Episode #24: Am I Settling?

Settling for less than you want in love or success? Perhaps right now you just feel OFF–and you’re not really sure why.

Settling for less than we want in life is one of the most common ways we self-sabotage. It’s sneaky to fix because how do you really know if you’re even doing it?

While there are a LOT of different signs, in today’s episode we’re talking about FIVE of the most common signs of settling.

Get ready to get real and HONEST with yourself & dive into this week’s episode!

In This Episode:

Find out why settling = self-sabotage
Learn five COMMON signs of settling
Get inspired to be honest with yourself so you can get back on the track to happiness!
Much more!

Listen Here:

Am I Settling? | Episode #24 Transcript

Hello, gorgeous and welcome back to the Self Worth podcast. My name is Jenn, I’m a coach and healer and I’m so excited to be here with you today. Before we get into today’s episode, I’d like to remind you that the summertime is a wonderful time to be upgrading your mindset.

If you are looking for a coach to work with to help you become your most confident and worthy self to heal any limitations and toxic patterns you might be suffering from, then I’m opening up a few spots to help out people just like you.

If you want to be on the list, then be sure to come on over to the website and fill out
an application form. I’ll leave a link for that in the show notes. Today we are talking about a very important topic and that is the topic of am I settling.

When I started to think about what I wanted to speak about in this podcast today, Settling, is such a huge topic to get into. And today I’m going to give you a very short overview about this, for example, just Settling in Relationships, Romantic Relationships especially, probably deserves a whole podcast unto itself. Because I have a lot more I could say about that.

But today I just want to talk about the topic of Settling and what that feels like.
The reason why this is so important to think about is because many of us are doing this
without even realizing it. And I’d like to talk candidly about the times of my past where I have definitely been Settling.

When I knew I was in a relationship that was no longer in my best interests, but I could not bring myself to face that truth and to leave. There have been times in my life where I’ve had a job that just was not aligned with me and probably had never been aligned with me to be honest. I mean some of those jobs were aligned at first, but some of them never ever were. And I just kept sticking it out thinking that if I tried harder or worked harder or did this or did that, it would get better.

And newsflash, it never did.

The common denominator in both of these situations is that I was not really admitting to myself the full truth of the situation. I knew I was somewhere, I knew I was suffering from issues from either of these situations, but I wasn’t ready to admit that the real problem is that I just wanted more in life. I wanted more in a relationship than what I was getting and would probably never get in that relationship.

Like you know when you’ve been with somebody for a while, you know what it’s like, right? Like you probably aren’t getting so much more than what you created, not to say that that can’t happen. Sometimes we can rejuvenate relationships and come back to relationships with a lot more support and love, but not always, right?

And the same thing with the job, the job, especially like you were hired for a certain
rule and when you’re in that position and you’re looking around the company and thinking like I just do not want to be here.

I do not want any of these other positions either. Then you know you are probably in the wrong place. There’s nowhere for you to grow and you are currently not happy and currently not learning anything. Yeah, that’s definitely a sign you’re settling.

So I don’t want to just talk about the sad stories from my past. Today I want to give you some things to think about in your own life to help you determine if you are settling in any particular area of your life.

Sign #1: Complaining

So symptom number one that you are settling is that you complain a lot. I know that there are people out there for whom complaining is a lifestyle. It’s almost as if you challenge them to not complain that they would no longer have anything to talk about, right? And again, we’ve all been there. I’ve definitely been there too.

I used to be such a complainer. I used to come home from work every night and just be full of complaints about every little thing in my day and a very long time ago, like before my marriage even ended. I made a very conscious effort to change that.

So even though the situations at work weren’t changing, like I still was working in this toxic environment and these same issues were coming up over and over again, at least I was not bringing that stuff home with me.

So you can really tell a lot about what somebody’s mental state is at by what they are choosing to talk about. And that’s the same for you.

If you are choosing to bring up things all the time, you’re complaining about your boss, you’re complaining about your partner and you’re just talking and talking and talking, complaining, complaining, complaining.

Then you’re probably settling.

You are probably in that state of mind that I used to be in where some part of you know
is some part of you is screaming the truth. And the truth is that you are not supposed to be there.

You are not supposed to be in this job. You are not supposed to be in this relationship. But instead of admitting that truth and actually fixing the problem or exiting the relationship or the job or whatever it is, you are just taking that negativity with you and stewing in it and not even just when you’re in the relationship or with the person or at work.

You are just taking that around with you all of the time and making that your narrative
for every single thing that you do in your life. Again, I’ve been around these people and I have empathy for it. Like I know how difficult it is to see outside of that little negative box you are creating for yourself.

But if this is resonating for you in any way, I just want you to know that complaining all the time should not be your new normal. Okay?

And I’m not right now.

I’m talking about complaining about our own life, not complaining about the many, many things wrong with the world right now. That’s a whole different topic.

But if you are complaining all the time, if you are always in a victim mindset, if you are always blaming your present on somebody else or something else, that is probably a sign that you are settling and you are not stepping into your power and taking charge to change things.

Sign #2: You’re Bored

Okay, sign number two. You are bored.

And this has also been me at various points in my life. I sometimes find myself looking around at the hearing boy. Like I’ve been doing the same thing for a very long time.

So on the flip side of this, life cannot be exciting all of the time. We all have drudgery tasks we need to do. We all have routines and those routines can get a little stale, right?

So we have to think about this in a couple of different ways. However, if you are no longer feeling excitement ever, if you are no longer feeling joy or passion for something, anything, then that is a very big sign that you are settling.

For example, we can talk about this in specific regards to romantic relationships.
In the beginning of a relationship, everything is all hot and bothered and passionate. And later on, it’s only natural to experience cooling off. However, if you are in that cooled off state, you’re a year or two or three or five or ten, whatever, into it.
And there’s no longer any resemblance of that passion at all ever. There’s none of that joy. There is none of that “Wow, I get to be with this person” anymore. That is a very big sign that something could be a mess and you could be settling.

I don’t really want to put this one in black and white terms again. There’s a lot of nuance, especially when it comes to romantic relationships. But even in a romantic relationship, you are growing as a person, you are changing, you should be forging new ground and so should your partner. And ideally, you are both growing together, changing together and going through life, experiencing new things together.

That automatically should bring some level of joy and maybe not full on passion, but
enthusiasm for your relationship. If you are not feeling that ever, if things are very stale, if things are no longer anything like what they used to be like, perhaps you are settling.

Sign #3: You Get Jealous

Sign number three that you might be settling. You get jealous.

People talk about jealousy like it is this horrible thing and that we should feel a lot of guilt whenever we experience it. So jealousy and envy are two very similar emotions and actually I think they are superpowers. Because when you are feeling envy or feeling jealousy about somebody else, there is a part of you that wants that thing for yourself.

But maybe you have talked yourself out of it. Maybe you’ve told yourself, well, I shouldn’t bother working out. It doesn’t really matter anymore or I don’t really care about what I look like or I don’t really care about this job or I don’t really care about dating somebody right now, right?

Usually when we are feeling intense jealousy or envy about somebody, that is because we
have been ignoring something within ourselves and it is that thing that we have been ignoring, that part of us, that shadow piece of our desires that we have been ignoring, that is where we are settling. We are talking ourselves out of the magic that we are being drawn to for whatever reason. And that is a very big red flag.

Sometimes you notice a pattern of jealousy or envy and it extends through the whole length of your life. You can always see yourself becoming envious or jealous of a certain type of person. But sometimes these feelings pop up out of nowhere. Sometimes you suddenly feel like that about somebody and you had no idea that that was something
that you ever even wanted and that can be a giant wake up call. But again, this is just showing us something missing within ourselves. And it is definitely shining a light on the fact that you are settling in some area of your life. You have told yourself some story, you have bought into some excuse, you are staying where you are for some sad reason and you are denying yourself of something you actually want.

Sign #4: You Pick Fights

Sign number four that you are settling is that you pick fights. This one specifically, I was thinking about in terms of partnership, in terms of romantic relationships.
Sometimes your partner just starts to get on your nerves. The little things that they’ve always done that never used to bother you suddenly feel terrible. Suddenly you hate the way they chew. Suddenly you hate the way they walk, the way they dress, the way they laugh. Right? We’ve all been in a situation like that where sometimes you are in this relationship, maybe six months down the road and you are suddenly like, who is this person? And how did I get here?

So again, in terms of romantic relationships, you are really the best judge of your own
situation. Of course, I cannot give you a 100% answer that will be 100% correct for every single person listening to this.

But I want you to think about this. If you are starting to pick on your partner, if you were starting to pick little fights over nothing, if you were having a great day together and then suddenly you are getting upset about something really silly, then… I mean, there could be a few things why you are doing this. But one of the reasons why is that you are settling. You told yourself at one point in time that this person was it. You felt like you were going to get your needs met, you thought that this was going to do something for you.

And perhaps at this point in your life you are realizing that it is not the case and perhaps it never was the case. And perhaps it is the case that your dreams about what a partner should mean to you are just way too big and would just never come true with anybody. At this point in time you have all of this dissatisfaction with the relationship you are in and the only way you can find yourself releasing some of that is through these petty little things like calling someone a name suddenly, picking on something that they’ve done, picking up little fights over the stupidest little things. None of this is a sign that there is something actually wrong with your partner, although that is what it feels like sometimes. This is more likely to be a reflection that there is something going on within you. Perhaps you are not getting your needs met, perhaps some energy shifted in this relationship.

But whatever the case may be, the bottom line is you are probably settling. That doesn’t mean you need to necessarily dump this person. Perhaps you can change something within yourself to come back to this relationship with a renewed sense of enthusiasm. But if you are in that state of getting upset over the littlest things, picking fights over nothing and you can’t really understand why, I really ask you to think about this. We have been taught that being in a relationship is better than not being in one, but I will tell you over and over again that that is absolutely untrue.

The times in my life where I have been the most unhappy, I was in the wrong relationship for me and I’m sure you will figure out the same thing is true for you. So again, this does not necessarily mean you need to go dump your partner right now, but I want you to think deeply about whether you are settling or not.

Sign #5: You Have A Victim Mindset

Finally, the last sign that you are settling in life, in love, in money, in whatever it might be.

You are stuck in a victim mindset. You were married to your excuses. You just love to talk about all of those things that happened to you in the past or maybe that happened to you last week. Perhaps you live in a state of perpetual drama when you were going from this major crisis to the next to the next.

You were complaining about your boss at work, you’re complaining about the guy you want to date, and then you were complaining about a random friend. You just jump from this thing to this thing to this thing and you are always the victim. You are not familiar. Perhaps you are not jumping from crisis to crisis, but perhaps you have a very big story. Have you ever met somebody who you are speaking to and they are still talking about something that happened to them 10, 15, 20 years ago?

Of course, this won’t apply to you extremely young people. But sometimes something happens to us and we make it mean so much more about us than it should. For example, not making it into the college that you wanted to, perhaps getting let go from your dream job, perhaps getting divorced or just getting dumped by somebody you thought you really loved.

That doesn’t mean that these things are painful, it doesn’t mean that you should never
think about them again.

But there is a big difference between having a normal life and going through the normal ups and downs and there are so many downs of being a human and taking that story with you rather than just being like, okay, that happened. Yes, that happened. So what? I got dumped. So what? I didn’t make it into the school that I wanted to. So what? I got let go from the job. I thought I wanted. So what?

If you are constantly making excuses, I don’t have money because my parents didn’t teach me about it or I don’t have money because this firm I wanted to work with didn’t hire me or I don’t have love because I live in this town and everybody here is really bad at dating. Right? What is the excuse you are bringing up over and over and over again? The reason why you say you can’t be happy is lying in that excuse. All of those things can mean that in reality you’re just settling. You are afraid to level up. You are afraid to face your fears. You are afraid to leave the comfort zone.

We all have to deal with fear. We all have to leave the comfort zone at some point in time. Just being disappointed or experiencing failure or experiencing heartbreak or experiencing disappointment does not mean you have to limit your future based on that thing. But that’s exactly what we do when we create excuses. That is exactly what we do when we stay in victim mindset and blame everyone and everything else for why we can’t be happy. If any of that resonates at all with you, I implore you to really think about that.

How are you settling?
What would you really want your life to look like?
And what is that story you’ve been telling yourself?

Because I assure you no matter how long you have been telling that story, no matter how
many times that you have talked about this over drinks on a Friday night, the story is
not as fixed as you think it is. And there is always a way to the other side of whatever that might be for you.

Okay, so that is it for today’s episode. And I really hope that this sparked something within you.

It is so important to have an authentic relationship with ourselves. And that means not listening to the tricky little lies we tell ourselves. Again, I am not coming to you from a preachy place.

I have been there. I have done this and I’m probably still doing it in some area that I just haven’t identified yet. None of us are perfect. But the more that we practice tuning in and being honest with what we’re really thinking and feeling, the more likely we’re going to be to actually be able to address those issues.

Because I can tell you one thing for sure, if you cannot even see the problem that’s bubbling around inside of you, you are not going to be able to fix it.

Being honest with yourself, having that real dialogue with yourself and really acknowledging and owning those parts of you that you might not be equated with or might even be ashamed of, that is the only way we come back to feeling healed and whole again.

So I hope this gave you something to think about today, my beautiful friends. And I will see you back here in the next one.