guess what would be your advice to someone say if they're in a relationship? And because that's really great that you're with someone who came with you. But what if someone is in a relationship and one person wants to move abroad and the other person does not want to? Do you have any thoughts on that one? Okay. Yeah.

It might be a little bit controversial. That's okay. I always say be the walker, not the dog. Like if you got being, if they don't want to come, like I, I genuinely believe, take a quick assessment of your lives, right? If you go, is your relationship going to fall apart? I think that's a sign you should go. Because I just think that if you will always end up resenting them for it, but also I know a lot of friends who've moved overseas and their partners are still back in Australia, back in the US, back in New Zealand, wherever. And their

relationships do work if it's the right relationship. Because if you have a great partnership, even a good partnership, you will know in your heart of hearts that you want that other person to be happy and to be thriving. And I would also hope that you have the maturity to know that if you were to hold somebody back from an opportunity, there's no coming back from that. I think you see people, like to reference the Gottman Institute who was like married couple, they're one of the biggest relationship institutes in the world. They basically just study like why relationships fail and why they work. And they talk about resentment is like the horseman of the apocalypse, like the resentment is the thing that destroys most relationships.

Like once you get to that point or once you have resentment, like there's kind of no going back. And so I think if your partner is like, oh, no, don't do it or is saying, I'm not going to stay with you. If you go, maybe that's a pretty good sign that this relationship wouldn't have ended up in the position that you want to at the end of the day anyways. One of my friends has recently moved to Sydney. Oh, really? Yeah, which is incredible.

And she's been in her relationship for the last four years, but he can't, like, he wants to stay here. He's got stuff going on with his career here. I'm really proud of them because they've both done what they need to do. They're trying to make it work. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. If it does, brilliant, they're going to do their best. Someone who was in a long-distance relationship for six years told me this one phrase that I think is so, so-so-beautiful. And it's distance to relationship is like oxygen to a flame.

it blows the weak flames out and it makes the strong flame stronger. So true. I completely agree. And also I feel like I have a lot of friends who've stayed together through stuff like that. So can totally, totally relate to that. Follow your feet. Follow your feet. Follow your heart.

I feel like it's a great decision if you can do it. Forge. Yeah. Soft life. I love the soft life. I haven't thought about that for a while, actually. I love the soft life. I feel if you don't know what this is, the soft life was.

kind of like a movement that was started by a bunch of Nigerian content creators. I'm just going to push myself. I'm just going to be as ambitious as possible, but also have no, no kind of boundaries around my ambition. The soft life is I'm going to be ambitious, but I'm going to also support that ambition by doing things that make my life easier, being soft with myself, having relaxing days, being kind to myself. And I just think it's phenomenal, especially right now where I just feel like it's harder than ever to feel like you have worth if you want somebody who is basically in a state of like constant self-sacrificing and discipline. Like it's hard to feel like you are worthwhile if you're not that and the soft life really

counteracts that. Life is meant to be easy at times and enjoyable. It's not a sin. It's not something terrible if you choose a different path. Yeah, I think I need a little bit more that in my life. We had a conversation with Steph Sword Williams. And I was basically saying how so much I think for my drive and my ambition derives from ultimately, probably self-hatred. And actually learning that you can be ambitious because you love what you do and you love your passion for what you do, not that you hate that you're not good at it yet.

I love this way of thinking, right? I feel like a lot of people who are ambitious really are just motivated by self-punishment. Like when you start to dig below the surface, it's like, why, why, why do you want this? Why do you actually want this? Why? And it's like, well, because I'd finally be able to prove to all these people that I'm good. I'd finally prove to this person that I was worth something. I'd finally like feel like I'm worth something to myself. And I think the soft life is like, okay, but really interrogate where your ambition comes from. Is it fulfilling? Because you could have all the hard ambition in the world. And you could probably be successful. But then you will look around and be like, well, what was this for really? My voice in my head is my A-lover chemistry teacher who's told me I'd never get into university. But like, I'm never going to see him again. So I'm never going to have that moment of being like, I did okay, you know. And also, there's so many bigger things, more beautiful things that have come from maybe initially trying to prove that that silly man wrong.

But I can't hold that, you know? Yeah, it just ends up creating a lot of suffering. And also it creates like this, another psychology concept. I've got to throw a couple in. Yeah. Of like hadonic adaptation, right? You get to a point where you're like, great, I finally achieved everything I want, and then your body adjust to it, your mind adjusts to it, especially if you are an overachiever,

you take it for granted very quickly and suddenly you're back at this lower point of like, I've never done anything. I've never done enough. And as much as I love the soft life and moving like gently with yourself and with the world, I still have that feeling sometimes. Like when I got my Netflix deal, I was like, great, we've done that. Like a Volvo dive. What's next?

When does the happiness come in? When does like the joy and the appreciation come in? I feel like you probably struggle with that as well. I'm hearing. But talking about Netflix, which is incredible. So the podcast is going to be on Netflix. It's on Netflix right now. Yeah.

Oh my God. Yeah. We will leave the link in the show notes. But how do you, from a psychological perspective, how do you reward yourself in that moment? How do you take a pause? Because you're completely right. I, milestones are hit

and it's just right, okay, the bar is higher, the bar is higher, the bar is higher. And it's only recently I've really taken, I need to really sit myself down and go, 16 year old Faye would actually piss her pants. Like, she would think I was the coolest fucking person in the entire world. And when I bought my flat,

I wrote a letter to myself five years ago and in five years' time and writing that letter to myself, thinking about the person that would never have dreamed that I would have bought a flat in London, you know. Oh my God, I'm getting kind of emotional for you. That's so. It was so amazing.

That's so special. But it was the only thing that I found for me that really makes me pause and reflect. Oh my God. No, to stop. That is so sweet. I like it's so emotional when I hear about like childhood dreams, copy dreams. I need to hold it together. I'm so happy for you.

Thanks. Did you do that? If you didn't, go home tonight and write yourself letters. I'm going to. I'm being tears. Oh, my God. Well, no, because to be like really, like, to pull back the curtain on it, I have this thing that happens to me in life where everything happens in threes. Yeah. So I, like, my book came out. I bought my house. I got a dog all on the same day. And it just all kind of happened where I was like, I closed on my apartment. It just all, I was like, oh, we're on the set. It all just happened on the same day. I moved countries. I signed my Netflix deal. Like, and then there was another thing that happened, which I wouldn't speak about. But, like, Like, it will happen on the same day, and I just feel like the chaos of it all was so immense that I just kind of didn't. We did like this little theater thing, which was super fun. But I'm not going to claim to be very good at it because I definitely haven't appreciated

how big of a move this has been. I've just been so dedicated to the work and just being like, you've got to prove that you deserve this. Especially since like there's some big hitters, right? It's like Jake Shane and like Chelsea Handler and like all these really cool people. and I'm like this 25, 26 year old from Australia, you got to really like, I don't know, I think it's a good reminder. I need to go home and like actually show some appreciation for what's happened. You're a cool person as well.

You need to remember. You're a really good person as well. This is the best. I'm the same. It's the only thing that's worked for me. And if you're worried that you'll lose the letter, take a picture of it on your phone and just put it in a folder because I was really worried that I'd lose it. And then set yourself a reminder, set you send it.

to yourself as an attachment in an email scheduled for five years time. Like these reflection points, because it's the same way that, you know, when your parents would look at a child and you're growing every little by little every day and your parents don't really notice the little incremental changes, but then a relative that hasn't seen you for 10 years, we'll see you and go, oh my God, you've changed so much

because they haven't seen you in five years time. Yeah. But we don't notice these small incremental changes until you zoom back. And I've, yeah, those. writing those letters has just been... Okay, I need to do that tonight. Yeah.

Dating apps? Okay, well, I met my partner, my boyfriend on a dating app. So I'm going to say bye. Yeah. Because he's amazing. However, this is my caveat with dating apps. I did a full, like, dating detox. I had such an unhealthy relationship with dating apps.

I would never actually pursue anybody. And if I did, it was always the same kind of person. I definitely used it for valid. it was just not a sustainable thing. I was burnt out by it. I was either elated or devastated by whatever was going on on that little thing on my phone. And so I had this tiny mini relationship with somebody that I met on a dating app. And afterwards, I was like, I need to just take a, I need to take a beat because this person is just like the person before who was just like the person before, who's just like the person before. And so I took six months off from like dating completely.

It was going to be longer, and then I went to Bali. This is a cute story. I went to Bali with my friends, and it was like half of them were in very serious relationships. Half of them had just gone through genuinely some of the most awful breakups you could imagine. And there was like four of them, and it was like cheating. It was like very intense other stuff that I was like, whoa. And I was in the middle being like, huh. And all of my friends who just went through the breakups were like, we're getting on Hinge.

Like we're getting on Tinder. We're getting on Hint. We're in Bali. everybody here is beautiful, hot. And I was like, well, maybe I'll partake. And the first person I matched with was my boyfriend. And I actually ended up ghosting him. And I don't know how he matched because I think there was a glitch in my phone settings

where the first couple of people that showed me were from my location where I'd started my profile, which was in Sydney, but I was in Bali. And so there was like three people who were like based in Sydney. I don't even know if they were. and then the rest of the people were in Bali, but I remember messaging him and he was like, I'm not in Bali. I'm in like Wollongong. And it just kind of felt like it was to be. But it just was all different that time. I was like, I'm only going to match with people. I really could actually see myself being in a relationship with anybody who doesn't say long term, don't even question it.

Anybody who says anything, like, you know, even political differences, anything like that, like don't. And staying. Yeah. Yeah. And he actually did this amazing thing. And I would highly recommend it to anybody who's on the dating apps right now, he said to me, he was like, I don't like small talk. I want to do, I want to ask you 10 questions. And if at the end of these 10 questions, and you can ask them back to me, you want to go on a date? Let's go on a date. But we're only going to answer these questions and we'll figure it out. And he asked me these 10 questions and they were really interesting.

It's like, why do you think you and your best friend are so close? I can't remember that he made it up. He'd like created all these questions like. what's the best thing about your family and really, really, really interesting things. And I answered those 10 questions and I was like, all right, let's go on a date. And I think that is an amazing strategy. I know he's a sweetheart. I just pre-chart GPT.

This was pre-chatchapter. You know, I'm so cynical about everything. Oh, yeah, like, AI. Because now you could just be like, give me some like really heartfelt do-da-da-da-da. No, this was before chat TBT. And he was just late from him. It was just questions. Yeah, it was just.

And when you, like, if you meet. him. He's that person. He just loves asking people questions and he's probably one of the only people I've ever met who would be happy if nobody knew anything about him and he knew everything about everybody else. And it was just such a pure like view into assault. But I think that's a great strategy. If you have good intentions, if you know what you're after, totally buy on the dating apps. And even if the intention is I just want to have fun, as long as you have an intention, right? And you have like some guardrails around how you're going to use this technology. So it doesn't like end up destroying the town that is your self-confidence.

Thank you for listening. If you would like to hear the full episode with even more jam-packed knowledge, then just click the link in. Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk. Challenge yourself, friends and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of

cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca.ca.com.