#139: Why You're Not Changing (Even Though You're Trying)

0:00Today we are talking about personal growth. I am going to explain why some people get stuck doing the work, reading the books, doing the therapy, journaling, actively looking for the answers, but can't quite seem to break through to the changes they are seeking. Whether you're in it right now, have been it in the past, or in case you find yourself stuck in the future, what I'm sharing with you today will be super helpful because I've done my own work, and I have been witness to countless thousands of people on their growth journey for the last 25 years. So I'm sharing all the reasons why people get stuck and I'm saving the edgiest one for last, so stick around till the end. Hi, it's Hillary. Welcome to the Ready for Love podcast. Before we start, if you've not already done so, please make sure to subscribe to the show. On YouTube and on your podcast app, it helps me grow the show and it's free and easy to do. Over the years, I've come to identify three levels of awareness that people who are working on themselves or attempting to work on themselves half and just understanding this framework will help you

1:06self-evaluate anytime you've got a problem, you can ask yourself what level am I at with this? So level one sounds like this. It's not me. I've done nothing wrong. I'm great. I'm confident. Every problem somehow circles back to how everyone else handled it poorly. A friend was too sensitive, the partner was too demanding, the boss just didn't get her, and when it comes to looking for love, it's the men, the apps, the town she lives in that is making it so difficult. There's no self-awareness at all, basically. Really don't see how they are contributing to whatever problem they are experiencing. They don't get it. They resist it, they live in denial, or have too strong of an ego defense system, or whatever it is, doesn't really matter. But they don't even know what they're missing out on. It's a very limited existence to live with such blinders on. But level one keeps her from seeing that she is the common denominator in her own life, and to these ladies I say, good luck to you, my dear, and she's probably not even listening to this

2:08podcast anyway. But that's not you because you're here with me. So you're already leaps and bounds ahead of the majority of the population. So level two and level three might be you. Level two, these are the women that say to me, it must be me. I can't for the life of me figure out what I'm doing wrong, Hillary, but please tell me what it is for the love of God. Please, somebody tell me what I'm doing wrong. This woman is aware of the problem, and it's painful enough that finding the solution feels urgent and immediate. And what I love is that she's not defensive or guarded. She's actively seeking answers and wants the help. She's reading every article, taking every quiz, asking every friend for their honest opinion. She is looking for the answers, but just hasn't figured it out yet. Hasn't been able to crack the code. I love helping these women so much. And level three, these are the women who say, it's me. It's because my mom or my dad or my childhood. She can tell you exactly why she is struggling, going all the way back to her parents, her trauma, her personality, her attachment style, naming her patterns because she's

3:12been working at it for so long, but she is still stuck. This is what I call knowing better, but not doing better. And it's extremely frustrating. The trap at stage three is believing that insight is the change because it's not insight does not create change, understanding why you do the things does not on its own stop you from doing them at all. Healing does that, tools do that, repetition does that, action does that, and accountability in real time does that. Learning the information doesn't create the transformation. And most of the time therapy keeps people stuck in the why do I do what I do? How did I get here? It's a morbid curiosity of the past like rubber neckers who can't stop looking backward at the car accident on the road. Insight and self-knowledge is great. I love having information about myself, but so often the why isn't even a clear picture of what really happened so very long ago because memory is murky and it can all be left to interpretation.

4:16It's a nice to have, but not a need to have in order to create change. Let me say that again, knowing why you do what you do does not actually help you change it. What does help is knowing what to do differently and how to do it so you can just move forward and create the change you are looking to make. Stop languishing in the stories of the past, reliving rehashing, retelling, it's time to tell a new story. Women tell me all the time I see the red flags but go forward anyway. I like the bad boys or they tell me how their parents were a certain way with each other and with them when they were growing up. And that is the reason why they are the way that they are right now in relationships. Question mark over my head, right? Because they're still settling, accommodating, being agreeable, self-abandoning or avoiding intimacy. They are still struggling with self-esteem or boundaries or saying no or stating their needs in no uncertain terms. This is proof that insight

5:17and change are two completely different entities. So now, if you're at level three and even a level two, I'm going to help you fix it. If you're doing all the right self-work, the books that therapy, the journaling and all the things and you're still stuck, it's not because you're broken or proof that you're the exception to who cannot be helped. It's not because you haven't dug deep enough either and it's not because you're not fixable. People who are working on themselves but stay stuck are stuck for one of three very specific fixable reasons. Maybe they're all three as well. So reason number one, you have the wrong method or modality. You're using the wrong tool for the job. For example, anxiety that's being treated with medication and a meditation app when really what was actually needed is a deeper inner world solve to address self-trust and not just the tools to calm down. Complaining about work burnout and the fix that you get handed is better work-life balance.

6:20Generic surface level doesn't touch on what's actually going on. Trouble in your marriage gets the schedule more date nights or even going to get help dealing with a narcissist in your life and the focus is all about what a bad person they are rather than focusing on how you got to this place that you are in a relationship with this person. So you get what I mean, right? You need it a hammer and someone gave you a screwdriver. Notice the pattern in all three of those. There is a real problem and you're given a reasonable sounding solution but the solution doesn't touch the actual problem at the deeper root issue. So then months later you conclude that you're the one who can't be fixed when really the intervention was the failure applying the wrong modality or method. And here's why this is so sneaky. A wrong modality fix isn't obviously wrong, it's not useless. The meditation app probably does calm you down in the moment. The date night probably is nice. So you keep doing it and doing it and doing it, mistaking temporary relief for actual resolution.

7:26Relief is not the same as resolution. A fix that only works while you're doing it and evaporates the second you stop was never solving the root problem in the first place. It was just managing the symptom. So reason number two, you've been getting help from the wrong helper. Well meaning I'm sure of it, but maybe he or she was inexperienced, uninformed, ineffective. Or and I hear this one constantly unwilling to actually hold up the mirror. So the telltale sign of this is they just nodded. They let me vent. There was a lot of listening and how did that make you feel questions and there was no real leadership or direction from the helper. So I know I'm a bit of a rogue voice in the helping community, but I have always believed that by the time someone was actually sitting in my therapy office and by the time someone actually is signing up for the ready for love program, they want answers. If they could have figured it out on their own by then,

8:27they would have. So unlike most therapists back then, I did offer my own solutions and answers and opinions and guidance. I led my clients to the solution. I didn't let them simmer and sit and stew in the problem and sit and spin as I call it. Productive leadership that ultimately leads people back to themselves. That is what you should be getting from your therapists and coaches. Let me say that again. The best helpers are guides for you who guide you right back to the answers that are within you. And I want to be clear about what I'm not saying here. I'm not saying that every therapist or coach or mentor out there is doing this. There are a lot of excellent people out there. What I am saying is validation is not the same as growth. Someone agreeing with you or letting you vent for the 50th time about the same person or the same situation and the same feeling is not the same as someone actually helping you change. Whatever their title, the coach,

9:28therapist, mentor, whatever, they will tell you the thing that you don't want to hear. If yours never has, that might be the answer to the problem here. So here's a simple test. Think back to your last few sessions, whatever kind they were. Did you leave feeling comforted or did you leave having been challenged to see yourself in a new way or to think about yourself in a new way? Did you leave with something to actually do differently? Both of these have their place, but if it's been comforting every single time for months or years with nothing ever asked more of you that is not a guide leading you towards the change you are seeking. That's a very expensive, very kind, weekly conversation. I've had clients tell me they've gone to the same therapist for 10 years. One woman literally called it Wednesdays with Ruth. Another client for 20 years with the same therapist. Can you see how they're cultivating a codependent relationship on the helping person? Maybe they're

10:30loving and kind and supportive. They're a great person. Yes, but you're paying somebody for friendship in that case. They're not actually helping you solve the problem because you should not have to spend 10 years or 20 years seeking change. And finally reason number three, it's you. Yes, it is you my love. You are the reason that you are not changing. You say you want the help, but you're not being helpable. You resist it. You make excuses for it. You get defensive. You already know it. You've already tried it. Somehow you're so special or different or so much more messed up than everyone else that it just won't work for you. Or you agree, but then nothing changes because you don't actually implement the suggestions. You don't do the work suggested of you, but only a little and say that you tried or you tried once and it didn't work out. So you stopped trying or you listen and think you're being coachable because you're showing up, but you're not doing anything with it in real life. The therapy or coaching session is supposed to be the check-in. It's in real life

11:34that you have to live the changes. I said this is the EGIS one and that's because it's uncomfortable. I know it's so much easier to blame everything and everyone else, the modality or the guide. Those live outside of you and it doesn't cost you anything to point at them. But radical responsibility means asking the harder question first. What's my part in this? Did I actually do the homework? Did I actually have the hard conversation I was told to have or did I read the chapter and close the book? Did I show up to the session and tell the truth or did I perform doing great for 50 minutes because that felt safer? But this is where you seem eager to grow and change because you were putting in the time and making the effort to meet with your person or to do the program, but you just do time together. Ready for love has a 98% success rate because we cherry pick our clients. We screen for this upfront. We don't want to waste anyone's time or money if they aren't really committed and coachable because they don't show up and do the work. And then when they're

12:39don't show up and do the work, it looks like we are the problem when we know otherwise. A red flag that we watch out for in every single intake that we do is someone who complains about every program, every coach, every therapist, everyone and anything that has ever tried and how they have all failed them. I remember a woman on a discovery call once who was brilliant and successful and genuinely lovely and who I really liked. I pretty much like almost every woman I speak with on these calls, but she walked me through a few different coaches and two therapists over about a period of eight years and a couple of other programs that she tried. Every one of them in her telling missed the point didn't get her at all and it wasn't the right fit. And I asked her gently the same question I always ask in that moment, who's the common denominator in that story? And she went quiet because the honest answer every single time that that pattern shows up is the same. It's you because somewhere along the way, getting help became the goal. Let me say that again, getting help became the goal,

13:44not the goal itself. She was stuck in the process of healing and growing and if she actually crossed the finish line, she may just not know what to do with herself. What a breakthrough that was. One of the reasons people get stuck not actually creating the change they're seeking is because they identify with the process of fixing it. Lifetime therapy goer, self-help junkie, always working on myself as if that's a noble thing. What's better is to actually say I worked on myself and I solved it and I used to be this way but now I'm this way. I used to do these things and have that problem but now I don't anymore. That is what we are actually seeking to achieve. So recognize in yourself if you've been working on something and working on something, are you over-identifying with being in the process of trying to solve something because you can actually let it go. That is an identity issue and by the way, the 2% of women who don't get the results with us are those who fail to show

14:49up for themselves. They don't attend the coaching sessions, they don't participate, they don't self-reflect and don't do what they signed up to do. They signed up yes and they paid yes which is crazy but they didn't actually take it all in and do the work. I know it sounds crazy and it is rare but it does happen despite our best efforts to make sure that it doesn't. My team and I are always surprised that women will spend $3,000, $5,000, $10,000, $12,000 and then disappear. So what actually does readiness look like in practice versus the version that just sounds good? Readiness isn't a feeling, it's not waking up one day suddenly brave, readiness looks like doing the uncomfortable assignment even when nobody's checking on it. It looks like telling your coach or your therapist the actual truth instead of the version that makes you look good. It looks like staying with the process when it's hard and uncomfortable. This by the way is what self devotion is.

15:50It's making yourself and your own growth the priority without apologizing for it and sticking to it because that is what is best for you even when it's uncomfortable. It's taking care of yourself opting in when you need to and opting out when you need to. Self devotion is not just bubble baths and vision boards. Self devotion as in I show up for my own change the way I'd show up for someone I love. So here's why naming which of the three it actually is matters. The fix is completely different for each one. The wrong modality means go find the right tool and the wrong guide means go find someone who will actually challenge you and tell you the truth because they care about you enough. But if it's you no tool no guide nothing and no one can help you until you actually decide that you are ready to be helped. And here's the good news in that because I don't want to leave you sitting in that last one feeling hopeless. Everything can help you a little when you are truly ready to

16:50be helped. Every little thing helps you get 1% better. Readiness is the actual precondition not the modality not the guide readiness. I've watched women make more progress in six weeks of being genuinely ready than in six years of the right program with the wrong readiness. Readiness isn't the soft variable in this equation it is the whole equation readiness decisiveness being coachable. So what more thought I want to leave you with is this something for you to have in your thoughts I am responsible for my own change nobody else is coming to do this for me that is the most freeing and liberating thing I can tell you because if you're the problem in what hasn't worked you are also the solution in what to do about it. It's the bitter pill and the magic pill all at once the bitter pill yes that you are the problem but it's the magic pill for solving all of life's problems because you are the solution. That is all for this episode but make sure to follow the show and subscribe because next week we are building on this episode I have part two is how to actually

17:56grow I'm giving you the actual method the specific practical thing that you actually do once you feel that you are completely ready and coachable. So thanks for listening I hope to see you next time.