← Ready For Love with Hilary Silver
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You're settling right now. You are. And the part that should concern you is that you don't even know it. Today, I'm going to show you exactly why it keeps happening and what to do about it. And I promise you, it's not what you think. Hi, it's Hillary. Welcome to the Ready for Love podcast. If you haven't already, please subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode and to our YouTube channel. Subscribe that you can share your thoughts, comments and questions with me. When most people hear Stop settling, they automatically think relationships. Men don't accept someone who treats you like an option. And yes, that's true, it's a part of it. But that's just the tip of the iceberg, because settling isn't a dating problem. It is a life problem, and it's hiding in places you're not even aware of and don't even notice. It's in the obvious places, like your career, that the title, the salary, the role that looks incredible from the outside but is quietly hollowing you out from the inside. You tell yourself, be grateful. This is stable work. It's fine. It's in your friendships. You're in a room full of people, and somehow you still feel completely alone. You do all the giving and the planning, and you leave every conversation feel a little less than when you walked in. And it's in love. Staying past the expiration date, making excuses for half effort and accepting a version of what you want want, because the whole thing feels like too much to ask for. But it's even in small things like your closet and your kitchen and your daily schedule, living with things that don't feel quite right, clothes that you're sick of, glasses that are mismatched because they've broken over the years and the weekend activities you committed to when you'd rather be doing something else. Settling is everywhere, all the time, and you may not even notice it because, well, it just feels normal. We say nothing is perfect, and yes, that is true. But we don't need things to be perfect to feel deeply satisfied. It's the margin between satisfied and settling that we're looking at today. Because here's the thing I want you to hold on to, and I'm going to come back to this. All of this is less about the thing that you're settling for and more about who you are. A woman who makes do with the job she doesn't love, or a relationship that has run its course, or a life she absolutely doesn't love is. Is probably living with A version of herself that she has outgrown and doesn't even realize it. So hold that thought. By the end of this, you're going to know exactly what I mean by that, and more importantly, what to do about it. Most people think settling is about circumstances. The options aren't great. This is as good as it gets. This is just what life looks like at this stage. This is just how men are. Good jobs are just hard to find. Those things are easy to point at, but they're not the real reason. So here's what's actually happening. You settle because settling is consistent with who you believe you are. Every single choice that you make or don't make is a reflection of your identity, of what you think that you are worth, of how much effort you believe you deserve. Let that sink in for a second. How much effort you are going to put into yourself. Your choices don't come from what you want. They come from what feels true about you. And if at some level, conscious or not, you believe you're someone who doesn't quite get to have the things she really wants, you will find a way to not have it. Every single time. It's like your life is running on a default setting. And no matter what you say that you want, you keep getting rerouted back to what's familiar. This is why you can know all of your patterns, name all of your triggers, and do years of work and still end up right back in the same situation, doing it again. You updated your knowledge, but you didn't update your identity. And here's where it gets really honest. Every time you don't make the effort for yourself. So every time you walk past the thing that's bothering you, live with that irritation. Make do with less than what you actually want. You are sending yourself a message. A quiet one, a subtle one, but it matters. And over time, it adds up. You're not worth it. That's what you're saying. For some of you, it's that you're not worth the upgrade. And for others, it may feel more like you're just not worth the time that it takes to get the upgrade. Two things we teach people how to treat us right. I know that you've heard that you are teaching yourself how to treat you over and over and over again. And constant, daily reminders from all the things that are not comfortable, that aren't quite right, that annoy you, aggravate you, irritate you. Like a pair of jeans that are just too tight. Maybe they look good on you. But at what Cost. So everything from the mismatched glasses, the job that's hollowing you out, the relationship you've just outgrown, it's not just annoying, it's confirming a story about who you are and what you deserve. This is what I call an identity ceiling. And the ceiling isn't a limit on what's available to you. It's a limit on what you'll allow yourself to have. How high can you see yourself going? How much good are you actually willing to let in? And what are you willing to do to make that happen? I bet you go out of your way for a lot of people. But do you go out of your way for yourself? Probably not. And so when disappointment, irritation, frustration becomes familiar enough, your nervous system stops registering it as a problem makes sense. It's just normal. The person who ghosts, the partner who shows up halfway, the job that drains you, the TV remote that never clicks on the first touch, right? At some point, you stop being surprised. And the moment that you stop being surprised by something you shouldn't be tolerating, you've just accepted it as normal. And what you normalize becomes your baseline, and your baseline becomes your life. It's just a matter of how you live. And sometimes, and this is the thing that stings the most, you're not settling because you don't know better. You know better. You can actually see what you're doing, and you're doing it anyway. Because leaving the job, ending the relationship, asking for more. That requires two things. Making an effort and then taking the time to upgrade something for yourself, which for some women can feel selfish or self indulgent, which, hello, it most definitely is not. And it requires stepping into something unknown. And the unknown can be terrifying even when what is known is making you miserable. So your mind does something sneaky. It doesn't say, I'm scared. That would be too obvious. Instead it says, I'm just being realistic. I don't want to be too picky. Nothing's perfect. It's fine, I'm too busy. It sounds like wisdom or maturity, but it isn't. It's self abandonment and fear, even a lack of self worth, all wrapped up into a really good PR strategy. And you've believed it. So ask yourself this. Is that actually wisdom? Or is it selflessness? Selflessness, what someone says, who doesn't believe that she gets to have what she wants, who gets to have more. This is all good news, though, even if it doesn't seem like it. Because if settling is driven by an identity that you inherited rather than one that you chose for yourself. That means it was never really about your options. It was never really about the men or the jobs or the circumstances. As I said earlier, it was always about you. And you can be changed in a good way. Of course, that's the shift. And I'm not talking about just mentally understanding it as a concept, but actually a new way of moving in the world. You actually live this new way. When you change, everything else starts to change too. You have to go first, and then everything else follows. Your choices and decisions flow, and the results and the outcomes that you live with come along too. So I'm going to share three simple shifts to become her. Her, that new version of you who doesn't settle. So shift number one, stop trying to make better decisions and decide to become a different woman again in the best possible way. So every time you try to willpower your way to a better choice, this time I'll hold my standard. This time I won't make excuses. You're fighting against an identity that hasn't changed yet. So it's like white knuckling your way to acting differently on the outside rather than making the fundamental shifts on the inside. It's not a weakness, it's just that the decision changed and the woman making it didn't. This happens all the time. Here's a perfect example. When women are learning to have better boundaries, they focus on saying no. But over time, that hard line is slowly softened until it disappears. Because it got chipped away little by little, that really firm no got bullied or pushed around long enough until it became a yes. You've probably done this where you make a decision and you feel really good about it and you hold your ground for a while, and then slowly, almost without noticing it, you drift right back to the old pattern. What should happen is focusing on being a woman who simply just doesn't do that thing ever. So that the no is easy and effortless and not scary at all. And it isn't up for negotiation. So instead of asking, what should I choose? Or what do I say? Ask who I need to become or who am I becoming? So that the choice is inevitable and. And effortless and easy. When you focus on becoming her first, that new version of you who doesn't settle, the decisions follow from that. They always do. A woman with a clear, grounded sense of who she is doesn't have to fight for her standards. She just lives them. They're not rules that she follows. It's just who she is. Okay, two more to go. Shift Number two, raise the standard for yourself, not just the standard for others. In my world, being high maintenance is a compliment. I'm talking about having a relationship with yourself where you actually matter to you. We spend so much energy and time raising the bar for everyone else. What we'll accept from a partner or what we'll accept from a boss or a friend, and that's important. But the real work is raising the bar for yourself. How you spend your time, what you let into your space, what you say yes to when you're tired. And it's just easier to go along when you live at a higher standard internally. Lower standard situations stop feeling like something you have to turn down. They start feeling genuinely incompatible and they just simply do not fit anymore. This is what it means to become her before your new life will arrive. You don't wait until everything is aligned. You live at her standard now in the small things, in the quiet moments, in the choices that you don't even recognize you're making. And eventually it stops becoming an effort. It just becomes who you are in essence. What I'm saying is that it's so easy for us to point the finger outside of ourselves and say we're not going to settle anymore and accept less than we deserve from them, from people out in the world. But yet how we treat ourselves sabotages all of that when we don't show up for ourselves and we say yes to the things that we don't want to say yes to, and we are doing things that we don't want to be doing, and we're not taking the time to make our own life better, to give ourselves what we need. That is a problem. So be a woman who raises the standard for yourself and what you are willing to tolerate from your own self. No more excuses. No more being too busy for yourself. One of my favorite things to say is you are never too busy for you. And finally, shift number three. Make one aligned decision. Today. You're not going to rebuild your entire identity in a single moment. You're going to slowly build your new identity, one decision at a time. But pick one thing, just one thing where you've been settling. And make a different choice this week. One aligned choice that belongs to the woman you're becoming instead of the pattern that you're leaving behind. Show up for yourself. And then another one next week, and then the week after that. I suggest starting with the small things around the house that you've been living with that annoy you and frustrate you and just make you feel small. Or frustrated. So go through your closet and give away all the old junky things that were you five years ago. Lighten that load and free yourself. You are worth taking the time to do that. Just an example. Little by little, you are showing yourself that you deserve more. And you are reminding yourself of who you are now and what you can expect for yourself from yourself. Then the bigger things are so much easier to deal with because you've already proven you are becoming her, that you are her. Now. I know it's kind of confusing, but your brain doesn't update from insight. It updates from behavior. So every choice that you're making is. Is a vote for the new version of you. And vote after vote, you've slowly rewired your brain and that is how you start shifting your identity, how you think of yourself, talk to yourself and treat yourself. Okay, so before you go, I want you to actually sit with this. Don't just nod and move on. What is it costing you? Consider this that question. This season of your life you are never getting back. What is it costing you when you settle? People say time is money, but you can always make more money. Time is something that you can never get back. And any single day that you spend settling for less than you deserve, you are sending that message back to yourself that you don't get to have more, you don't deserve more. You aren't worth the time and the effort that it takes to have more. That is a wasted day. And it is a very expensive day because you can never get that day back. So stop waiting and start acting on your own behalf. Show up for her. Show up for you so you can become her sooner rather than later. So let me bring this all home. Settling is not about your options. It never was. It's not about the glasses, the dishes, the TV remote, nothing like that. It's all about you and your identity. Who you believe you are, how much good you'll allow yourself to have, and whether you've decided yet that you are worth showing up for. You change it with these three shifts, become a different woman. Instead of trying to make better decisions. Raise the standard of self, not just the standard for others. And make one aligned decision at a time until your new identity isn't taking effort anymore. It's effortless and it just is. It just becomes who you are. So drop in the comments. What's one thing that you really feel like you've been settling? Where you've been calling fine, where you've been tolerating that isn't actually fine. And one decisive, inspired action that you're going to take to level that up. If you like this episode, please share it with someone who needs to hear it and. And I'll see you next time.