5 Small Habits to Change Your Love Life TODAY

Welcome everybody to the Love Life podcast with me, Matthew Hussey and Audrey Hussey. Before we get into the episode, if you haven't already got your ticket to our live retreat that is taking place in October of this year on the 18th and 19th, go over to mhr etreat.com and you can learn all about it. We have early bird tickets available just for a little bit longer when they are gone. The most affordable tickets of the year are gone. This is two days of immersion coaching with me live in Miami. It is going to be an exceptional two days. If you're serious about your personal growth this year, this is the event for you to be at. Come be with me in person. I really hope to see you there. Go to mhretreat.com for tickets. All right, we have a cool episode coming up for you today. I'm with Audrey. We are talking about the new year. We are talking about how to get more out of 2025. We talk a little bit about routines that can help your life love life this year, things that can help your mental health this year, some tools that I use and Audrey uses in our everyday lives to get the most out of our time, our energy and our life, and we answer a listener question which we haven't done in ages. So enjoy this episode of Love Life. We are so happy right now. We're gleeful, positively gleeful, because we just had our dinner for tonight cancel.

Isn't it the best feeling in the whole world?

I've never been happier.

I don't think I've ever been happier. Maybe our wedding day.

I feel euphoric.

Our wedding day?

If I, the only way I, I was gonna make a joke, but then I realized I can't make that joke. I was gonna say the only way I could have been happier on our wedding day is if it was cancelled. But not the marriage.

I know what you mean.

But not the marriage part, just the wedding day.

Yeah, the social I see.

If someone said, I'm sorry, it's not gonna happen. Everyone's, you know, it's rained off or something, I would have secretly been relieved. But that didn't happen and we, and everything went fine. We got married. But tonight, we don't have to do anything.

I know.

It's 2025. I know that's not new to anyone. It's not been new for like a few weeks.

But it is the first time that we are sitting down in our brand new studio.

Yep.

Together.

We, so Vanessa and David on our team have been basically constructing this studio that we are now in, that we envisioned last year at the end of 2024, and like two absolute killers, they have been making it happen and implementing, savagely implementing. And so we're not there yet. We still have things to put in here. We have a vision for this, but it is already leagues ahead of what we had before.

I know, I love it. It really sparks joy. That's what I said, isn't it? When we were building it, I was like, let's make sure we walk into a space that sparks joy because where joy is sparked, creativity is sparked.

That's true. It's clean. I wanted it to be really minimalist. A hint of sort of Japanese. Just less is more. David, what's your favorite thing about our new studio?

The both of you in it.

Like our energy?

Yeah.

Our new energy.

Yes.

That's rude. No, that was genuine. You didn't like our energy before.

Oh, I mean, yeah.

He gets to prefer our studio energy.

From our I prefer David's new studio energy.

I've always had this energy.

Not true.

Okay.

There's an extra pep. You have an extra little bit of pet.

That's true.

So does Vanessa. So.

So what are we talking about today?

We. Well, we said it's time. It's the beginning of the year, sort of. I don't care about that. It's not January the first, because. who really, Oliver Berkman, he said recently, like, I'm just, I'm glad the first two weeks of January are out of the way because everyone can have, you know, run themselves around silly, trying all of the things they said they were going to do, setting unrealistic schedules, unrealistic goals, 10 new habits that apparently they're going to stick to every day, and they can burn out on all of that energy and finally just then breathe. and go, okay, none of that was gonna work. What do I actually, what now that I'm actually being realistic about the amount of energy I have and the number of hours in my day, now, now what is the realistic shift that I can make from here? And I think he's right about that. So I feel like this is very well timed because we can catch people right at that moment where you're sobered from the initial 1st of January high of New Year, New Me, and we can actually settle into some real shifts. And, and so we wanted to talk about, I guess, a bit of an update of, you know, where we are, what's going on the year, some thoughts about what's shaped the way we're approaching our year.

Yeah.

And what's important to us going into this year, because hearing our examples, it doesn't mean they'll be your examples, but they might spark some ideas for other people out there about the way they want to approach their year. And we're going to also answer a listener question. Yeah. That's come in. We're going to read a couple of, David's going to read a couple of emails, which we haven't seen.

We haven't seen them.

We haven't done this in ages. We haven't answered a listener question in a very long time. Yeah. So let's talk about our 2025. What did we learn from last year that we're applying to this year? 'Cause I always think the most, one of the most important things, if you, I've said this on our retreat program for years, if you wanna know what your goals are, but you're not sure, 'cause that's where a lot of people are, if you ask people, what do you want out of your year? What do you want out of your life? What are your goals? A lot of people can't tell you, but one of the quickest access points to what you want to do is to look at your complaints from the way your life has been going. And you and I had some complaints from last year.

Yes, we did.

What was your biggest complaint from last year?

Oh, my biggest complaint. You know what? It was just being burnt out. like completely run ragged by work and commitments. And we just had, we tried to do everything, didn't we last year? And it just, it turns out that like you end up not being able to enjoy your life or even like how awesome life is if you have too many things going on. And that's kind of where I got to is I just was like, we're doing these amazing things and I love my job and I love, like, everything we're doing, and I love my friends and. But I'm not enjoying any of it. I'm, like, feeling resentful that I have to go and socialize with some of my best friends or that I have to work or that we have to go away on this work trip somewhere exciting. I just became resentful of everything because I was burnt out. So that was my main complaint. What about you?

I mean, the same, you know, we went. Love Life, our new book came out in, what was it?

April.

April of last year of 2024. So the first four months of the year were nothing but talking about the new book. And that was amazing and stressful and just a lot. And then, you know, then there was like an avalanche of normal work to get back to.

After that was- It was like a dam, wasn't it? Like the team had just held back the dam to give space, especially you space, to kind of breathe while you did, I think it was like 100 interviews that you did?

124, I think.

That's so many.

And- Makes me want to throw up.

But then when you came back into work, it was literally like they let the dam open. and the. The gates open and the flood came in. Yeah.

And then I don't think we ever really recovered. The year just continued to be non-stop after that. So you and I, that our complaint was that we didn't have the space or the time to really enjoy things. And also being away from home meant we weren't in routines and we weren't able to do the things that make us feel good. And so we. I think we got to, like, the end of the year last year, and we said, right, we are gonna create intentionally an extremely different year next year.

Yeah.

We're gonna really limit our travel to the bare minimum, even, like, as far as, like, what should be fun travel, like Adventures. We were like, enough Adventures. We're just gonna be. Let's just be home. Let's just, you know, enjoy routine. enjoy being in the same place for a while. And that became our, like, kind of Mantra, didn't it?

Yeah. I, I actually think the routine is such an interesting thing to talk about, to get us started, because, you know, routine, people talk a lot about routine is, like, whole people who dedicate entire podcasts around, like, routine and how to plan your life and, and how to have an optimal kind of routine that gives you the optimal results and whatever. The reason I think routine is super important, there's many reasons, but one of them is if you're somebody who doesn't quite know where to start, if you kind of feel like there's all these things about my life, all these things about the way I behave that I don't like, I don't like the way that maybe I stay in bed too long, I don't like the way that maybe I drink too much, I don't like the way that maybe I look, maybe I'm carrying a bit too much weight, or maybe I'm not happy enough, maybe I'm not meeting enough people, like whatever it might be, You can feel sort of at the mercy of your life and yourself and your habits and the way that you are. And what can happen oftentimes is that generates a lot of anxiety and a lot of kind of sadness and dissatisfaction with your life and with yourself and frustrations. And so where routine come in, which I think is quite interesting, this is something that I'm very much doing, especially this year. I was doing it before, but I'm really taking it very seriously this year. It's like, and you've sort of touched on this already. It's like, okay, where are my complaints and how can I implement a reasonable routine that eliminates that complaint? So, for instance, yeah. So, for instance, if your complaint is so a big thing for me, I'll give you, I'll give a personal example. I am somebody who leans towards anxiety quite easily and. earlier in January in LA, we had, you know, this kind of big thing that happened with the fires, and it was all over social media, and it was really anxiety inducing, and it was just an overwhelming time. What I found is that I was incessantly checking social media. I was incessantly messaging people, checking in on people, checking that app that everyone was looking at, just doing all those things, and My anxiety was getting progressively worse and worse and worse. And what I did was I said to myself, I'm going to put some parameters and some regulations around when I check my phone, when I open up social media, when I open up that app, and instead I'm going to make a little promise to myself that every night I'm going to read. I'm going to read before bed. It can be 10 minutes, it can be an hour, depends what I have in me, but I'm not going to look at my phone. My phone is dead to me unless I have to set an alarm and I'm gonna read and what happens is my complaint is my anxiety My habit is social media and so the routine of reading and returning back to that routine every night has helped my habit and my complaint. Does that make sense? Yeah and I think that you know, that's one little thing which is reading before bed, but if you can implement a maybe three different touch points in your day that are kind of like non-negotiable routines that, you know, make you feel better. They can be exercise, they can be, you know, going for a daily walk. It can be, it can be anything. It can be so many different things. But if you can sort of implement like three different ones throughout your day, what you're starting to do is you're starting to have a more structured day that is actually geared towards the things that make you feel better. And it's geared towards whatever your big goals are, which could be having more peace in your life, And having, you know, feeling less anxious, feeling better about yourself. And I want to caveat one thing with that, which is, you know, me where I'm at in my life, that's what I'm prioritizing.

What, I'm just sidetrack. What, if you were single this year, what routine would you see as like one of the most important routines you could do? If you wanted to create opportunities or create an environment where opportunities could happen?

It's a really good question. Me personally, and I think it's so different for different people, I would still try and get control over my mind. because I think that if you're not in a good place, then you're not going to be bringing a good version of yourself on dates. You're also not going to be able to attract the kinds of friendships that you want to attract. And so I would still be prioritizing taking care of my mind. I would also be prioritizing, which is something I do now anyway, but I, I, for me personally, and this is just me. I really enjoy self-care and beauty and taking care of, like, you know, I've been on a hair journey to try and make my hair nicer. I've been, like, you know, looking into, like, different kinds of creams and different kinds of face masks that I can use that make my skin nicer. How much sleep do I need to get in order to feel good and look good? Like, I. I invest in exercise. I invest in all these kinds of things because I know for me, if I invest in my kind of myself physically and take care of myself physically. It has a disproportionately positive effect on how I feel emotionally. So I would do, that would be a habit I would build around definitely. I'd be like, how can I, you know, like a kind of self-care beauty routines that make me feel like I'm taking care of myself and that make me feel better when I go out on dates and meet people.

What So, I love all of that. I couldn't agree more. But some people use that as a, like, after a certain amount of time, the I'm focusing on myself and I'm doing all of the things that make me feel good can at a certain point become a kind of avoidance of the things that create opportunity. At what point do you think someone needs to check themselves and be like, okay, you've had enough beauty treatments, you've had enough facials, you've done enough work on your mind, you're now avoiding the thing that you actually need to do, which is to kind of actually create opportunities. Like, at what point do you think.

It works in tandem. You're not doing those things in isolation. You're not spending seven days a week just like, you know, putting oil in your hair. I think it's like it has to work in tandem.

So what's the part that like you see is relating directly to someone's love life that has to be done in tandem with the things you just said?

I believe in the power of making new friends. So, and making friends that are aligned with your goals, because if you make a load of friends who love to go out every Saturday night and get drunk and that's not where you're at, then you're just being dragged backwards into a lifestyle you don't want to be in, for instance.

And you're meeting other people, the potential suitors you're meeting in those environments are people who are aligned with that lifestyle.

Yeah. So I think, again, if I was single and I was looking to meet somebody, I would be actively, instead of actively pursuing hobbies that put me in front of potential Suitors, I would be actively pursuing more friendships and expansive friendships and people that I think are wonderful people, super interesting, who are funny, like, funny people, you know, people who have, like, good taste and humor and films and, like, I can have great conversations with because then my life just becomes exponentially better by being around those people. And also they might be friends with people who are also awesome. In theory, cool people hang out with cool people. I don't mean cool like, but you know, people who are like good, like cool people. Yeah, exactly. Tend to gravitate towards each other. So that would be a big thing for me. But I think that's like almost more of like a bigger picture goal, which is like make lots of friendships, always put myself in those situations where I'm like making friendships and meeting new people and all of that. I still believe in the power of the kind of like daily routines and weekly routines that anchor you into your life so that when you are going out meeting those people, you are kind of you presenting the best version of yourself because you're just in that better headspace. And if you take care of yourself and it takes care of your mind, you're just a better energy in the world. And then you attract the kinds of people that you want to attract. And so I do think it starts with like, what are you doing at home every day that's making you feel grounded into your life? But enough about me. I want to know- no, but I.

Think this is interesting because people, you know, there's a lot of people who listen to us you know, I, I, I wanted thematically this episode to be something that people could use for their love and their life. But I know that there will be many, many people listening to this who are like, you know, yeah, what are some good kind of things to focus on if I'm trying to find love this year? What are some routines that could help me? And to your point, I don't think that the things that the mindset I think we have to get out of is this idea that the things that that are about meeting people are different from the things that I do to ground myself. You know, for me, I was at the gym this morning and what one of the things that I am doing more of in my life is just taking an extra minute for interactions. I'm naturally an introverted person. and there are times in my life where, you know, it's been necessary for me to take the time to have interactions. When I first moved to LA, that was a time where it was necessary because otherwise I was going to know. I wasn't going to know anybody. I was going to have no friends. I was going to have no Community. You know, there are these moments in our lives where we need to do that. But as a married person who works from home, 95 of the time, there's not that same need for those moments. And I don't want to get rusty socially because that's really easy for me to do. And so, and I know I also want to just always connect to the fact that people are really amazing. And when we're always rushing, rushing, rushing, and we don't ever take the time to just connect with people, that we are actually missing out. on this essential part of life. So I'm making the habit right now of, you know, staying behind, whatever it is I'm doing, I like, I don't force it, but if there's a moment to be had, instead of rushing out the door, I'll take that moment, or I'll ask one extra question, or I'll give a slightly longer answer to somebody else's question. And even after the gym this morning, I ended up, there's a guy that I don't, you know, we always exchange a couple of words, but we ended up talking for like five minutes instead of 60 seconds of just like very, very, very superficial small talk. And I found out something about him that was really awesome. And I thought, and, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to over analyze this thing, but I like, I could see myself hanging out with that person this year. as a result of that one extra bit of conversation. And when you extrapolate, like, if you take a habit like that that you.

Build.

And you extrapolate that out over a year, there's so many opportunities that can come from just that habit. You could, you know, if I was a single person, and having, you know, built more of a connection with that guy and he invited me somewhere to something he was doing, I might meet a whole new crowd of people.

Yeah, exactly.

And there's someone there that I might meet romantically. So it's like that's how things happen. We. I think we get so literal all the time with our love lives where we are trying to look at the exact action we're taking right now and. figure out how is this helping me get on a date? Going on a dating app feels like a very, like you're going straight to the main event. You're going, you're like, oh, I'm, there are people there who want to date and I am meeting these people who want to date and speaking to them. So it's, it's very literal, but we don't think of these little things that if we do them over the course of a year, they change the trajectory. of our love life. They change how many the trajectory of our opportunities, the abundance of our opportunities, I should say. So, and I've been doing, I've been taking on that habit in my life, and I'm not looking for love. It's which I always, when people say to me, like, I don't want to have to do all of these things to find love. I'm like, but I'm doing it right now and I'm not looking for love.

It really makes me laugh in the context of you opening up the episode going, yes, our dinner plans have been canceled.

But I'm always glad when I, when I, when we've gone, we went to dinner with friends last night, and at the end of it, I was glad we went. But beforehand, no, that habit I want to encourage people just before we move on from this, because I, I really believe this will change a lot of people's love lives this year is just get into the habit of doing activities that put you around other people. And then when you are there in those activities, if you are someone who is socially rusty or it brings you anxiety to open up a conversation or you are kind of feel like you're doing the polite thing or the, you know, by just holding back and not asking the extra question or not having a conversation, start getting comfortable talking to people.

Yeah.

Start getting. It's the most simple thing in the world, but it's. We've all atrophied in this department to some extent.

Right.

Because we have our head in our phones. It's the easiest thing to go to when you're in a restaurant or a. Or a coffee shop.

I also think the pandemic did that to people. I really do. I think. I think, like, nothing was quite the same socially after that for a lot of people.

Yeah, no, I think people found it hard to recover.

Yeah.

And, and our phones mean that we don't need to recover. That's the problem. So it's so, it's so easy. Just, if you want to know how hard it is for a lot of us, if you go to dinner with someone, watch what happens when they go to the toilet. See how hard it is to not pick up your phone.

Yeah. Just, that's a little habit that I've been trying to implement for about a year now, which I I do. And I'm not, not that successful on sometimes, but. But that is a habit. It's just to try and when the moment you're waiting in line or like you say, someone goes to the toilet or you just find yourself on your own in the great Outdoors, don't reach for your phone. Just be. Just stand there awkwardly like a psychopath just looking at people around you.

But it is funny you do like, yeah, people. There's something about someone who's sat at a table not looking at their phone that is like this person's, they might be the most confident person in the entire room. Maybe they forgot their phone and they're really mad. Or they're a psychopath.

Oh, they're a psychopath. Yeah. Yeah. Or a monk.

We have to get in the habit of talking to people this year. We have to get into that habit.

And I want to add to that because I'm so glad that you're making this point. I want to add to it because there is also something to be said for walking into a room and making conversation with everybody in that room so that you feel as if you are in a community already. Psychologically, you feel so much more connected to the room around you. and it makes you braver when somebody else walks in that you actually want to speak to romantically, you already feel like you know all the people around you. Like in the context of a party, for instance, you go there, you speak to as many people as possible so that you feel like you know people's names, you've had conversations, you can go back to different people, you've got all these little connections, not just with your tight-knit group of friends. And then if you see someone attractive, you'll be so much more comfortable speaking to them or They might be speaking to someone you've already spoken to, so then you can go over and say, Hey. And it just allows you to, to your point about not being too literal, it's like you don't just wait at the party for the attractive person to walk in so you can go and target them, which is, you know, for most people terrifying. Instead, it's like, you know, working the room and flirting with the whole room. And I don't mean, I mean flirting, you know, in a kind of, you know, you flirt as in like being open and warm and like, Inviting conversation.

Doing something instead of nothing. This is doing do something instead of nothing. There's a a brief moment of interaction that allows two human beings, two strangers to connect. And most people are holding back from that moment. I know because I hold back from that moment 99% of the time.

We all do.

The relationships I have are usually a result of the moments where I didn't Hold back from that moment.

Mm-.

Right? We are in a relationship because I think it was a bit of both of us that evening, but we didn't hold back from that moment. But we hold back from that moment all the time. So that's something that I'm doing in general. I encourage everyone else to do it too. Um, One of the things that I wanted to say to people is I'm always looking for what I call my truths.

Yes, I love this. I'm actually really glad you're bringing this up. What are your truths?

They are moments in my life where I realize that something worked. in making me feel good or in making my life more efficient or helping me have a great day. There was something clicked. And sometimes your truths can be what didn't work, right? Like for me, it's one of my truths that every time I go on Instagram, my life reliably gets worse. Like, it's. I'm not saying to just go and post something. I enjoy the connection from posting something to all of the people that follow me and to, you know, feel like I made a difference there. But when I'm, like, Doom scrolling and just on the browse feed, just, like, mindlessly looking at random content. that reliably makes my life worse.

To be fair, you're very rarely on Instagram.

Yeah, because I listen to my truths. That's the thing. If something becomes true to me, I really listen to that. I trust my truths. And I trust that I have run the experiment of scrolling on Instagram enough times to know for sure that it will reliably make me feel worse. It will make me compare myself to other people. It will make me anxious that I'm not working hard enough. It will make me feel like there's some exciting project that other people are doing that I should be doing. It will make me feel like the world is a worse place because of the kinds of nastiness.

The comments section.

The comments. It could even just be, I see a video of someone punching someone or something. It's like I just see things that make me think life is worse or people are worse. So it just doesn't improve my life. It makes it worse. That's the truth. So then I go, okay, I'm gonna have. I'm gonna use that truth to create a rule in my life. And this year, I mean, this is a. This is not a new one for me. I've had this for several years now, but I. I'm. I really take seriously not going on Instagram. I take that. very, very seriously. I only go if there's a specific account that intentionally I want to go and visit because I really like what that person posts. Then I might go to that account, but I don't go on Instagram and scroll. That is a rule I have for myself. I'm not saying I never break it, by the way, but that's a, that's a rule that I aim to stick to as much as I possibly can.

Can I add to that? For anyone who has a bad relationship with Instagram, there are a couple of very low lift little tricks that you can implement that might help. One of them, which I think we don't do enough of, because we kind of, I think it comes from a people-pleasing tendency and not wanting to hurt and offend other people, but we tend to not unfollow people. often enough. And what I mean by that is like having an audit of who you follow and the kinds of accounts and the kinds of people that are popping up on your feed is really, really useful. We should be doing that multiple times a year and going through our follow list and just unfollowing a bunch of people that we don't really know, we don't really like, that are negative accounts that no longer align with the things that you actually care about or find interesting, or maybe they're just. They just sort of perpetuate an idea you have of yourself that you no longer want to associate with. Like, let's say it's an account, a meme account about always being drunk and a disaster and being like, your love life being shambles. Maybe you don't want to keep following that because then that just makes you feel bad about yourself unconsciously every time you see it. You're, like, identifying.

Yeah, exactly.

You're like, oh, I'm that person. That's me. Oh, my God. And then you're just sort of like, Yeah, you're never able to grow out of those things and be a different person. But, you know, and if it's people that you can't unfollow because there's politics around it, just mute them. Just don't have them come up on your feed or your stories because you don't need to be hijacked. Your attention does not need to be hijacked by content that makes you feel worse. And where we put our attention and our time this year really should be an enormous priority for everybody. and so that's one thing that I think is super, super important when it comes to social media to really safeguard our energy. Otherwise we're bleeding our energy everywhere. And the other one is the discovery feed. Like, you need to teach Instagram what you want to see. And the way, the way I've done that, and I don't know if you've done that, is I, if I, if I see something that I don't like, I click on it and then I go to the three little buttons and I click not interested. and I do that daily on like five different posts. And it means that my feed does not feed me stuff about celebrities and gossip and things that I like, I might click on it because I'm like, what? This is so crazy. I can't believe this has happened. But then I feel worse because I now know this random thing and I've indulged in some like low frequency gossip about some random celebrity I don't even care about. and so I just... Ariana Grande. But, you know, I do that all the time. I say, not interested, not interested. And I try and, like, click on things that I find inspiring or funny or, like, interesting and, you know, like, following facts account and following, like, just, just animal accounts, things that make me feel happy and joyful. And I try and really train my algorithm to be like, you know, don't feed me things that are gonna make me feel worse. And if you don't do that, if you don't put some kind of, you know, safeguarding around what Instagram feeds you, it will just feed you more things that make you feel worse, make you feel fearful and make you feel not good enough. Images of women that aren't real, like, whether they're AI or heavily edited and a standard of beauty that is just completely unobtainable for any living creature on Earth, but maybe like three people who were born that way, like, It is just so important to be so strict around what kind of content we consume because I think it has such a, it has such a kind of, what's the word? Like, have you ever had that thing, right, where you just suddenly feel really bad, but you don't know why? And you have to like retrace your steps as to why you feel bad and you'll be like, oh, it's because that person said that thing. Or it's because I saw this thing. Or it's because it reminded me of this time that I did this embarrassing thing and now I feel this weird overwhelming unconscious shame. To me, Instagram and social media in general is that. It's like a way that we're basically, we're like spinning the wheel on how we're gonna feel and we're leaving it in the hands of like this algorithm that does not have our best interests at heart at all. And I just think we have to take power back when it comes to our attention and where we actually put our attention.

And I think that's even true of the. What looks like the completely innocuous stuff. There was something that came up on my Discover feed. It was a giraffe on the side of a mountain and, like, 20 people trying to save it. It was on, like, a tiny little ledge.

Yeah.

But how did it get there? I don't even think it was real.

Yeah.

How did the giraffe get on the. On this little ledge on the side of a cliff? doesn't make any sense. The giraffe can't climb.

And what did he do? What did he do?

Fall off the top of the mountain onto a tiny ledge. It didn't make sense. Yeah, it's probably AI. But. But that's my important. Why was I watching that? How did that make my life better? Someone made a. A computer generated giraffe standing on a ledge and, like, 20 people trying to use a crane to save it. What? Why am I watching this? Like, I'm wasting my life.

Yeah.

What did that do for my life? There's 10 seconds I'll never get back.

It's true.

So, I have a truth.

What's another one?

I don't go on the scroll on Discover feed on Instagram or any social media. Another one is, I like to go, this is a very specific one. I like to go live. If I'm gonna go live on Instagram or if I'm gonna go live on Facebook or TikTok, YouTube, I like to go live after I've worked out. I realized that today. 'Cause if I have just worked out and I go live, I'm calm. But I'm also very focused and very like dialed in and like motivated. So there's this really beautiful combination of being of an absence of anxiety and an abundance of like power.

Which I think is really good advice for people who are out there on a dating. Yeah, work out before a date.

Yeah.

And if you make sure you, you know, have a shower and make yourself look nice after you work out.

But that's, if that works for you, then it becomes a truth. You go, oh, it's just true that if I work out before a date, There's a, I go on to that date more powerfully. I feel better about myself. I've shed some anxiety. I feel like I'm in a really good place. My endorphins are going. So that's a truth. You and I have a very specific truth about travel, which is that we travel back, we always travel back home from wherever we are in the world on either a Friday or the latest on a Saturday.

So that we have the Sunday. minimum one day to get ourselves sorted before we start the week on Monday. It's the best truth. And you always fight me on it. You always say, But why don't we just fly back?

Why don't we go to Japan?

Only when we go to Japan. That's true.

But, you know, the temptation is like to stretch out the vacation to Sunday night and come back Sunday night. But we've realized, like, oh, no, we felt like crap so many times on a Monday. that flying back on a Friday, it makes the world of difference. We fly back into calm and getting ourselves together, and then we go into Monday in a really good place. That's a truth. And so I'm saying this because I want people to realize how specific these things actually are. It's highly practical, and it really requires paying attention to Where your good or bad moods come from? What is, what shapes your emotions? Because once you learn what shapes your emotions, you can then engineer those for the future.

I'm so glad you said that. I'm so, because I think that's, and I think really practically, you know, going away and having an audit of your day, and your habits in your day. What do you do in your day? Let's say like a generic one you hear all the time is like, do you wake up and pick up your phone and scroll? How do you feel after you've done that? And if you can take an order, make an order of your regular habits throughout the day and how they make you feel, you can then go, you can start to run little experiments, right? And say like, if I don't pick up my phone and I don't scroll, instead I get up, I open the curtains, I get some natural sunlight in my face, and I go and brush my teeth and listen to music that makes me happy. I don't know, whatever, insert thing that you want to do. How do I then feel? And if the answer is, I feel 10 times better, I don't feel anxious, I don't feel ambushed, I feel like I'm kind of in control of my day, then that becomes the truth, which is scrolling makes me unhappy and I need to not wake up and scroll.

And here's the thing, you can't trust your urges. You have to trust your truths because a month from that moment, you may have disconnected from the reality of that truth. You're no longer feeling like the emotional potency. But what is real a month later is the urge you have to pick up your phone when you wake up, which is why for me, writing down my truths in a kind of manual is essential because what I've learned over time is if I build this manual for myself, I can always trust that if I just follow that manual, it's going to work very rarely. Yes, some truths change over the course of our lives, but they tend to change. A lot of them don't change because they're just, they are like truths of your being, but some change as you grow up and you, you change as a person, but they don't change that quickly. So you can, you can almost guarantee that whatever were your truths this time last year are probably 90 the same, if not 100 the same this year. So I will sometimes have the funny experience of like, this is, again, this is another very stupid small practical truth. But I realized at some point, if I washed my face before going to bed and then put moisturizer on, it really did actually make a difference to how I felt going to bed. Like when I woke up in the morning, I firstly, I had better skin, but secondly, it just I realized like, oh, it makes me feel good both when I go to bed and when I wake up. Now, that isn't in any way that there's not something that I in automatically or intuitively connect to. It's just something that I found was true. Nothing. Even as I say it now, I'm like, that doesn't really feel like something that would make much of a difference. And every time we're about to go to bed, I don't feel like doing that. And yet every time, because I know it's a truth, and I've run this experiment so many times, If I do it afterwards, I'm like, oh, that's why I wrote that down as a truth. It actually works. It actually is one of those weird things that makes a difference. For me, it's the same with I have a little day planner with all of my to-dos in it and all of my meetings and everything for every day. At the end of a day, I have a closing down routine. where I take, you know, I cross off all the things that I did today, I tick off all the meetings I had, and then I look at what didn't get done today. And I write, I use, I, all my stuff is in pencil because I actually like working manually as opposed to putting it all on a computer. I then go through the task of cross it, like taking everything I didn't do, writing it into the next day. for tomorrow and then crossing out those things today and then ticking off the day and being like, day is done. Everything I didn't do is already safely on tomorrow's list. So, I don't need to hold it in my body. I don't need to like have it stored in my mind as this anxiety. It's already taken care of in the future. So, I can now switch off. Now, most days, like right now, this is the last thing we're gonna do today. I will not feel, like, doing my closed down routine.

But I'm gonna make you wash your face. I'm gonna make you close your eyes.

It's not time to wash my face for ages. That's a before bed thing. I'm talking about a, like, 6:00 p.m. thing. But I will, I know, I know 'cause I've done it so many times. if I go into tomorrow having not done my, my closing down routine today, I I won't. A, I won't switch off as well this evening, and B, I won't wake up into my day as well tomorrow. If I can just take the 10 minutes or the five minutes it will take me to do that, it will make me feel better. I'll go, okay, let's go and have an evening. Let's go and have a nice time. So, these things, I want to encourage everyone to look for these things. You don't have to come up with them all right now because that's not, it is kind of not entirely the way this works, right? You have to notice.

It's more about attention.

Pay attention. Pay attention to what works when it works. And pay attention to what does not work. These things become your truths. And if you start building your life around these truths, your life will get better. The other thing I want to say is I'm focused right now on, as we, as we get into this year, I asked myself this question. What's truly the, in each of the parts of my life that are important to me, what's truly the number one thing that I could be doing that will make that better? So, like, one of the things you and I decided at the end of 2024 was let's, we're gonna be at home much more next year because we're not going to travel and we're looking for peace and we're looking for routine and stability and all of that. So we said, you know what? Part of the advantage of being home is we can invest in our home. We can make our house really nice and something, make it a place that Sparks Joy. Let's invest where we are and When I was thinking, okay, so one of the big goals this year is to make our house as nice as possible to live in. And so many things are going wrong with our house because we travel so much that, like, there's a long list of things that we could do. But I asked myself, what's the number one thing in the house that takes away from our joy of being here? and we had leaks all over our house from the rain. We had like a really rainy season in LA like a couple of years ago. And then the house leaked and it was a whole thing and it took forever to fix. Anyway, the point is because of that we had to take all of our lights out and only like a few of them went back in because we didn't have time to fix it. And then the wiring was off.

And our sockets don't work in our bedroom.

It's a whole thing.

Yeah.

But like basically the lighting system in our house is just broken.

Ineffective. Yeah.

And it means that most of the rooms don't light up properly. And it deprives us of, like, the joy of how lovely the house could look.

The.

I know that as soon as all the lights are fixed, we're gonna be like, we're gonna walk around the house and be like, oh, my God, everything feels so nice. That one thing is, I think, the most high leverage thing we could do. to spark joy being at home. Now, it's also true that I don't like the last thing I wanted to do coming back from vacation with our mums at the beginning of the year. We went, took our mums to Hawaii at the beginning of the year for a vacation. The last thing I wanted to do coming back was call around electricians, get quotes, meet them, see, try and figure out the best quote, try and look at whether we're getting ripped off by the quotes we're getting, do the research, whatever. I was like, I don't want to do all of that, but I also know that's the number one thing that will make the biggest difference. And I too often we avoid the things that will make the biggest difference. And you made this beautiful point earlier that we actually learn to avoid the things that will make the biggest difference. We learn just to work around them. And in doing so, we. We're making ourselves comfortable, but we're like, slowly making our life worse?

Well, we are incredibly resilient and adaptable creatures, right? And so if there is something wrong, you learn to work around. It's like anyone that's had an injury in their body knows that you start to learn to work around your injury. And if you have to walk with a limp, you start to limp because your body then compensates in other ways. And we can sometimes do that to such an extent that our quality of life deteriorates to a level that we don't even we haven't even realized. And it's. I. I likened it to. And I have this very specific memory of doing this myself, having, like, an old laptop that has, like, an old, like, system on it, you know, and, like, everything is so slow and it takes.

Oh, my God. That laptop you used for about, like, a year of our relationship.

I know.

Unbelievable.

You don't even know my laptop before that. was abominable. And the only reason that I replaced it is because it broke. And then when I got a new one, which is the one you hated, which at the time was very, you know, fast and Nifty, it was like. I was like, I cannot believe how. I can't believe I've been living like this. I can't believe how much more efficient and, like, productive I can be with this functioning laptop and. The reason I'm using this as an example, it's like it's a stupid example, but like what areas of our lives are the broken laptop that we're just working around and tolerating and we've somehow made the status quo. But actually if we fixed that one thing, everything would get disproportionately better and easier.

Our bedroom, bathroom, light doesn't work. like, I use my phone light.

Oh, yeah.

To light up the bathroom. That's mental.

That is mental.

Like it. That's just pure, like, doing. Working around the thing instead of doing the thing that would just make life better.

I want to end this point with a quote that some of you might have heard, which I think is really, really relevant to this, which is, if you want a hard life, do easy things. If you want an easy life, do hard things. And I think what that quote is actually referring to is what is the thing in front of you that you don't want to do, but if you did would actually make the future you have a happier life.

And when you're doing, when you're choosing what hard thing to do, choose the hard thing that will make the biggest difference. Go straight to the one. There's 50 different jobs we could do in our house right now. None of them are things that like I really want to get round to.

I know.

But there's bound to be three or four things that will have a disproportionate impact if we do them. And for me, I decided the number one thing is the lights. So you've got you, that's what you head straight towards. But you have to be ruthless, ruthless about going toward the thing that's going to make the biggest difference. Because there's always infinite things you could do. in any part of your life. There's infinite things you could do for your business, for your social life, for your home, for your body, for there's so many things you could do. Really be ruthless about going straight for the thing that's going to make the biggest difference. Because if you just attack those things in six months, your life can be unrecognizable. so we want to get to some, we want to get to one or two emails. David has selected a couple of emails from our inbox, podcast@matthewhussy.com for anyone who wants to email us. David, what have you got for us? We have no idea what you've chosen.

Yeah.

So I actually selected this question because, you know, around the house, this the New Year's time, a lot of these really invigorating things swirl around. And I saw within this question an opportunity for one that has been mentioned a lot, which is ruthless alignment. And so I think, yeah, that this has to do with that. So Amanda writes, I have an amazing boyfriend named Scott. I met him through an acquaintance called Henry.

Henry and I went on a few.

Dates two years ago, but he decided he just wanted to be friends. Scott and Henry have been best friends for 20 years, but recently Henry has been disrespectful to me and refuses to admit it, so I've cut him off. I'm polite to him when I see him, and Scott knows everything and understands my decision, but yesterday one of our friends told me that Henry thinks I'm not the best thing for Scott. Henry thinks. Excuse me. I asked Scott about it, and he said that at the start of our relationship, Henry was bad-mouthing me, saying, I got around and I'm a bad person. et cetera. I was a virgin before Scott and I've always treated Henry with respect. Scott admitted Henry made him nearly end things at the beginning. I handle conflict through direct confrontation and I don't know how to resolve this without it. I'm under strict instructions from everyone who knows Henry to not confront him. I want to let it go, but by listening to your podcast, I've learned to only allow people into my life who respect me. We're all in our mid-20s. This is immature and ridiculous, but Scott and Henry are so close that this feud can't continue. How do I resolve this?

Well, there's so much going on here in terms of like, like this feels like an episode of Made in Chelsea.

Do you have to explain this for us?

What's the American version of Made in Chelsea? Made in David Made in Chelsea is like, a reality show in England where people in, people are like sort of quite well-to-do people in London who can sometimes appear somewhat vacuous, get together and date each other. And basically the whole show is just them gossiping about each other and getting together and saying, you know, so and so got off with them the other night, even though they were with you the week before. And then they're like, I have to confront them. And it's just. that the whole show is just a group of young, sexy people constantly confronting each other about, like, these Dynamics. I'm trying to think.

It's like friends.

Oh, no, this is like a reality show.

I'm joking. Everybody hates Raymond.

Everybody hates Raymond.

Yeah.

What about is Jersey Shores too trashy? That's not Jersey Shores not quite right. But basically that's what this sounds like. And I think you have to like be better, be better than the dynamics of everything that is going on around you. So, you know, you've got friends of yours saying Henry doesn't think that Scott You know that you're good for Scott. Well, firstly, who are these friends? Like, who are these people sitting in front of you putting insecurity in your mind about what not even your boyfriend is saying, but the friend of your boyfriend? I, you know, I would be saying to them, I firstly, I don't, I'm not dating Henry. so if Scott has an issue, he can tell me. But I'm not dating Henry, so I don't really. Henry's opinion is not important to me. Also, you don't need to tell me these things in the future because there's not really anything I can do with that information. This is not necessary for me.

Do you know it sounds to me like there is a wolf in the midst. in the form of Henry. And I sort of feel like I'm not labeling him anything at all because I have no context for this Henry person and who he is. But it sounds from what we're hearing like he is behaving in a way that he's trying to basically stir some problems and he's trying to cause some drama and he seems to to be at the heart of this kind of dynamic, right? And this is kind of the drama and the situation. And I sort of feel like, to your point, just to add a little bit of nuance to that, because I can imagine how in your mid-20s it's very difficult to say, you know, I do not need to hear this person's opinion. I do not need to hear what happened because it's like your social circle, right? Like it's kind of everything to you and you don't want to feel like you're being talked about. behind your back. And so I think there's something that could be useful here, which is, you know, and again, I'm not labeling him a narcissist, but Ramani talks about when she talks about these kinds of personalities, the antisocial personalities, people who are just a little bit more difficult. She said, the main thing you can do is just you do not engage. And I think that what that looks like is essentially, you recognize that you see him for what he's doing, which is causing problems, stirring, trying to potentially sabotage your relationship and turn people against you. Some people will do that in this life. And you're right about wanting, you know, going, I'm not going to. I shouldn't have people in my life who aren't good people. And that is something that you should absolutely live by. So don't have this person in your life. Don't be close to this person. don't engage with this person.

Which one?

Henry.

Oh, Henry. Okay.

Yeah. Keep Henry at arm's length. See him for who he is. Don't let him know you've seen him necessarily. Just see him for who he is. Don't do anything to inflame him. Keep him at arm's length. Do not engage when he. He is probably most likely saying these things because he wants you to engage and have some drama and confront him about it and go, I can't believe you said that thing about me. And then Henry gets to be like, see. you are a bad person and twist the way that you're reacting and make it out like it's your fault and that you're causing drama. Like these people just that's what they do. And so I think not engaging is super important. And I think having like a mature conversation with the people you can trust about what you're noticing and saying like, you know, including Scott, your boyfriend, and saying like, I'm quite upset and hurt by what's happening. and, you know, I know you're really good friends with him. I would never tell you, you know, to not be friends with someone. So I'm just sharing how I'm feeling. But, like, I'm. I'm really not liking the fact that someone who calls themselves a good friend to you is, like, going around saying these things about me. It's making me super uncomfortable, and I. I want to rise above it. I don't want the drama. I don't want to cause arguments, and you kind of get to be like, the different energy in the situation. The one that isn't causing drama, the one that isn't causing aggravation and making things worse. But you are sort of saying, like, I don't understand why this person is doing this, and it's actually hurting my feelings because it's making me feel like they're trying to turn people against me, and I have no idea why. And you sort of shine a light on it in a way where you are the bigger person. Yeah.

And I like the, you know, I'm not, it's not, I'm not, I would never say, you can't be friends with someone. Like, if you. If you have. You have your own relationship with that person.

Yeah.

And that's okay. But, you know, for me, if we're together, it's hard for me to know that someone that close to you is saying really negative things about me. Yeah. That are coming back to me through other people.

And I think as well, you're in your mid-20s and. Remember that people like that reveal themselves over time. You know, Scott may not see Henry for who he is right now, and there's 20 years of friendship and there's history, and you know, people like that are really, really good at what they do, and they're manipulative. And so, you know, right now, you may not be in a situation where enough people around you can see him for who he truly is. Maybe you feel alone in the fact that you can see him, but trust that everything reveals itself over time. And as long as you remain a wonderful partner, a wonderful energy, open and honest about what you're noticing and in the behavior in a way that doesn't cause more like a riff, but in a way that just points it out. And the more you can represent that kind of energy, the more the way he behaves will start to stick out. and will start to kind of not look right to Scott unless he stops, you know, behaving in that way, which hopefully he will.

The part that concerns me a little bit is Scott saying it nearly made me end things in the beginning of our relationship.

Yeah, but I do think that if he doesn't know her and doesn't have any reference points for what it's, you know what I mean?

Like, yeah, but how long, David, did they say how long they've been?

Together.

It doesn't say how long they've been together, but she did go on a few dates with Henry two years ago, so presumably less than two years they've been together.

Imagine, like, you came to me and said someone's told me that your best mate has said really mean things about me. And my reaction was, yeah, honestly, in the beginning, it nearly made me break up with you. Is that, does that feel like a nice response to you?

No, of course not. But I suppose what I'm getting at is I wouldn't want her to feel unsafe because of that because he didn't have the context of her in the relationship.

But I'm not hearing, maybe he did and she's not saying it, but it's his job to also stick up for her in that situation.

Right.

Like he should be saying, look, he. He does, like, I don't know what's happening between the two of you. He's not like, for whatever reason, I can't, like, I don't want to sit here and you. He. He's not your biggest fan. All right? I'm not. I I'm not gonna you about that. That's just the truth. But I don't care about his opinion when it comes to you, because. Here's how I feel about you. And now, by the way, he might say, look, back in the beginning of our relationship, when I barely knew you, his opinion had more authority because I've known him a long time. And yeah, in the beginning when he was saying these things, it messed with my head. But not anymore. Like, I know you. I'm crazy about you. And actually, frankly, I don't appreciate that he's saying things like that to people that are getting back to you. And he may have a problem with you, or he may have his own, you know, he's allowed to not like you. My friend is allowed to not like you. But the fact that he can't seem to let that go and keep saying things, that is a problem for me. So I'll have a chat with him. because that's not fair to you that he's going around saying things to other people. I don't, what I don't like is.

The... How passive Scott is being.

How passive he is being. That's exactly the right word. I don't like that. And I also don't, I don't like that she's putting herself around friends who think that a good topic of conversation is telling her about someone who doesn't like her. None of my friends do that to me. No one in my life. If anyone in my life now sat with me and was telling me all about someone who doesn't like me, I'd be like, I'd think something was really weird about that conversation.

I agree with you.

I'd be like, why are you telling me this? What's what? How does this in what? Are you saying this because you're saying there's something. Hey, Matt, I love you as your friend. I want to let you know that there's a someone who's upset with you, and it might be because of something that you actually want to look at. And guess what? I've noticed it, too. So I'm sharing it with you because I love you, and I want you. I want to point something out as hard as that is for me to do. That's a different thing. If someone is. If someone I call a friend is sat in front of me saying, yeah, so and so really doesn't like you. It's. They've been going around bad mouthing you. I'd be like, why do I need to know this? This isn't, you're not being a friend by putting this stuff in my head. I can't imagine hearing that someone doesn't like one of my friends and then going and making sure they know about it.

I wouldn't be friends with someone who didn't like one of my friends.

I'm trying to think if I'm friends with anyone who doesn't like one of my friends. I mean, people are allowed to not like each other.

Yeah, but you don't want to be close to someone who doesn't like one of your close friends.

The reason I'm harping on about the friends point is because I think things like this are where we actually start to... If we're not careful, we start to miss our own blind spots. And I think that there's a kind of blind spot in this question. that Henry is clearly just a dick.

Right?

That's not, there's no blind spot there. We all, we hear Henry and we think, this guy sucks. But the blind spot is in both other directions. To me, the blind spot is on either side of Henry. Scott was passive and didn't give her a response that made her feel safe, which is why she's still worried about Henry. Because if Scott made her feel safe, she wouldn't worry about Henry. Fuck Henry. And the people that brought this to her attention in the first place made her feel unsafe. Giving her information she didn't need because it's not like she went to them and said Scott's been being really weird lately. something's off. I don't know what it is. It seems like he's. He's starting to get mad at me. He's taken a dislike to him. I don't know what's going on. And her friend says, look, I. In case it's useful, I. I've heard Henry talking to Scott in a certain way, and he puts you down and he tells him things that are just not true about you. And I don't know if that's getting in Scott's head, and that's why he's been acting weird, but I just wanted to let you know. right? That makes sense. But the way I'm hearing this story is that her friends just, this friendship group came to her with this. And so I see another blind spot, which is you're in a friendship group that thrives on this kind of gossip and making other people putting things in each other's heads that aren't helpful. So I then go stand back from this situation. and go, do I feel safe? Not with Henry. Henry's always going to make you feel unsafe because he's not someone you want in your life. And you decided to cut him out. What's happening with the friends that are supposed to make you feel safe? What's happening with the boyfriend who's supposed to make you feel safe? Those are the people that matter because that's your base. That's your safety, that's your support system. And if your support system isn't supporting you and supporting your mental health, then that's the wrong support system to have in the first place. Because you're always going to need, whether it's a narcissist or just a nasty person, you're always that those people are always going to exist in life. And the greatest way to, to the greatest, the, the greatest defense against people like that. is your own internal resilience and the strength of having a great group around you, a great support system around you gives you. So that that would be my answer. I'm not mad at Henry. I'm mad at the friends and I'm mad at the boyfriend.

I'm a bit mad at Henry.

Henry's not worth being mad at. There's something wrong with Henry. Henry needs help. What was next?

That's what I got for you.

All right, that's it for today. Who was that from?

That was from Amanda.

Amanda, Amanda, thank you for your question. Thanks for sending it into Love Life. Send more questions in. Maybe we'll do another one on the next episode. Let us know what you enjoyed about this. We're gonna change things up this year, try some new things. We wanna have some more fun with the podcast, and it's an evolving thing. so it's going to shift and change. But with your feedback, the more you tell us about what you enjoy and what means the most to you, you know, what parts of it really you would get, you would get excited to listen to the more we'll be able to craft something that is just fun and enjoyable and entertaining and useful that's, that you actually want. So let us know. Email us podcast@mathewhussy.com. if you're watching this on YouTube, leave us a comment.

What should the subject line be for the email for this episode?

Oh, if people want to email us, Henry's a dick.

Henry's a dick. Okay. Okay. Like it.

So if you want to email us, Henry's a dick subject line, we'll know it's about this episode.

Wait, but is that gonna get blocked?

Oh, it might get spam.

Yeah.

Spam filtered. Henry sucks.

Henry sucks.

Henry sucks. That's it. Thank you so much for watching everybody. Do not forget to go and sign up to our brand new event, Casual to Committed. You can sign up at getcommitment.com this is my biggest ever live event that is now available again and is absolute gold for anyone who is struggling to get commitment right now. You want to know how to have the conversation. You're struggling because you had the conversation and it didn't go well. Go check this out. It is a free event. It's really, really great and you can watch it right now at www.getcommitment.com Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time in Love Life.