If You Feel Like You LOST The One, Listen To This! | Rewind

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You can't undo something you wish you'd done differently without also unraveling all of the good things about you that have brought you the good things in your life. Welcome to the Love Life Podcast with me, Matthew Hussey. Enjoy this clip we've put together for you today. I think you're gonna love it.

We got an email in, Matthew, from a man, 27 in Denmark, and he says, hi, if we can do all these things right and wrong in dating, which you address in your advice, How can it be true to say that the right person will also choose you? I was recently dumped by a girl I dated for six weeks and I have been torturing myself ever since trying to figure out if I lost out on her because I failed to implement the advice you give on dating and flirting. Thank you so much for your wonderful work.

What a great question. Do we know his name or he didn't offer his name or doesn't want to?

His name is in the subject line, but not in the email. Okay, fair enough. I'm gonna assume he's anonymous. I feel that gets to the crux of if there's fate or choice in love.

I believe that this is a paradox to be managed. That we do have a choice over how we act, how we behave, But that we also... And of course, what that does is it invites the kind of self-loathing and guilt and anxiety that comes from thinking we blew it, we could have done something different and we blew it. Had we done something different, we would have still had that person now. But then of course someone will watch me in another video and say that person, if they didn't choose you, then they weren't for you. And people will say, well, how do you manage those two ideas? Because if I'd have done something different, your entire advice and what you do is based on this idea that we can change the results we're getting based on changes in our behavior.

And if there's a right person for me, then I can't blow it with them, right? Like, how can I blow it? If they're the right person and we match, then, you know, is it possible to blow it with the one?

So, firstly, it would certainly have been true that had you done something different in a relationship that you were in, you would have gotten a different result. Now, the different result may not have been the result you wanted or it may have. It may have been that that person decided they wanted to stay with you. It might be that if you did something different, they would have stayed with you for another six months before bailing or you would have prolonged the relationship by another two years. If you didn't have that argument that you had that day that precipitated the breakup, that argument may have happened a week later. It would have changed something. But assuming it would have changed it to the result you want is not necessarily true. Highly unlikely. So that's the first thing. But yes, changes in behavior change the outcome. But the idea that if only I'd have done something different is where the kind of ridiculous notion. This is where we're torturing ourselves over science fiction. You did what you did because that's who you were then. Like, I. I do believe in a kind of determinism that you were always gonna do what you did then. You. You wishing you'd done something different is you wanting to be another human being. It's. It's your desire to be living in some parallel. universe, because in this universe, that's not what was going to happen. You did what you did that based on your brain chemistry, based on your experience, based on your upbringing, based on your inputs in life, societal, environmental, cultural, based on your insecurities, based on your strengths, You did what you did. It's also, by the way, based on your strengths that you were even in that relationship in the first place, right? Not just your weaknesses, but your strengths is what meant you were even in that relationship. So, firstly, you can't undo something you wish you'd done differently without also unraveling all of the good things about you that have brought you the good things in your life. You don't get to, we don't get to be a la carte in our wanting to strip away one piece of our DNA that says, I no longer do that thing, without changing the whole system. Wishing that we did something different is wishing to be a different person. We don't get to do that. But that experience, having that experience, losing someone, going through something becomes a new input in the system that changes us in some way. And that change is what's given us the insight now that makes us say, I would do something different next time. But you don't have that insight. without having done certain things. By the way, to the guy that wrote this in, it doesn't mean, by the way, don't mistake what I'm saying with the agreement that it was just him that created that breakup. You know, we think if I'd have just done, you know, it's like Groundhog Day, right? When Bill Murray thinks that he's figured out how to get the girl, and he keeps trying to replicate the day that she fell for him. And no matter what he does, he keeps going back thinking that by changing something, he's gonna be able to program the result. And he can't. It doesn't work. He keeps reprograms it again and again and again, hundreds of times, and nothing. He keeps getting the wrong result. We think if we went back and changed the thing that we think was the problem, then we'd get the result we want. But that's a lot.

And really, it only changes for him when he has become a completely different person over essentially years within the confines of the movie.

Exactly.

It's completely different as a person.

Exactly. Because getting someone is not... The things that we talk about, Steve, the big misunderstanding about what we do is that it's just about strategies. It's about becoming an evolved, an evolved version of yourself. Because when you are and when you do certain things, they're congruent. They're not a strategy in isolation. They're a natural extension of the confidence and the self-love and the love for other people that you've developed. That takes time. And going back and simply changing a strategy doesn't mean you'd get the result that you wanted. And it doesn't mean that was everything that was wrong in the first place. She could have broken up with him for any number of reasons that he doesn't know about that would involve a fundamental change in his being, which he wouldn't be willing or able to do. We have to accept that I'm only having this feeling of guilt or self-loathing or wishing I could change something. I'm only having that now because it happened. I wouldn't have this insight now that makes me want to change and be able to do something different and go back. I'm only having that now because that thing happened. I don't get the insight without the heartbreak.

Yeah.

I can't. And you might say, yeah, but Matt, I knew. I knew even then. I was like, if I keep being jealous like this, if I keep being controlling like this, I'm gonna lose this person. I knew that then. This isn't new information. I knew it then, and I still did it. Yeah, you didn't know it enough. You knew then logically, you even knew emotionally, but not enough to make you go, I'm never doing this again because I can't bear to be this way anymore. There's a certain point in life where we personally get to a point of saying, I can't bear to be a certain way anymore. I'm not, I'm unprepared, unwilling, unable to live a certain way anymore. And there's truth to that idea that people change when they're ready, not when they think it's a good idea. And ready doesn't mean I'm ready to change now. Ready means I cannot be this way anymore. And you can lose someone by doing something you even knew it would cost you this person if you kept doing it. You knew they came home, you decided to. To be controlling or go on a jealous tirade or say something. And you knew a part of you knew even when you did it, this. I know that I. Doing this is going to create even more problems in my relationship. It's going to make someone think I'm. I'm too much or it's gonna. you knew, but you weren't ready to change it. Yeah, it's like your.

Your body hasn't caught up to your brain yet. You can, like, know how to do a great tennis serve, but you're not ready. You haven't. You haven't actually learned and mastered it yet. You're still figuring it out. And it's like. Like going back and being like, man, when I screwed up when I was 21 with that first, you know, that first serious girlfriend, or if I wasn't that insecure mess, it's like. That was, you were a different person then, and you had to go through so much evolving, so many screw-ups to get sick of how you were at that point.

This is the thing. The realization we're having now that says, I'm gonna change, is usually a result of our heartbreaks. And I'm not just talking in love, I'm talking in any part of life. Our hearts break. in many different ways in our lifetimes. You know, sometimes we get to a point where something we've been doing to our body physically causes, creates a trauma for us or it makes us have to go through some disease, some physical problem that wakes us up and makes us go, oh my God, never again. I can't live like this anymore. And there's a kind of heartbreak that has led to that. There's the heartbreak of I've hurt myself. There's a heartbreak of my body doesn't work the way that I want it to anymore as a result of what I've been doing to it. There's a heartbreak, there's a loss there. There's a, you know, the heartbreak comes in many different ways in life. And sometimes the heartbreak is just that, you know, you can get an existential heartbreak where you go, you know, you can achieve and do all the things you think were gonna make you happy in life, and none of them worked, and you got to a place of heartbreak. You were heartbroken. We may not think of it like this, but it's a kind of heartbreak, a kind of existential heartbreak. I thought all of this would make me happy. I thought if I made enough money, I thought if I out ran my problems from childhood by achieving, I thought if I could just make myself popular enough in the second phase of my life or the third phase of my life, if I could make everyone love me, I thought that would work. And none of it did. And now you're heartbroken. You're heartbroken. And that makes you look for something else. It makes you say, I need something else in my life. I need to do something else. I've got to do things differently. I've got to go on a different path to find some new level of meaning, find peace somewhere else. It's not in these things. I'm heartbroken. You're heartbroken. But you don't get to that heartbreak without having done those things. It's the heartbreak that precipitates the change. And wishing that you'd made the change before the heartbreak is, is like wishing that two plus two equaled five. It wasn't gonna happen that way. You needed this to get to that. And so I say to this guy, your email to us, it's not that changes in your behavior. For 14 years, I've talked about behavioral changes that can lead to more attraction, more relationships, better relationships, better relationship with yourself. It's not that those things aren't true. It's not that you can't make a change in the system that changes your outcome. That's true. But whether you're capable of making that change in that very moment is dependent on all of the dominoes that went before that in your life that led to this moment. And whether your brain, your mind, the way you think, the way you're set up to make decisions or act is ready for that next domino, or maybe it's not. But. But by the way, even when Steve people come across us, and I know I'm getting real, like, this is a bit heady, but when someone meets us and comes across our work, that's a new chat. That's a change in the system. That's an input into the system that they may not have had if they didn't stumble across that YouTube video. So the very fact that they do, you know, like, Steve, it's like when someone says to us, I wish I discovered you 20 years ago. I wish I'd seen your videos 10 years ago. And, you know, I wish I'd been doing this differently all along. You got the input when you did. You couldn't control that. The input came into your life when it did, and that's now introduced a change in the system when it has. But wishing that that you'd have had this sooner is like, again, it's like wishing for a change in the laws of physics. That guy emailing us, you know, what he's at the crux of his question is this. You say that if we do things differently, we will get a different result. And I love the empowerment that comes from that. However, In this case, me believing that equates to me hating myself. Because what it means is I could have done something different, and therefore I am at fault for the loss of the love in my life, for the love of my life. So believing what you say that we have agency is the same thing as hating myself. for not being proactive with that agency and not doing what I could have. And what I am saying to you, sir, is that you have agency, but the agency you now have, the heightened level of agency you now have, could only for you in your life have come from this situation that has arisen. And you wishing that you could have done something different is you wishing for a different universe. Because the one where you're emailing us now saying this only happens with that sequence of events. I hope you enjoyed that episode. Before you go, feel free to join me for live coaching on your biggest dating questions by going to AskMH.com. www.askmh.com this is where you can sign up for a 14-day free trial to my members club, the Love Life Club. If you want coaching from me, if you want to be in an exclusive group of people that works with me every month on their confidence and their love lives, this is the place where we do it. Go to askmh.com to become a part of it.