The ‘F It’ Moment: How to Stop Being Intimidated by Life

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Stop being intimidated

One of the biggest problems I see people having to deal with when I’m coaching is that they’ve become INTIMIDATED by life.

This can show up in all kinds of different ways but the impact of having this problem is always the same: it stops them from taking the kind of ACTION they really want to be taking and from getting all of the amazing benefits that only action can bring.

In my own life, I struggled with this problem when I was younger and I’d been conditioned to stop believing in myself by various unhealthy influences in my life.

It was only when I really reached BREAKING POINT in my late teens and realised that the ideas in my head were stopping me from getting the RESULTS that I wanted from life that I was able to have a breakthrough moment of thinking “F it” and just decided to do whatever the hell I wanted (and disappeared to Japan).

That might sound a little reckless but – in retrospect – when you’ve been locked in your own MIND for however many years and then projected the mental cage outwards into the world around you then having a “F it” moment can be the only way out.

In fact, when things get serious enough and you resist reality for long enough – by NOT ACCEPTING YOURSELF – then eventually you’ll reach that crossroads where the only two options are to either keep resisting in a futile attempt to try and stay the same or to step up and say “F it” and then do something that might actually change your life and set you free.

These days I’m not intimidated by life at all and it’s because I put myself on a path of going out there and actually FIGURING OUT FOR MYSELF who I am and what I’m capable of (and not judging my own self-worth based on the results that I got) instead of letting the world TELL ME who I am and believing it without any real thought.

I could probably have never put myself on that path – or would’ve at least taken a lot longer to get there – if I didn’t reach that point of just saying “F it” and going out there and getting over my fear of truly LIVING.

If you find yourself being intimidated by life then the way out is REALITY but before you find it you might have to find yourself saying “F it” so that you can step outside of your programming and just going out and taking ACTION (the only real ‘cure’ for anything – especially the cure for a life lived from behind a mental cage).

This article will help you understand what that means and what you can do to start feeling truly ALIVE again.

Here we go:

Symptoms of Being Intimidated by Life

When we become intimidated by life we either STOP taking action completely or we only take the actions that are within our comfort zone and so won’t STRETCH us or show us the EDGE of our ideas about ourselves.

When this happens, we just end up living an inauthentic or UNREAL life where we ultimately play the role of a pawn in somebody else’s chess game (some boss we don’t even care about, some domineering partner or family member, or simply our ideas about ‘society’ as a whole).

The most common place we end up when we’re intimidated like this is the WAGE CAGE (i.e. some ‘job’ that you found yourself in because you forgot you could actually CHOOSE your own life if you stepped up and focused on the real stuff).

In short, we end up in this UNREAL STATE because by giving into intimidation we end up giving up our ACTIVE POWER and then listlessly floating along through life without any direction.

The way back to reality is to recognise the symptoms of living in this unreal manner, saying “F it”, and then getting back on track to finding our REAL LIVES again.

If you’ve become intimidated then you’ll probably suffer from some or all of the following symptoms:

Passive Mindset

When you become intimidated by life you’ll develop an UNREAL MINDSET that stops you from taking action.

This might show up in a variety of ways but the most common are things like negative thinking (which is almost always a way of trying to justify not taking action), ‘excusitis’ which is just a fancy way of saying that you’ll constantly come up with EXCUSES not to do what needs to be done, and self-limiting beliefs that tell you there’s something fundamentally ‘wrong’ with you or the world so there’s no point even trying.

All of these ways of SEEING and interpreting ourselves, the world, and reality just cause us to try and avoid acting in the world as a way of staying in our comfort zone (where we often don’t even want to be anyway because we’re miserable there as a result of resisting REALITY).

All of this is really caused by being INTIMIDATED by the perceived consequences of taking action and the emotions we’ll have to face by doing so (regardless of if we ‘fail’ or ‘succeed’).

Restlessness

As a result of not taking ACTION, you will probably become restless and irritable. This is simply because you know that there’s more to life but your intimidation has stopped you from going out and getting it.

When you don’t ACT, then you don’t let your unresolved emotional ‘stuff’ (shame, guilt, and/or trauma) heal itself in the way that it needs to and instead you ‘block’ the healing process behind the static beliefs that are stopping you from acting in the first place.

This causes inner friction and frustration that is experienced as RESTLESSNESS. This is really just the DESIRE of your real self – which you’ve become detached from – screaming to be expressed in the world (and the only way you can do that is by becoming AWARE of the real ‘stuff’, ACCEPTING what’s true, and then ACTING on it).

Never Speaking Up

Intimidated people are scared of the TRUTH and for that reason they refuse to speak up and share the truth as they see it. A big part of this is because they literally fear the truth itself because it would show the futility of their PASSIVE way of thinking and being in the world.

On a perhaps simpler level, people who are INTIMIDATED by life are almost always shame-driven individuals who have a feeling that they’re not good enough following them around like a ghost (which it is…a ghost of the past) and so they don’t want to risk ‘rocking the boat’ with their opinions or ideas in case somebody disagrees with them (which to the shame-driven individual is something that triggers all kinds of unsavoury emotions).

For this reason, when people have become intimidated by life they rarely – perhaps even never – share with others what they really think, feel, or want to do for fear of being rejected (not realising that by not sharing they’ve already REJECTED THEMSELVES).

Negative Thinking

We spoke about this above as a symptom of having a PASSIVE MINDSET (which all intimidated people eventually develop). Just to clarify a little more, negative thinking is ultimately just a form of UNREAL PESSIMISM that come from somebody trying to DEFLECT life at all costs by trying to explain it away.

That might sound a bit technical but all it means is this:

When people are intimidated it’s almost always because they have unresolved SHAME that causes them to feel like they’re not good enough in some way.

In order to try and hide from this shameful feeling (which is never real, always something they’ve picked up from outside of themselves and then taken onboard as a judgement that they continue to hypnotise themselves with), the intimidated person will concoct a POINT OF VIEW of life that justifies the story they’re telling themselves so that they can try to HIDE from their shame instead of dissolving it (by taking action).

This UNREAL POV is always negative because negativity always explains away action.

In practical terms, it just means that the intimidated person will always look on the (unreal) dark side of things in order to find reasons not to do the things that will actually free them (and you can always find a million reasons not to do things if you set your mind on doing that).

Procrastination

Another thing that intimidated people will do to avoid taking action is to procrastinate.

In simple terms, all that means is that they will focus on taking actions that feel like they’re doing something but that are actually a distraction from the REAL stuff they could be doing that will make a big difference to their lives.

For example, I know a few coaches that would benefit from organising and having SALES CALLS but because they’re worried that they’ll be rejected or even that they’ll be successful and actually have to coach somebody they instead procrastinate by playing around on social media all day or doing other unimportant things that are their ‘hobbies’ but won’t really get them anywhere.

These tasks allow them to tell themselves the story that they’re ‘busy’ and doing things whilst also (conveniently) avoiding the things that would get them where they want to be (with the cost of having to push through their comfort zones and face themselves and other people).

Not Taking the Actions You Really Want To Take

In short, then, when you’re an INTIMIDATED person, you might be ‘busy’ in the sense that you’re constantly doing things but you probably won’t be doing the things you really want to do because you’re AFRAID of having to face yourself at some level.

Some people can spend their whole lives wasting time on distractions and busyness for this reason. If you realise you have this problem as you’re reading this then the question becomes: “What are you going to DO about it?”

Maybe it’s time to say “F it” and do some of that stuff you’ve been putting off that could change your life?

Being Outcome-Dependent Instead of Outcome-Independent

I’ve already spoken about Outcome-Independence a lot on this site (because it’s so important). If you haven’t read the main article and you’re unfamiliar with the term, then all it means is that you can live in one of two ways:

-1: Outcome-dependence (Unreal): Where your levels of self-acceptance are CONDITIONAL and affected by the outcomes you get as you go through life.

-2: Outcome-independence (Real): Where you “do your best and forget the rest” but your levels of self-acceptance are UNCONDITIONAL and not affected by the outcomes you get.

In other words, with outcome-dependence you NO LONGER feel ‘good’ about yourself if you fail to get the results you want whereas if you’re outcome-independent then you still feel good even if you ‘fail’ as you know you can pick yourself up again, learn what needs to be learned, and either try again or ACCEPT some reality that can’t be changed.

When we’re INTIMIDATED by life, we end up putting our goals on a pedestal – because we think they’ll fill the void inside ourselves (that can only be filled by ACCEPTANCE OF REALITY) – and so we inflate their importance to the extent that we become INTIMIDATED BY THE THINGS WE WANT.

Again, this comes back to our relationships with ourselves because if we become a shame-dissolving person instead of a shame-driven one it becomes a lot easier to say “F it” and go out and chase our goals in an outcome-independent way.

Imposter Syndrome

If an intimidated person actually does manage to overcome themselves and take ACTION without working on their emotional ‘stuff’ then they find themselves in a position where they feel like a fraud (Imposter Syndrome).

This is ultimately because there ends up being a gap between the way that they show themselves to the world and the SHAME that they still feel as they used action as a vessel to try and run from it instead of dissolving it.

When this happens, the intimidated person ends up being worried about being ‘found out’ (i.e. having the world reveal itself to agree with the skewed distortions of their shame).

This just adds a whole new layer of intimidation that they have to deal with because they have to find new ways to keep ‘hiding’ themselves so that they won’t be exposed as a shame-driven individual.

In reality, they could just say “F it” and keep doing what’s worked for them to get them where they are but they’re so afraid of being “found out” that they take everything too seriously to see clearly.

General Lack of Confidence

Perhaps it goes without saying, but when people become intimidated by life, they lack confidence.

This is usually for two reasons that build on each other:

-1: They keep telling themselves a story about why they can’t/shouldn’t/best not take the ACTION that they want to take (and because practise makes perfect this causes them to miss out on their own potential).

-2: Because they don’t take this action, they end up not getting results (which just reinforces the unreal story they’re telling themselves).

Once you’ve stopped taking action and you end up believing that the consequences of not taking action are WHO YOU ARE then you end up in a self-perpetuating loop that causes your confidence to dwindle.

The longer you stay in this loop the worse things can get. It’s so bad that some people spend their whole lives on this hamster wheel, going around in circles and ruining their own lives.

A shortcut to getting out of it is to realise how bad things have become, have an “F it” moment, and go out there and start ACTING again (which as you build momentum and get results will increase your confidence).

Anxiety and/or Depression

If you don’t solve the problem of intimidation then you increase your odds of becoming anxious and/or depressed. This doesn’t mean that all anxiety and depression are caused by being intimidated but it does mean that a lot of it is.

The short version is this:

Anxiety will enter your life when you create a FALSE IMAGE of yourself in an attempt to hide from your intimidation instead of pushing through it and see what’s actually REAL.

This false image just causes problems because you’ll use it as a FILTER to try and avoid reality and avoiding reality will constantly add friction to your life (which is experienced as ‘anxiety’).

Depression enters your life when you’re so intimidated that you stop MOVING. This is a consequence of developing the passive mindset mentioned above – when you start to see and think in this way then you just end up taking yourself out of action, away from any sense of purpose, and experiencing live at the level of existence alone (instead of thriving in life).

In both cases, you need to learn to say “F it” so you can start moving in a more REAL way again.

How You Became Intimidated

If you recognise the above symptoms in yourself then there’s a good chance you’ve become intimidated by life (that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re living in constant fear but it means the limits of your fear are ripe for exploration).

This means that at some level you need to say “F it” and to start taking the right kind of action again so that you can get RESULTS from life that are REAL to you.

It might be helpful to know how you ended up being intimidated in the first place (if you look at kids, for example, they have to be TAUGHT to be intimidated by life – that means in your own case it’s something that you had to learn. The good news is that if you LEARNED it then you can also UNLEARN it).

Here are some of the most common reasons for becoming intimidated by life:

Basically, you got sent into your HEAD somehow.

The short-version of what happened is that you got sent into your HEAD for whatever reason and decided to identify with it and stay there.

Normally, this is because in our early years we are made to feel ASHAMED or GUILTY in some way (or in the most extreme cases, TRAUMATISED) and it causes us to think ourselves into a fragmented version of ourselves that disowns certain emotions and desires.

For example, maybe you had a high school teacher who insulted your artwork and so you created a ‘version’ of yourself that has no interest in artistic pursuits. The original interest is still down there – in the Shadow Territory – but you create a mental image of yourself that denies it.

This is just a hypothetical example but the point is that something happens that sends you into your head and your INTIMIDATION is just your ego’s way of keeping you there.

You might’ve listened to OTHER PEOPLE instead of yourself.

The only person who can live your life for you is…YOU.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where people will attempt to give us all kinds of unwarranted and unreal advice about how we ‘should’ live our lives.

More often than not, this advice is usually just passed on from one INTIMIDATED person to another and so it just ends up doing more harm than good.

If you listen to this advice then you’ll end up being intimidated and not listening to your own REAL VOICE which knows there’s nothing to be intimidated by.

You compared yourself to others (usually the highlight reel).

We can become intimidated – especially in the age of (anti)social media – when we look at the lives other people are portraying themselves to be living and compare ourselves and our lives to what we see.

The problem – as the old saying goes – is that when we do this we’re comparing our behind-the-scenes footage to their highlight reels. This can end up making us feel that we’re not “good enough” (that shame again) and this stops us from taking action (which, ironically, would get us where we want to be).

The solution is to realise that you can’t be compared to other people because you’re living your own life and you’ve had your own experiences which have made you the UNIQUE person that you are right now.

Comparing yourself to others is just a way of NOT ACCEPTING YOURSELF (because of the unresolved emotional ‘stuff’) and this prevents you from accepting who you are and then expressing it with your ACTIONS.

You lost your balls somehow (but you can get them back)

The super short version? Something has happened to you that’s caused you to lose your BALLS and to overthink every little detail of your life instead of ACTING on it.

You can get your balls back but you need to unlearn all of the BS that’s stopping you from recognising the truth about life: that the only person with any POWER over your life is YOU.

You let your ‘protective’ emotions like anger be turned against you (often into depression or sentimentality).

Sometimes, emotions that help us protect ourselves and to define healthy boundaries in our lives are ‘shamed’ or belittled by ‘guilt’ (in an attempt to control us) and so we develop an unhealthy relationship with them. The most common emotion that this happens with is ANGER.

When we disown our anger then it doesn’t ‘go’ anywhere – it just becomes something that we stop expressing. Because we have a mental ‘block’ that stops us expressing it externally, our anger simply TURNS AGAINST US and will be experienced as a hypercritical inner voice that constantly judges us, etc. eventually leading to a lack of action and then DEPRESSION.

Alternatively, we may also end up being overly sentimental about things because we end up experiencing everything through the FILTER of depression that a detachment from our healthy emotions can cause (and because a lack of anger can stop us from moving forward with our PURPOSE).

When we end up in this situation, we end up being intimidated by life because we think that we lack the strength to handle it (when, actually, we’re just hiding this strength from ourselves).

You let your interpretation of the past skew your vision of yourself in the present.

In short, if you’re intimidated by life in the present then you have a DISTORTED interpretation of the past and who you have become because of it.

What this might look like is different for everybody but it will usually involve you writing some kind of STORY for yourself to try and live out that DISOWNS vital parts of yourself because of shame, guilt, and/or trauma.

If you want to be REAL again and to stop being intimidated by life then you need to start writing a REAL STORY (or more accurately unlearning the BS story that stopped you expressing the real story in the first place).

This will probably mean FORGIVING YOURSELF at some level so that you can let go of the beliefs you picked up that caused you to be intimidated in the first place.

A short cut to doing this? You guessed it: you have to learn to say “F it”.

How To Stop Being Intimidated.

So how do we bring this all together and get life moving again? It’s simple in theory but not always in practice (which is the core problem).

The short answer is that you need to start talking ACTION.

The main SYMPTOM of the PROBLEM of being intimidated is that you stop taking REAL ACTION and then your life ends up being some unreal thing that you don’t want it to be.

You could spend the rest of your life trying to figure out exactly why you became intimidated in the first place (and maybe after reading the above list you have some basic idea) but the bottom line is that it doesn’t matter THAT MUCH.

If you want to REVERSE the symptoms of being intimidated then you need to start taking some kind of ACTION in your life.

More than that, you need to start taking REAL action so that you’re not just distracting yourself from the REAL version of yourself and making the problem worse (by being busy for the sake of being busy and procrastinating, etc.).

What this means in the context of your own life might be different to what it means in anybody else’s life but probably there is some ‘thing’ that you’ve wanted to be doing for a while but keep finding BS reasons (really EXCUSES) to put off doing.

If you can think of something like that then you’ve just given yourself as starting point.

All you really need to do now is to say “F it” and START doing it.

It’s either that or keep being intimidated and living an unreal life for the rest of your days.

If this story inspired or helped you then please share it with others! 🙂

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The Faces of Humanity: How We’re All Made Up of Different Versions of the Same Person

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Coaching/Life Philosophy/Mindset/Psychology

Live Without Your Mask

There’s a (pretty) famous Japanese proverb that talks about how we all have 3 faces. It goes like this:

“The first face, you show to the world. The second face, you show to your close friends, and your family. The third face, you never show anyone.”

I think it’s true, but – actually – we can take it a little deeper by exploring how there are more than three faces that the average person ‘has’ and also where they come from and why.

Perhaps even more importantly than raising our AWARENESS of this ‘stuff’, we can also ask ourselves what we need to ACCEPT, in the face of these faces, as well as what ACTION we can take to improve our lives and grow more real accordingly.

(Awareness -> Acceptance -> Action – it works every time: see ‘Shadow Life: Freedom from BS in an Unreal World’ if you wanna apply this to your life as a whole).

If you read this article, it will help you to make sense of the MECHANICS of your relationships with yourself and the world and to start unblocking yourself and moving forward towards the only thing that really matters: an experience of WHOLENESS (or ‘connection’) to yourself, the world, and reality.

The ‘problem’ with all of these faces we each have is that we either think they don’t ‘exist’ or we think that only one of them ‘exists’ and try to ignore other parts of ourselves.

Actually, it’s completely normal and healthy to have multiple versions of ourselves in different contexts and situations because different contexts and situations allow us to express certain REAL qualities about ourselves that we might not otherwise be able to express.

Everything real about us is always within us – sometimes, it just needs a little bit of help to express itself.

The ‘FACES’ we show the world aren’t necessarily the same as masks (which mean that we’re ‘hiding’) – although, of course, they sometimes can be if we have an unreal relationship with our own emotional ‘stuff’ (shame, guilt, and trauma in the shadow or fear, pride, and desire of the ego, etc.).

All of us are FLUID because reality is in FLUX – sometimes, we just forget that and this can cause confusion if we think that we’re supposed to be ‘static’ (which is just UNREAL).

These are the most common faces of the ‘average’ human being (if such a thing exists). As usual, they fit into the only three levels that anything can fit into: The Self, the World, and Reality.

How many do you recognise in yourself?

Self-Facing Faces

At the level of our relationship with our ‘Self’ we have four faces (at least). Whatever it is that we really are is what EMERGES in the interplay between the four of them.

Face 1: Who You Wanna Be (To Yourself)

The first face we all have is the ‘Future Facing Face’ (or whatever you wanna call it). This is basically the face we carry of the person we want to BECOME.

This is comprised of all kinds of things that are related to the desired future we have for ourselves and we have to constantly SHOW ourselves this face in order to remind ourselves of where we want or even INTEND to be going.

It is comprised of things like:

-Our standards

-Our goals

-Our ambitions

-Our vision

-Etc.

Some people show themselves this face more than others and – indeed – you have to keep showing yourself this face in order to BECOME this face.

The reason that a lot of people become stuck or stagnate in life is because they haven’t cultivated this ‘face’ and given themselves a direction to move in.

That’s when other less ‘positive’ (or – at least – future facing faces) faces tend to get a hold of them and weigh their sense of identity down in an unreal direction.

The only ‘problem’ with this ‘Future Facing Face’ is that if we have an unhealthy relationship with our own emotional ‘stuff’ (shame, guilt, and trauma etc.) then the future becomes a projection of our EGO, rather than anything REAL (because we are creating goals and a vision of ourselves based on the fundamental assumptions of denying who we really are as a way of avoiding facing our shadow ‘stuff’ etc.)

Face 2: Who You Think You Are Now (To Yourself)

The second ‘face’ that most of us have is the face of who we think we are NOW (i.e. in current reality). The keyword there is ‘think’ because it’s a product of our thoughts and mindset, not who we necessarily are in TRUTH.

Some of our thoughts might be ‘real’ or accurate (i.e. aligned with actual, valid truth) but often they aren’t because we get caught up in our INTERPRETATIONS of life, rather than life itself.

Anyway, this is the ‘Now Face’ and it’s a product of all of our self-assessments and conclusions about ourselves based on where we’ve been, where we think we’re going (based on the Future Facing Face), and the ways in which we JUDGE ourselves in the present to varying degrees of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ (which is what all judgements deal with).

It’s ultimately, a product of the STORY we tell ourselves about who we happen to be right now.

The interesting thing (imo) – and the thing that makes the biggest difference to the quality of our lives – is not necessarily the STORY itself, but the WAY IN WHICH WE TELL THIS STORY.

If we tell the story in a way that is fixed as a FINAL DRAFT then we will stop ourselves moving and take ourselves out of reality (and be less likely to show ourselves a real Future Facing Face because we have conditioned ourselves to be PASSIVE).

If we tell ourselves the story in way where it is constantly being written and updated then we will be more likely to keep learning and move into real life (whatever that is in the context of our own lives).

Face 3: Who You Fear You Might Be

The third face is the ‘Fear Face’ – this is the face of who you FEAR you might be. This is usually shown to us when our emotional ‘stuff’ gets a hold of us and distorts our view of ourselves by our SHAME, GUILT, or TRAUMA (or a combination of the three).

When shame distorts our vision of yourself, it will affect your view of both your ‘Future Facing Face’ and your ‘Now Face’ because it will take unresolved emotional ‘stuff’ from the PAST and cause you to stop trusting and believing in yourself (so these three faces are ultimately about the Future, the Present, and the Past and your real or unreal relationship with each).

This SHAME will tell you that you aren’t the type of person to be able to get the future that you want.

It will tell you that who you are right NOW is no good.

This is just your FEAR talking and the unresolved emotions you carry within yourself that make you feel like you’re not good enough. The FEAR FACE is the one that you show yourself when you start to believe that this shame is the truth about you (because you haven’t started to DISSOLVE the shame by facing REALITY and have instead become driven by it).

It’s the same with GUILT and TRAUMA:

When guilt distorts your vision, you convince yourself that you’re a ‘bad’ person in the present and that you ‘don’t deserve’ the future that you want. This is just your emotional ‘stuff’ showing you your FEAR FACE.

Trauma – which makes us feel powerless – will distort your ability to tap into your own power and will make you feel that you can’t CREATE the real future that your (real) ‘Future Facing Face’ wants to you to move towards (because it will distort your view and tell you that you’re passive).

There is more variation and complexity here but – ultimately – you have a face you show yourself in your weaker moments that is purely comprised of your FEARS about yourself.

This is ‘normal’ and part of the human experience but the more overpowering your emotions are the more you will show yourself this face and start to believe that it’s who ‘you’ really are.

If you listen enough and believe it, that’s when you stop moving and stop growing REAL and hide behind ego instead (which is just a mental box you put yourself in to keep all your emotions and ‘shadow’ stuff at bay).

Face 4: Your Shadow Face / The Unknown

Beneath the surface of all of the faces we do show ourselves from time to time, there is another UNKNOWN FACE that bubbles away beneath the conscious experience of ourselves and that drives the course of our lives without us even knowing (not consciously at least).

This is our SHADOW FACE and it’s comprised of all the different things about ourselves (qualities, goals, ideas, ‘parts’, etc.) that we have at some stage in our lives cast aside and disowned as being ‘unacceptable’.

This usually happens because the World CONDITIONED us to believe that certain things shouldn’t exist and then we hypnotised ourselves to live as though they don’t – this being the case, over the course of our lives we try and act like these things don’t exist or suppress them (with socially unacceptable emotions like ‘rage’, for example).

The TRUTH of the matter, however, is that these ‘hidden’ parts of ourselves are just as REAL as the parts that we do face and – as what’s real is always real – these parts never go anywhere.

In fact, they’re not even ‘parts’, they’re just certain EXPRESSIONS of what we are as a WHOLE. We just conditioned ourselves not to EXPRESS them.

Even though we try and hide this ‘Unknown Face’ from ourselves, the ‘parts’ that comprise it never go anywhere and continue to call for our attention (so we can integrate them) from beneath the surface of ourselves.

One of the most common ways that these parts ‘call out’ to us is through PROJECTION.

All that means – at the simplest level – is that we try and hide these parts behind the CONSCIOUS FACES we show ourselves but UNCONSCIOUSLY we project them onto the world outside of us.

A classic way of determining this kind of thing is to look at what annoys us in other people. For example, if somebody’s RAGE annoys you – it’s probably because you haven’t ACCEPTED your own rage that’s bubbling beneath the surface of your conscious faces.

What this means in the context of this article is that we all have a FOURTH FACE: the Shadow Face that is shown to us as a reflection of ourselves in the world or as a projection reflected back from others (if we can decode the matrix).

Facing this ‘Unknown’ face is the best chance we have at growing more WHOLE (instead of just being fragmented by only facing the fragmented, surface level faces created as a response to keep the shadow ‘stuff’ at bay).

World-Facing Faces

There are two main types of World-Facing Faces that we show the world (and which are affected by our relationships with ourselves and our ‘Self-Facing Faces’):

Face 1: The Character You Play In MOST Social Situations To Survive Them (Who You Show To Strangers/People You Just Met or Want to Keep at A Distance).

The first face that we have for the WORLD is the default face that we want to show other people. This is influenced by all of the SELF-FACING FACES and how we ‘feel’ about ourselves but it’s also inspired by two other things:

How we need others to see us (because of our emotional ‘stuff’).
How we have LEARNED to survive social situations in the past

This ‘DEFAULT’ FACE is just the one that we use to make sure we can get through life on a daily basis and to interact with people we might come across like strangers we have to talk to (people that work in coffee shops, taxi drivers, people we meet for the first time at networking events, etc. etc.).

We will try and COME ACROSS in a certain light in order to reinforce the stories we tell ourselves because of our Self-Facing Faces and the ‘Shadow Stuff’ we want to keep at bay but we will also put on a strategic way of being based on how we survived social situations in the past.

This might involve using strategies like ‘being polite’ or maybe even something like trying to be ‘humorous’ and making jokes. Whatever strategy you use, it’s ultimately about gaining CONTROL of the interaction so that you show the face you want to show.

Everybody does the same thing and it’s something we have to do to keep ‘society’ going. Depending on how REAL you are with yourself will affect how much of your real self can shine through(the most whole version of yourself possible in a given moment).

Even if you’re relatively REAL, there will still be a slight warming up period around new people whilst you figure them out – whatever strategy you use to ‘warm up’ is just your DEFAULT FACE for the world. It’s not ‘You’ – it’s something that you CHOSE based on your conditioning and expectations of yourself and others.

Face 2: The Face You Show The World In Different Partnerships or Groups (E.G. Might Be Different Among Friends That Parents).

This is where things get (more) complicated. There are multiple versions of this face which is the face that you show different PARTNERSHIPS or GROUPS that you’re involved in based on your own relationship with yourself (and your ‘Self-Facing Faces’) and the EXPECTATIONS that whatever group you’re in has for you (and what you think about these expectations and whether or not you care about modifying the way you come across because of them).

Here are some simple examples of your CONTEXTUAL FACES:

You might have a face that you show your parents that you wouldn’t show your friends.

You might have a face that you show your friends that you wouldn’t show your parents.

You might have a face that you show your boss that you wouldn’t show your wife/husband.

You might have a face that you show your wife/husband that you wouldn’t show your friends.

You might have a face that you show yourself (one of your Self-Facing Faces) that you wouldn’t show any of these people (not a group, just here to demonstrate the point).

The short-version of all this is that each one of these partnerships or groups forms a new SYSTEM and you need different faces to SURVIVE them because of the roles you’re asked to play and the EXPECTATIONS that come with that role.

You can still be REAL in each of these context but how much realness is able to creep out depends on the DEPTH OF INTIMACY in each of these relationships and whether or not you’re allowing expectations to be more main motivation or realness.

The number of these CONTEXTUAL FACES changes and varies over the course of our lifetimes depending on how many different groups we’re engaged in or how big our network is (or isn’t) etc.

Reality-Facing Faces

Even though in reality we are ultimately WHOLE (i.e. not divided into all of the different categories and labels that we use to make sense of the world – which we’re doing in this article too because it’s just how we make ‘sense’ of the world), we have at least two faces that show us a reflection of REALITY.

Face 1: The OBSERVER making sense of all this .

The first of our Reality-Facing Faces is the OBSERVING FACE. This is just the version of ourselves that occasionally (for most) is able to STEP BACK from the complexity and confusion of the interplay between all of the Self-Facing and World-Facing faces and to watch things unfold.

This Observing Face is important because it is a version of ourselves that we are able to show ourselves BEYOND JUDGEMENT.

All of the other faces mentioned so far – apart from the SHADOW FACE (which contains who we would be if we stopped judging ourselves)- are ultimately unreal because they involve JUDGEMENT at some level (which is always unreal because all you can do with reality is ACCEPT it – the opposite of judgement).

The OBSERVING FACE is an AWARENESS of what we have observed or are observing and allows us to hold space so that we can start to respond instead of just reacting to the promptings and conditionings of the other faces.

This comes from the place of WHOLENESS that is within us at all times (in fact, is what we are) and allows us to come from a place that’s REAL instead of being a fragmented consequence of our outdated biological wiring, emotional ‘stuff’, or social conditioning and programming (like the other faces mentioned at the levels of self-and world).

The FACT that you can OBSERVE all of the other faces is proof that they are not ‘You’. They are just survival tools that form the foundation of the EGO (which is fragmented, not the bigger which is an EXPERIENCE of being alive which always comes back to AWARENESS).

Face 2: The REAL self (who knows what to do with all this Awareness and to ACCEPT it and to take Action)

The final Reality-Facing Face that’s relevant here is the one (which is really part of the same process) that you show yourself when you ACCEPT what the OBSERVING FACE has become AWARE of and decide to take ACTION based on this (Awareness -> Acceptance -> Action, it works every time).

When you take this kind of REAL ACTION it allows you to stop holding yourself back based on the limitations of your Self-Facing and World-Facing Faces and to put yourself back on track towards a natural DRIVE towards wholeness that we all have.

By taking action you always learn more about reality and you always become more whole because you will eventually end up having to bring your SHADOW ‘stuff’ to the surface (as you find the EDGE – i.e. where all your ideas about yourself meet reality and you can grow more REAL).

In short, the realest faces you can show yourself are the ones that EMERGE when you are able to step back from the ‘other’ faces (Self-Facing and World-Facing) and to put yourself on the path of growing real.

When you do this, you realise that you have NO faces – you’re just FACING THE TRUTH and constantly moving forward and experiencing life as a WHOLE.

If this story inspired or helped you then please share it with others! 🙂

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Unreal Personality Defects and Types (How to Spot and Handle Annoying People)

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Coaching/Life Philosophy/Mindset/Psychology

The world is populated with a wide array of characters and personalities. This article will help you spot some of the most troublesome and give you some quick tips for handling them (though, as a general policy the best rule is always “GIMME SOMETHING REAL OR GTFO”).

A lot of these personality types and defects overlap with each other but consider this list a basic set of ‘building blocks’ that can be mixed-and-matched to build an unreal way of being in the world.

You may even notice some of these traits in yourself – just remember that the solution is always “REAL ALWAYS WORKS”.

The Action Avoider

The Action Avoider will do anything to improve their lives except take ACTION. They are constantly spending time doing courses, reading books, coming up with theories, etc. but never actually implement any of the things they learn here.

Because they’re constantly adding new ‘knowledge’ to their repertoire they’re able to come up with increasingly complicated and convoluted excuses for not getting anywhere (which allows them to fall into other roles listed here like the ‘Victim’ or the ‘Excuse Maker’).

How to handle: There’s no point wasting time trying to get an Action Avoider to act or improve their lives. Just smile, nod, and then let them get on with it.

The All-Eyes-On-Me

The All-Eyes-On-Me is kind of Attention Whore that will interrupt the flow of social situations whenever they feel people are not giving them enough attention. This might mean jumping in on conversations, speaking over other people, doing or saying unusual/extreme things to shock people, or causing drama in order to become the focal point of attention once again.

How to handle: You need to understand that these kinds of people are acting this way because they hate themselves and have confused external ‘attention’ for ‘love’. This doesn’t mean that they won’t be still annoying but it allows you to step back a little and be less annoyed. You can also just tell them to STFU if you feel so inclined (but they will probably just turn that into more DRAMA to get the eyes back on them).

The Anger Issues

The Anger Issues can flip at any moment and will scream, shout, and maybe even smash things up to assert themselves and let the world know how ‘angry’ they are. A lot of the time, these people will be quite self-righteous in their anger (because there’s a hint of the Moralist within them) and they will also get more angry as their anger is allowed to feed on itself.

These people are often angry for two reasons: 1) they have a ton of unresolved shame that has turned to rage and which causes them to explode, 2) they’re actually very afraid of life and the world and use their anger as a way of pushing people away as a sign that they shouldn’t be screwed with in the future.

How to handle: You need to understand that these poor, angry bastards are just responding to whatever they’ve been through in the past. As long as they’re just screaming and shouting and don’t get physically violent then you can usually just ignore them and let them release some steam.

The Attention Whore

The Attention Whore is just the cousin of the All-Eyes-On-Me.

Whereas the All-Eyes-On-Me tries to manipulate EXISTING social situations in order to get attention, the Attention Whore goes the extra mile and will actively try to attract attention by creating NON-EXISTENT situations to get attention.

Attention Whores have confused attention with love and so their modus operandi is to do extreme things in order to get attention. This might involve dancing around naked on Tik Tok (a fabricated situation), creating drama to talk about online (false situation), or simply filming and sharing things about their lives that have been blown out of proportion to get attention.

How to handle: Stand back and appreciate the absurd lengths that the ego will go to in order to be ‘seen’. Don’t give them attention and they’ll eventually get bored or move onto the next person.

The ‘Authority’

The Authority is somebody who is insecure but is able to hide behind a ‘role’ or mask that the majority of people will bow down to and treat as being an authority on the truth. Examples might be ‘doctor’’, ‘the boss’, ‘politicians’, etc. etc. (not all of them, just the ones hiding behind the role).

These people won’t have a rational discussion – especially when they know they’re wrong – and will instead just hide behind their role.

How to handle: These people will try and get you to avoid certain topics or to doubt yourself because you don’t have the ‘Authority’ that they do. What you need to do is value the TRUTH and to either stick with it or to refuse to argue with these people (unless you totally have to).

The Breakthrough

The Breakthrough is a kind of Action Avoider but focuses on introspection and analysing themselves (because they’re SELF-OBSESSED). In short, these people are constantly having breakthroughs with their ‘healing’ but always have the same problems (i.e. they don’t get anywhere or move forward).

This is because these people have convinced themselves that raising AWARENESS of themselves is the only way forward in life. Actually, they’ve forgotten (or don’t know) that this is just the first step and that we also need to ACCEPT certain things about life as well as to take ACTION.

How to handle: Let these people get on with their self-obsession and to keep having their breakthroughs. They’re not hurting anybody except themselves.

The Chameleons

These people don’t know who they are so they create a personality to match yours. At first, this might seem like you’ve made a new friend but a lot of the time they’ll try and manipulate you into meeting their emotional needs or simply in getting you to fill the void inside themselves.

You can’t always spot a chameleon but a clear sign is that they always agree with you. This might seem ‘nice’ but it’s actually unhealthy as if you never disagree with a person then there’s no chance of you growing together.

How to handle: If you come across a chameleon you need to find a way to get them to show their true colours. This might involve an honest conversation or to put them in a situation where they get out of their comfort zone.

The Chip-On-the-Shoulder

This personality type usually feels like the world owes them something because of something they’ve already experienced. What is ‘owed’ will be different depending on what the Chip-On-the-Shoulder thinks they’ve been through.

For example, they might think the world owes them a living because they never asked to be born; they might think the world owes them attention or recognition because they secretly believe they’re a genius, they might believe that everybody should kiss their asses because they’re superior for some reason.

Most often, they have suffered with something – like an illness or whatever – and they think that entitles them to have everything else be okay. When it isn’t they get surly.

How to handle: You need to remember that you don’t owe anybody anything (and they don’t owe you anything either).

The Clique Member

The Clique Member usually has low self-esteem and a weak sense of self and so they join a group (of other assholes)in order to fill the void (because without the group they feel like nobody).

Because the clique and its rules gives them a sense of worth and meaning they will use the clique as a benchmark for judging others and attempting to feel better about themselves.

How to handle: Remind yourself that anybody who needs a clique to feel good about themselves is compensating for something.

The Comparer

The Comparer is a twisted individual who needs you and others to be jealous of them; they are never fully present in social situations because they’re constantly comparing where everybody stands in relation to everybody else in relation to some empty/unreal point system they’ve created (for example, who is the most ‘liked’, ‘respected’, ‘whatever’).

These people are very insecure so they create an imaginary standard to hold others to based on how they already WANT to believe that they’re ‘winning’ (wanting to believe and the actual truth are different things).

How to handle: If you meet one of these idiots you need to remember that the ‘score’ they’re keeping is unreal (so let them keep the points). You also need to remember that if they’re comparing themselves to you and trying to make you jealous then you already ‘won’.

The Competitor

A cousin of the Comparer – instead of trying to make you jealous or keeping score around imaginary games in their head, the Competitor will try and turn EVERYTHING into a competition so that they can feel ‘better’ (again compensating for whatever feeling of worthlessness that’s motivating them to act in this way).

If you say you’ve travelled to 10 countries, for example, the Competitor will tell you that they’ve been to 20. If you get paid £50 an hour, they’ll get paid £100. These people are driven by TOXIC shame which has caused them to constantly externalise their inner battle and try to convince themselves that they’re ‘better’ than the shame makes them feel.

How to handle: A lot of the time, The Competitor is actually making things up. Even if they’re not, the only way to win the game is not to play and to realise that being ‘better’ at certain things doesn’t sum up your worth as a whole.

The Compromiser

The Compromiser refuses to grow so tries to convince themselves that what they have is what they want (even though it clearly isn’t). In other words, this personality type will constantly try and persuade themselves and others that what they have in life is exactly what they wanted (when it isn’t because they’re unhappy).

This is just a way of maintaining their comfort zone and not pushing through to the other side of their own shame, guilt, and/or trauma. They’re harmless enough but you can waste a lot of time on them if you’re thinking about working together or something like that.

How to handle: Let them get on with it. Eventually, something might wake them up when reality creeps in.

The Conformists

Conformists are obsessed with following rules a certain way (because it gives them a sense of control). Almost always, this is because they have lost touch with who they really are and need to be told what to do in life to make up for it.

Conformists need the rules to exist and to be rigid in their adherence of them as a kind of CONTROL FREAKERY that keeps all of their unresolved emotional ‘stuff’ at bay and gives them a sense of order in a chaotic universe.

How to handle: Let them follow whatever rules they like whilst still following your own (as long as you’re not hurting anybody).

The Conspiracy Idiot

This isn’t to say that conspiracies don’t exist but this kind of person instantly jumps to thinking that EVERYTHING is a conspiracy without giving things rational thought. Basically just a reactive way of being that supports their EGO.

Usually, these people think they’re being big brained or have genius levels of intelligence but actually all they’re doing is refusing to believe anything, rather than using their brains to figure out what’s worth believing and what isn’t.

How to handle: Take everything with a pinch of salt and realise that believing nothing is just as dumb as believing everything.

The Control Freaks

Control Freaks need to control every little detail of life so that they don’t have to face their own toxic shame, etc. This is just a defence mechanism to keep a false sense of order in their lives so that nothing unexpectedly triggers their unresolved emotional ‘stuff’.

Control Freaks need things to be a certain way so that they can keep their EGOs exactly where they are and – by extension – keep avoiding all of their ‘shadow’ stuff or the things about life that will challenge them.

How to handle: Realise that Control Freaks fear chaos because they fear themselves. Don’t let them tell you what to do.

The Copycat

The Copycat wants to be you for some reason: usually because you have some knowledge that they want or because you embody certain qualities that they fear they lack in themselves.

The Copycat will constantly pick your brain and then pass off your knowledge as their own. They will also copy your style/creative work/personality and act like they’re original.

How to handle: Remember that imitation is the biggest form of flattery (apparently) and let them get on with it.

The Criticiser

The Criticiser is constantly finding ways to be critical and to stop you from moving forward with your goals (whilst usually having either given up on their own goals or rarely making progress). They are basically trying to make you DOUBT yourself.

In most cases, the people criticising what you’re doing won’t be doing anything in their own lives. That’s actually why they’re doing it: to justify their own lack of action and to persuade you not to take any so they won’t have to face themselves.

How to handle: Realise why these people are criticising, don’t listen, and keep doing your ‘thing’ until you either get results or learn a lesson.

The Crusader

A kind of ‘Hero’ who thinks that they’re extra important because they’re on some kind of crusade. Usually, this is just a BS thing they either made up or exaggerated because they want to feel like ‘saving the world’ gives them the moral high ground.

In most cases, the Crusader is just a Moralist that’s come up with some kind of cause to bolster their levels of self-worth and ability to try and control others with guilt (and thus feel powerful) for not doing all of the amazing things that they are.

How to handle: Realise that anybody who is on a crusade to save the world is usually trying to avoid or hide from themselves behind it.

The Deal Maker

Always on the verge of the next big deal or million dollar breakthrough. Been this way for years and never have any money. The Deal Maker is harmless enough unless you actually get involved with them as a business partner (and lose all your money).

Ultimately, these people are projecting their success into the future because they feel that they don’t have enough of it now and don’t want to do any real work. Also they truly WANT to believe that the next deal will be the one and so they can get incredibly deluded because they need things to work out to hide from their shame or whatever unresolved ‘stuff’ they have.

How to handle: Don’t get involved in any of these ‘deals’.

The Defensive Type

Constantly looking for a fight or trying to prove something to the world (to make up for their own ‘stuff’). The defensive type is really only ever trying to defend themselves from one thing: the TRUTH.

The defensive type has usually created a very rigid self-image for themselves and will constantly be on the lookout for anything that contravenes this image so they can deflect it (in a reactive way, usually – actually reacting to their own shame, not the actual external stimuli).

How to handle: As with many of these types, you just have to let them get on with it – don’t try and change them as they can only change from the inside.

The Denialists

People who don’t want to face reality despite the evidence to the contrary. Will continue believing the sky is green because it suits them.

The Denialists don’t want to face reality – no matter what – because that will mean facing their own EMOTIONS or letting go of the self-image they created in order to hide from these things in the first place.

The Denialist needs to seem themselves in a way that keeps their emotions at bay, the world in a way that justifies why they seem themselves in the way they do, and reality is seen as being whatever they want it to be so they don’t have to face the TRUTH.

How to handle: You need to realise that people always believe what they want to believe, especially Denialists. Don’t waste time trying to change them (it’s not your job anyway).

Drama Kings and Queens

The more unreal somebody is the more likely they’ll be to become a DRAMA KING or QUEEN. This is because in order to continue being unreal we need to bring drama into our lives to distract us from reality and to create situations that support the unreal stories we’re telling ourselves.

These people are constantly causing drama because they need attention and a way of avoiding their shame, etc. In short, by creating dramatic situations, it allows them to get attention – which is a substitute for ‘love’ when we’re being unreal. It also allows them to keep DISTRACTING themselves from the work they need to do on themselves to GROW REAL.

How to handle: Refuse to engage in drama and ignore their pleas for attention when you don’t engage.

The Driven One

The Driven One is completely outcome-dependent and needs to achieve a certain goal before they will give themselves permission to feel good about themselves.

Because their self-worth depends on achieving a certain goal, they become MANIC and blind to anything else. This obsession (which is always EGO) means that they will backstab just about anybody to get there.

How to handle: Realise that these people are only using you and could stab you in the back at any time.

The Dumb Rude Person

People of low intelligence are usually incredibly rude. They have no ability to look at themselves (a short-term superpower). Normally, these people won’t get any results but they will be rude to you on the way to not getting there.

How to handle: If somebody is habitually rude to you then you can assume that they’re probably of low intelligence and so not let it bother you (this applies to their compliments as well as their insults).

The Emotional Retard

Constantly flipping out and has no ability to regulate their emotions. Often uses lashing out as a way to get attention (because it used to work with mummy and daddy).

The Emotional Retard will usually think that their emotions or ‘feelings’ are the most important thing in the world but they won’t know how to handle them.

How to handle: Emotional Retards are best avoided. If you do come across one, then you need to learn to ignore their outbursts and not feed into them.

The Energy Vampires

Could have a lot of the personality defects already discussed but ultimately just end up draining you. They feed on your energy because they have used up all of their own with their EGO stuff.

How to handle: If spending time with a certain person leaves you feeling drained then you need to find a way to GTFO.

The Entitled One

Feels like they can have whatever they want whenever they want. Over-inflated self-importance. This is similar to a few of the types already mentioned but is usually down to a sense of INFLATED SELF-WORTH.

More often than not, these Entitled Ones were raised to be little princes or princesses by their parents and it’s carried into adulthood.

How to handle: Realise that reality will eventually humble these people and if it doesn’t at least they’ll be miserable (as their expectations are constantly disappointed).

The Excuse Maker

Constantly coming up with new excuses not to do what clearly needs to be done in their lives or for having let you down. Will often be emotionally manipulative.

The Excuse Maker is a kind of Action Avoider that is skilled at coming up with BS reasons as to why they haven’t needed to do certain things.

How to handle: In most cases, the Excuse Maker is only hurting themselves. If they make excuses about responsibilities towards you then you need to call them out on it (and then walk away and count your losses if that doesn’t get you anywhere).

The Expert

A person who has a lot of CONCEPTUAL knowledge (not experiential knowledge) about a certain type of topic and will constantly use this knowledge to put themselves on a podium. Often happens with psychologists, psychotherapists, and coaches (*cough*).

The Expert will hide behind their knowledge and use it to make you doubt yourself as a kind of ‘Authority’ (mentioned above).

How to handle: Realise that knowledge is important but that it can also be used to manipulate or control people. The only thing that counts at the end of the day is what gets you RESULTS and improves your life.

The Future Famous

These guys think they’re going to be famous one day so act like assholes now.

How to handle: Walk away and watch from a distance.

The Genius

Somebody who usually does some kind of ‘artistic’ thing and believes that the world likes it as much as they do. Normally, their ‘art’ (or whatever) isn’t as good as they think but they’ve impressed themselves and somebody in their lives (mummy and daddy, usually) is making them think they’re God’s gift to the arts (or whatever).

The Genius is usually very pretentious and self-important and will constantly be trying to get you to see them as they see themselves (‘special’).

How to handle: Remember that we can all be a genius if we’re open to our own potential; don’t believe people’s hype about themselves, believe your own eyes.

The Gossip

If they’re gossiping about others, they’ll gossip about you.

The Gossip wants to use words to bring people down in order to build themselves up. As usual, this usually comes back to unresolved SHAME and an attempt to compensate for feelings of low self-worth and to prevent themselves and others from taking ACTION (and growing real).

How to handle: Don’t engage in gossip and don’t trust anybody that does.

The Groupie

The Groupie will constantly tell you about ‘famous’ people they’ve come into contact with, no matter how indirectly. Their main aim here is to show off a social signal of status and to make themselves seem exclusive or important.

The fact that people are impressed with ‘celebrities’ as people who are famous for the sake of fame itself (as opposed to actually having talent etc.) is almost always a sign that somebody doesn’t feel as successful as they want to and have chosen to live vicariously through somebody else.

How to handle: Smile and nod. Let the Groupie keep kissing ass.

The Grudge Holder

The Grudge Holder holds a grudge against you or the world and acts like a psychopath because of it. Essentially, they lack the capacity to let go of the past and to forgive themselves and others.

A Grudge holder is dangerous because they are using the grudge to explain away their own personal responsibility for their lives and using a specific thing that happened in the past as an excuse for not moving forward.

Almost always, their identity is involved and they are unable to see themselves as they need to see themselves because of whatever happened.

How to handle: If you actually did something wrong then you need to apologise. Once you’ve done that they either forgive you or you move on. If they’re holding a grudge over some (imaginary) slight to their self-image then you should probably just try and GTFO as the issue is much deeper (their emotional ‘stuff’).

The Guilt Trip

These people will constantly try and make you feel guilty as a way of controlling you. Essentially, they don’t want you to DO anything that will allow you to change or grow into a more authentic version of yourself because they like the way you are now (because it benefits them).

If you do start growing more real they’ll say things like “You’ve changed” – what that actually means is that they don’t know how to control you anymore and they don’t like it because now they might have to grow too.

How to handle: You need to remind yourself that guilt is a useless emotion. It only benefits whoever is trying to control you.

The Guru

The Guru wants to solve everybody else’s ‘spiritual’ (etc.) problems but completely refuses to change themselves. Really, this is just a type of MORALIST (see below) who thinks that the path to salvation is being just like them.

Almost always, this is just an ego ‘thing’ – they like the idea of being able to tell people how to live their lives and what needs to be done to save the world (which always benefits them).

How to handle: If you come across a ‘guru’ just remind yourself that they’re just as human as the rest of us.

The ‘Healed’ One

The Healed One has read a ton of self-help books and/or watched videos online and now thinks that they’ve done all of the work on themselves required to be a perfect, ‘healed’ human being.

In a way, the Healed One is just a type of GURU who will act like they have all of the answers about what YOU need to do to heal your trauma and how quickly you should make progress doing so.

How to handle: The Healed One is usually hiding certain things from themselves and is focusing on healing everybody else as a distraction. Remember that you only need to listen to yourself when it comes to your own ‘stuff’.

The Hero (the “more than” human)

Always trying to deny their own weakness and constantly creating imaginary problems or causes that they can swoop in and ‘solve’ to be seen as a ‘Hero’. More often than not, they will try and force other people into the role of either the ‘Persecutor’ or the ‘Victim’ to support their Ego DRAMA (see the Drama Triangle).

The internet has given birth to all kinds of heroes who create causes and crusades (that never seem to solve any problems in real life). They often build themselves around vague concepts that nobody would really disagree with – needing world peace, saying everybody should be kind, trying to create hope, etc.

Most heroes are trying to compensate for something and/or are motivated by the attention and validation they’ll get by dedicating themselves to their Crusade.

How to handle: If it’s a crusade you actually care about then get involved but ask yourself if the Hero is actually solving the problem or just using it as an excuse to get attention/money/power/whatever.

The Identity Trap

Wants to see themselves as a certain way and will ask the world to see them that way too (regardless of how real it is or whether they’ve done the necessary work).

This could be anything: maybe they want to be seen as an ‘artist’, a ‘genius’, a ‘nice guy’ or maybe it will be something more specific. Either way, the Identity Trap is using language to try and control you and to change the power dynamic of the relationship by having you defer to their INTERPRETATION of reality (not reality itself).

How to handle: Help people move towards their goals and be supportive but don’t be worried about seeing a spade as a spade (whilst also knowing you might be WRONG).

The Inner Child

The Inner Child will throw a temper tantrum and becomes bratty when things don’t go their way. This is really just a form of emotional manipulation (i.e. using their emotional stuff to take you hostage and get what they want from you).

The Inner Child will usually blame their tantrums on their childhood trauma or whatever issues they picked up back then. All they’re really doing is avoiding responsibility for their own lives and giving into their emotions instead of learning to regulate them and get where they want to be.

How to handle: If you meet an Inner Child remember that even if ‘bad’ stuff has happened in our lives we are still responsible for what we choose to do after.

The Jealous Ones

Always letting you know that they’re more successful than you (because they perceive you to be winning in some way and so want to try and put you in your place).

The Jealous Ones have the same underlying shame as the Comparer and Competitor but they have created a FALSE IMAGE of you in their minds based on their own insecurities. Essentially, they see you as ‘winning’ in some area and because this drives them mad they have to let you know it’s not the truth (even though it might be – not that it matters).

How to handle: The Jealous Ones live in their own sad little world and that’s the best place for them. Just keep doing your own ‘thing’.

The Judger

The Judger will constantly be judging other people in an attempt to ensure that they never have to look at themselves (all judgement comes from EGO and they just want to keep their ego where it is).

The Judger is related to the Moralist but not just about what’s ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ but also what’s ‘good’ and ‘bad’ (or anything else in between). These people are obsessed with giving you a label that makes them feel ‘good’ about themselves and makes you look ‘bad’.

How to handle: Remember that all judgements are unreal and only exist at the level of ego.

The Kiss Ass

Constantly kissing ass as a strategy to get where they want to be in life but doesn’t realise it’s actually just making things harder for them.

Nobody respects a Kiss Ass (including themselves) – they use ‘ass kissing’ as a social strategy because they think it’s a shortcut to getting where they want to be. Almost always it backfires because people will use them and not give them what they want.

How to handle: If somebody kisses your ass ignore it. Refuse to kiss anybody else’s.

The Know-it-All

The Know-it-All has romanticised conceptual knowledge (like facts and figures in the form of TRIVIA) and thinks that this is all there is to human intelligence (basically, that it’s about memorising things). Because they have overvalued being ‘intelligent’ in this way they also refuse to listen to anybody else at any time (because it goes against their self-image).

These people know everything except how to be happy (if you observe them). Their lives are usually a mess because they are incapable of LEARNING and moving forward (if you think you know everything, you won’t be open to learning new things).

How to handle: Let these poor creatures keep pushing the rock up the hill of life whilst you get on with yours.

The Losers

Losers are usually lazy people or those suffering from many of the personality defects listed in this article. Because they haven’t got anywhere real, they decide to stay in an unreal place with a bunch of other unreal people.

How to handle: Stay away.

The Magic Pill Taker

The Magic Pill Taker uses ‘magic’ to escape their problems and to keep justifying their personality defects. More often than not these people will also believe that they have magical powers like being psychic or whatever (though they are incapable of using these powers to actually improve their lives and get what they want).

Despite the evidence, these people will dismiss the actual truth about life (that you need to WORK to get what you want and not rely on magic) as being too left-brain or logical etc. (when you need left and right brain thinking to get anywhere).

How to handle: If you want to drive them mad ask for some evidence of their [psychic] abilities. Otherwise, just refuse to buy into this magical way of thinking and stay real because REAL ALWAYS WORKS.

The Material Boy/Girl

Obsessed with material goods and think that these things will make up for their lack of real character or personality. In short, these people think their expensive clothes/cars/whatever make up for either having no personality or having an awful one.

How to handle: Choose to invest in experiences and developing character instead of material goods. Don’t be impressed by superficial things.

The Money Pit

The Money Pit is always talking about how much money they have (though often seeming to have financial problems if you look between the gaps). They will often be a Material Boy/Girl because they want to give the illusion of wealth and status rather than actually cultivating it.

How to handle: Remember that money is a tool, not a personality.

The Moralist

Constantly needs to define and be what’s ‘right’ (but almost always about why you should change). The Moralist thinks that they’ve figured out all of the rules and regulations about how we should behave if we want to live a moral life.

Unfortunately, the Moralist won’t use this information to improve their own life and be a better person but to tell you what you need to do to conform to their thinking.

How to handle: Remember that there is no ‘Final Solution’ and there are plenty of moral ways to live a good life.

The Naysayers

Will try and turn you off getting started on your goals – usually because they gave up on their real life and want everybody else to do the same.

You’ll find Naysayers all over the place and they have usually never done anything with their own lives (which is why they’re trying to stop you from getting started).

How to handle: Let your results speak for you by refusing to listen and getting things done.

The Needy Ones

The Needy ones are constantly needing things from others that they can only give themselves. For example, they might constantly be seeking ‘happiness’ outside themselves or even things like ‘love’ or ‘self-acceptance’.

The Needy Ones don’t realise that they have a lot more power over themselves and their lives than they believe. Often, they have also been conditioned to think that strength comes from being vulnerable so they tell you every little thing that they’re thinking, feeling, and going through.

What they really want is for you to tell them to snap out of it and that everything will be okay.

How to handle: You can help some of these people if you can get them to see the power of self-responsibility and to see that being ‘vulnerable’ doesn’t mean sharing every feeling that pops up, just the ones that are holding us back.

The Negative Ones

Constantly looking for negatives or reasons why things won’t work. No matter how good things might be, these people will find a million problems for every solution.

In short, the reason these people are like this is because they don’t want things to work out. That will just mean changing or facing themselves.

How to handle: Realise that these people are trying to avoid responsibility or something. Figure out what it is and refuse to take it for them.

The Nice Guy/Gal

These fake ‘nice’ people are actually just CHAMELONS. They use being ‘nice’ as a social strategy which often works and gets them the results that they need.

The problem is that a lot of these ‘nice’ people will actually stab you in the back when you’re no longer useful to them and they’ve found somebody more ‘important’ to be nice to.

How to handle: If somebody is too ‘nice’ all the time then ask yourself what they might want.

The Past Personified

Somebody who wants to keep reminding you of mistakes or weird things you might’ve done in the past (even though you’re completely over it and have moved on with your life).

The Past Personified is basically trying to stop you from growing because they’re jealous or whatever and they wanna put you in your place for the sake of their own ego. They’re trying to throw obstacles in your path and test that the changes and healing you’ve gone through are real.

How to handle: If somebody keeps bringing up your past then remind yourself that you’re over it and tell them to catch up. If you’re not over it, then still don’t listen to them and figure out what you need to do to move on (which normally involves a process of Awareness, Acceptance, and Action).

The Pretentious One

The Pretentious One tries to cover their internal shame by creating a ‘unicorn’ (i.e. idol) out of some idea or concepr as a way of raising their own status. Design, art, music, etc. are all popular targets for the Pretentious One.

Essentially, what these people do is to inflate the value and importance of these things, acquire unusual or esoteric information about them, and then try to make you feel bad for not understanding (even though what is to be understood will keep changing so they can gatekeep).

How to handle: Realise that these people have overvalued whatever they’re being pretentious about as a substitute for their own perceived lack of value. In reality, nothing is that important.

The Problem Psychic

Always looking into the future for the next problem (because if things are okay now then their whole ‘Victim’ identity goes out the window).

Essentially, the Problem Psychic has created a personality for themselves that is dependent on having problems. If they don’t have one they don’t know who they are so they need to project into a future where everything sucks (so they have something to complain about, get attention, and stay the same – i.e keep their ego right where it is).

How to handle: Stay in the ‘now’.

The Psychopath

Obsessed with POWER, the Psychopath will do whatever it takes to be able to put themselves in a perceived position of power. This is sometimes because they’re a SADIST but also because power leads to money and sex (and their EGO usually needs both).

A Psychopath has no compassion or empathy and uses this to focus only on the goal of getting the power they desire. If they’re a Sadist, they may take pleasure in destroying people on the way there.

How to handle: Stay away as much as possible.

The Sadist

People who hate themselves and so find degenerate ways to take pleasure in other people’s misery. This might involve creating dramatic situations for their own pleasure where they can watch people squirm or it might be something more ‘simple’ like bullying somebody or turning a group against an individual to watch the fallout.

This is almost always about power and attempting to feel a sense of dominance which is experienced as superiority (to compensate for actual feelings of shame and inferiority).

How to handle: Realise why Sadists are playing the games they play and don’t react like you’re bothered. They’ll get bored and move onto their next victim.

The Sex-On-Legs

Somebody who thinks they’re completely attractive and irresistible to everybody (“every body”) so you should do whatever they want. The Sex-On-Legs has only ever been valued for their looks and so society tolerates their other personality defects.

As looks fade with age, a lot of these people end up having nothing to offer in later life except all of the gifts that the various personality defects bring.

How to handle: Don’t tolerate BS from people just because they look nice. Value yourself and expect more (from a relationship, anyway).

The Sex Pest

Constantly talking about how much sex they have as though it’s something they just invented themselves. Normally, Sex Pests are so impressed with the fact that somebody had sex with them that they need to slip every detail into every conversation.

Ultimately, the Sex Pest has made two mistakes: 1) They think sex is rare. 2) They think nobody else is having it.

They want everybody to know about it because they rarely get it and have a lot of shame around it.

How to handle: Change the topic. Congratulate them on losing their virginity at last (to be so excited).

The Smart Insecure Person

Some smart people are too smart for their own good. It can turn against them as insecurity which makes them play all kinds of weird games. This is the opposite of Dumb Rude Person.

These types use their intellect for extreme introspection and self-analysis but – because they’re driven by shame – this always leads to them coming up with reasons why they’re useless and why the thing they want to do won’t work out (thus turning them into Action Avoiders).

How to handle: Keep moving.

The Social Media Scenario Maker

Constantly worried about how they come across on social media and so creating scenarios to show off a life that doesn’t exist. You can’t really hang out or be present with these types because they’ll constantly be looking for reasons to whack their camera out and manufacture a life that supports their EGO, not reality.

How to handle: Stay off camera.

The Solipsistic Navel Gazers

Completely self-obssessed. Constantly analysing themselves, talking about themselves and their problems. You’ll feel like you don’t exist around these people because they only like talking about themselves.

They do this because they feel like they don’t exist if they’re not talking (about themselves). Naturally , these people are Action Avoiders because the only thing that moves about them is their mouths.

How to handle: Smile, nod, and never look back (once you’ve managed to get away).

The ‘Special’ Ones

People who think they’re ‘special’ (i.e. ‘more’ or ‘less’ than human) and that everything that happens to them is way worse or way better than any other human being on the planet. This is just one of the (many) ways the ego stops people embracing their humanity via REALITY (which would allow them to move and grow again).

No matter what happens to these people it will be INTERPRETED as evidence of being special. Despite this, these Special Ones very rarely do anything special overall.

How to handle: As long as they’re not hurting you just let them get on with it.

The ‘Spiritual’ Egotist

Will act as though they’ve figured out deep spiritual truths (though almost always miserable which is why they got into spirituality in the first place). Will dismiss reason or truth as being a product of somebody not being evolved enough to understand ‘magic’ (i.e. whatever BS supports their ego).

This is linked to wanting to be ‘special’ and to ensure that unreal beliefs – which are always about what we want to be true, not the truth – are kept in place. In short, these people use spirituality to mask their shame and the ego it created instead of using it to dissolve that shame and find their true self.

How to handle: Stay on your own path and don’t waste time trying to change people’s beliefs (they can only do that themselves and you are probably wrong somewhere anyway).

The Swinger

Fluctuates between being ‘happy’ and having it all figured out vs. being completely hopeless and lost. This is usually because they’re avoiding reality but sometimes convince themselves that some crazy new scheme/idea will make them happy.

They would get better RESULTS if they were disciplined, consistent, and focused but because they’re not they experience life as a series of ups-and-downs as they find a shiny new thing to mask their existential dread only for reality to creep in again (before they move onto the next shimmering thing).

How to handle: Don’t buy into the fads and stay real.

The Sycophant

A special kind of ‘Kiss Ass’ that’s usually kissing an ass that isn’t yours. You have to be careful around them because they’ll sell you out to whoever that happens to be if they think it will get them whatever they want.

How to handle: Always be careful what you tell or do in front of anybody who kisses ass.

The Truth Sayer

Somebody who thinks they are the final word and authority on the truth (but usually only tells the truth about other people and can’t stand hearing home truths about themselves – *cough*).

They will happily tell others “the truth” about their lives but can’t handle others telling it about theirs. The ‘truth’ here is that if you value the truth it applies to everybody equally (even if you don’t value it, it applies to everybody equally).

How to handle: Remember that nobody knows the truth about what it’s like to be ‘You’ than you do (though don’t fall into the trap of thinking that means stop learning and growing).

The User

Only calls you or enters your life when they need something. Never there when the tables are turned or if you hit hard times (and so have nothing worth being used for).

These people are often Ass Kissers but they may also be Guilt Trippers or other manipulative types to get what they want from you.

How to handle: Pay attention to those who are only around when things are going well or those who try and make you feel guilty.

The Victim (the “Less than” human)

The Victim is constantly denying their own human power and ability to make CHOICES about their lives in order to try and get sympathy and to make excuses about not taking action. Usually, they will seek out a HERO to help them justify this way of thinking and seeing themselves.

Getting sympathy is often used as a way to distract others by focusing on the problem, not the solution. This is because moving forward will mean taking responsibility for the choices already made and the ones moving forward (which means facing reality).

How to handle: Have compassion for people who have struggled but realise that being a victim is only temporary in reality.

The Wannabes

These people are envious of something you have or the way that you are but won’t do the WORK to get there (so they’ll waste their time talking about you with other Wannabes and trying to drag you down – in their own minds at least).

They want the RESULTS you already got but don’t wanna commit to the PROCESS that got those results. To compensate they’ll tear you down and become MORALISTS to explain why whatever you’ve achieved is ‘wrong’.

How to handle: Let them enjoy their misery and keep going.

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The Cost: Are You Prepared to Pay the Price for Your Real Life?

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Coaching/Life Philosophy/Mindset

If you’re trying to grow more REAL in an unreal world then you’re always going to have to pay a PRICE for your own REALNESS.

This is just the way that things are: if you want something then you have to pay the COST. This is just a part of the human experience and it’s something that applies to ALL of us.

Our tendency of thinking about these things is that there’s only ever really a ‘cost’ for the ‘bad’ things that happen to us – actually, though, we often find ourselves paying a price just as much, if not more (as we initially perceive it), for the ‘good’ – or REAL – stuff too.

In other words: If you really want something then you’re going to have to pay for it. That’s “the Cost”.

This article will help you in two main ways:

It’s going to help you understand this concept of THE COST so that you can pre-empt it and ready yourself to pay it without becoming disappointed or disillusioned.
It’s going to help you stay motivated and COMMITTED to growing real by showing you that the cost is always worth it so you should always keep growing real no matter what(despite what the world might tell you along the way).

One of the greatest things you can do for yourself and the world is to know what’s REAL about you so that you can add more value to the world as an extension of acting on that AWARENESS (because the only thing that’s actually of any value is the REAL stuff and what you choose to DO with it).

Getting to the stage where you know enough about yourself, the world, and reality to be able to tap into this value and share it is a difficult road in itself – especially when the world is designed to condition us to be pliable and conformist so that we’ll be easier to control.

If you lack awareness of the extra COSTS of walking the REAL path then you might falter (which just means that the world has convinced you to be something and/or somebody that you’re not).

If you’re ready to pay the price and get something REAL then keep reading.

There’s always a price to pay. Especially when you’re shifting from unreal to real life.

“The best things in life are free”, that’s what we’re told but even these “best” things like ‘love’ or ‘kindness’ or ‘friendship’ almost always come with a COST of some kind. It might not be a monetary cost, but it’s always a cost nevertheless.

Maybe that sounds extreme but when you dig into it, you’ll see what I mean:

The COST of love is that you have to let go of your ego and learn not to at least think about other people and their needs(that’s a good thing once you learn how to do it but to the ego it’s a cost which is why so many people find it hard to fall and STAY in love).

The COST of being kind is that sometimes you’ll have to say “Yes” when it might have been easier to say “No” or that you might have to give up the time you could’ve spent on yourself to dedicate to somebody else (and your time, energy, and attention are the most precious things you have).

The COST of friendship is a combination of the two but also that you need to be able to at least offer some kind of VALUE to the relationship (in exchange for value as that’s how real friendship works).

That means that you can’t only TAKE from the relationship and that you have to GIVE something – whatever that is in the context of the relationship is the COST.

Sometimes the cost is worth it, sometimes it isn’t. Either way, there’s always a cost and that’s just the way it is.

We can say that this is just a principle of being alive as a human being and it basically boils down to the fact that whenever we make a CHOICE then the cost of one thing is always something else (that’s just what a ‘choice’ is by definition).

Sometimes, we CHOOSE things that come with unexpected costs but there’s ALWAYS a cost. Always (just to drill the point home).

You need to understand this so you can get prepare yourself to pay when the time comes.

If you don’t understand this basic REALITY about life then when the costs of your CHOICES do creep in further down the line (as ‘consequences’) then you’ll be disappointed and disillusioned.

That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t make the choices that have a risk of such negative emotions – it just means that you need to weigh the costs up before you get started (as much as is possible – nobody can predict the future with 100% accuracy).

As a simple example, let’s take two different paths that you might take in life: either stepping up and changing your life by doing that ‘thing’ you want to do (but are afraid of because doing so will disrupt your life), or NOT doing that thing and just leaving things as they are.

Two very different options – 1) doing that ‘thing’ and changing your life or 2) doing nothing and sweeping it under the carpet.

Different paths but both with a COST.

To decide which one to take you need to figure out the BENEFITS or PAYOFF of each one – maybe figuring out your true values and how aligned they are with the goals in question, figuring out how you might benefit financially, in terms of health, emotionally, etc.

A step that a lot of people tend to skip, though, is figuring out ‘THE COST’ (though they might think about their fears or reasons not to get started which are usually just EXCUSES – see below).

In the first case, of going out there and just doing that ‘thing’ whatever it is, the costs might be:

-Having to give up your ‘current’ thing.

-Having people be jealous of you or hate on you for being ‘successful’.

-Having to spend some time learning new skills instead of watching Netflix or whatever.

-Having people think that you’re crazy/weird/unusual or whatever because you’re doing something unconventional.

-Having to listen to people try and persuade you not to do that thing whatever it is.

-Having to RISK failure and the emotional ‘stuff’ that comes with it.

Etc.

Depending on whatever the ‘thing’ is in your own life you could probably come up with a list of costs that’s longer than your arm – and this is just for the ‘good’ things that you want to be doing with your life.

I guess the basic rule is that you can’t have the sweet without the sour – it probably all balances out in the end but you need to know it so you’re not just floating through life with your rose-tinted glasses on setting yourself up for disappointment and disillusionment.

Ask yourself about that ‘thing’ that you think you want: Can you pay the COST(s)? If you can’t then maybe you don’t really want it.

To complicate matters, there’s also the other option: doing NOTHING and trying to forget about that ‘thing’ and just going through the motions of living in the same old way and getting the same old results.

That might seem like a simple way of AVOIDING the costs of going to get that ‘thing’ (which you may have some fear about which has stopped you going for it in the first place), but because EVERYTHING in life comes with an OPPORTUNITY COST, inaction will cost you just as much – or even more – than just getting up and doing that ‘thing’ in the first place.

Let’s say you do decide to do nothing and just leave your life as it is, even though that ‘thing’ (whatever it is) is calling out to you and life will continue to change around you anyway.

The costs might be things like:

-Having to get to the end of your life and REGRETTING never stepping up and doing what you realise you were called for.

-Having to watch other people who have stepped up to do their ‘thing’ doing it and getting RESULTS that you can’t even get close to (and having to live with jealousy because of it).

-Having to PUT UP with whatever you’re currently putting up with and forcing yourself to tolerate.

-Having to have the people in your life just see you as being somebody who never did that ‘thing’ and never will.

-Having to always wonder if there’s ‘more’ to life or wondering what your real potential might look like (hint: there is more and your real potential looks like freedom).

-Etc.

Again, in the case of your own ‘thing’ it might be a longer list or it might be a shorter one. The point is, though, that – whether you make changes or you don’t – then there’s a COST to pay.

If you’re undecided about taking some action in your life or stepping up and being more REAL or not then you need to ask yourself what the COST of each path is and if you can HANDLE it.

If you can’t handle it then you know that:

It’s either not YOUR path and so you can forget about it

Or:

You have some kind of mindset issue that needs tweaking because you don’t TRUST in yourself and your ability to handle whatever might arise (and, trust me, when you’re being REAL you’ll be able to handle just about anything).

Basically, it comes down to this: Whether you DO or you DON’T there’s gonna be a COST so the only question is which one do you wanna pay? Do you wanna pay the cost of being UNREAL or do you want to pay the cost of being REAL?

I know what I’d choose every time.

The cost of being unreal is that you’ll always wonder if there’s more, never know your true potential, and probably spend the end of your life regretting all the things you didn’t do but could’ve done if you got over yourself.

Assuming that the ‘thing’ you want to do is actually REAL – i.e. it’s aligned with your TRUE values and intentions and the process of moving towards it will make you more WHOLE, not FRAGMENTED – then the main cost of NOT making the choice and going for it is that you’ll never KNOW yourself, you’ll never know the world, and you’ll never know reality.

This is because the PAYOFF of taking the REAL path is that you will connect with what’s real about you and find a way (that ‘thing’) of expressing it in the world. As you’ll have to do the work to make it happen then you’ll have to BECOME a more real version of yourself to get there. If that payoff is worth more than the regret of not even trying then it’s worth it.

The cost of being real is that when you’re making changes to go from unreal to real you have to let go of a lot of things and when you’re real you’ll have to deal with being hated by unreal people that can’t (currently) do what you’ve done.

The COST of taking the real path is having to LET GO of your ego and the things that are asking you to keep living out an UNREAL version of yourself and your life.

More than that, you’ll also have to pay the price of having to deal with people who haven’t stepped onto the REAL path trying to pull you off course by causing drama, hating, or projecting their own ‘stuff’ onto you (though if other people are constantly causing problems in your life you need to ask yourself if you’re the ‘UNREAL’ one seeing as you’re the common denominator).

The point is that – no matter what you choose – you’re “darned if you do, darned if you don’t”. That’s just LIFE.

If you want to be REAL, though, you might as well make a CHOICE about what that looks like and the PAYOFF you get rather than just passively letting life happen and paying the costs for something you don’t want instead of something you DO.

In general, as you grow real, you’ll see that ALL COSTS are unreal because what’s real about you can never be taken away from (we’ll talk about that a little further below).

If you’re on a crossroads in life then what that basically means is that your choice is between:

An UNREAL life with unreal costs you can’t do anything about because you’re unreal (e.g living a life that’s a consequence of you hiding and paying costs you CAN’T handle because you’re UNREAL).
A REAL life with unreal costs that you can do something about because you’re real(e.g. living a life that’s a consequence of you not hiding and paying the costs that you CAN handle because you’re REAL).

In both cases, the costs are ultimately unreal – because you’re always real no matter what and it’s just your perception and interpretations (filtered through your identity) stopping you from seeing it.

On your way into your REAL life, though, you’ll have to grow through the things that make the costs seem real – your choice about how you handle this will affect how far you get.

Examples of the kinds of price you’ll have to pay if you focus on your REAL intentions and values.

Though there are no hard and fast rules, these are the kind of costs that you can expect to pay as you step up and start moving towards that ‘thing’ and your REAL life.

In all cases you haven’t really lost anything ‘real’ – you just STOPPED BUYING INTO unreality:

Letting go of unreal relationships that are holding you back.

The real relationships in your life will support your growth and movement towards the goals that are real to you. The unreal ones won’t.

As you wake up to your realness and start moving forwards then the COST will be to set healthy boundaries and say “No” to the people that need you to be unreal (for the protection of their own unreal ego ‘stuff’).

The reason that you don’t really lose anything real here despite the ‘cost’ is that the only thing keeping you in such relationships in the first place was your own UNREALITY.

Not being able to watch Netflix as much.

Committing to growing real comes with the ‘COST’ of having to say “No” to unreal activities and distractions like spending all night watching Netflix or playing video games or whatever (obviously, this is a matter of degree based on the context of your own life).

As you start to CHOOSE the real stuff over the unreal distractions like this then you probably won’t have time to waste on such things because you’ll have found your REAL purpose.

Again, the ‘cost’ isn’t really a cost because all that’s happened is you’ve stopped acting out an unreal story in your head and replaced it with a real one. You simply changed your focus and it changed your life.

Having people hate on you or be jealous because you’re doing your ‘thing’ and they’re not.

If you think that everybody around you is going to be happy for your ‘success’ as you step up and grow real then you’re going to have a bad time.

It’s a harsh reality about life but some of your closest friends and family don’t actually want you to be ‘more’ successful than them or to even just start doing things that are important to you (usually because they never had the balls to step up and do what’s important to themselves).

If you’re going to put yourself on a real path, then this is something that you need to prepare for – it’s a COST that you’ll be asked to pay and if you’re not real about it then it can make your life miserable.

Actually, even though this may look like a COST, it’s actually not a REAL one. The reason for this is that the only reason these people are hating on you is because they’re being UNREAL (because when you’re being real you know your own capacity to succeed at your ‘thing’ and know that others can succeed at theirs too – what’s more you want them to!).

If something is UNREAL then you don’t need to worry about it or concern yourself with it – the only reason that you would is because there’s some unreal, emotional thing going on inside you that makes you interpret this unreal hate (etc.) as being real.

When you learn to say “Gimme something real or GTFO” then you can either walk away from these people or simply stay real and learn to ignore their BS. Either way, it nullifies the cost and you’ve grown REAL.

Having to work hard and change things.

Going out there and getting that ‘thing’ that you want comes with the COST of hard work. That may seem like a lot of unnecessary effort when you haven’t even got started yet but look at it like this:

You can either work to get to where you want to be or you can work to have to try and live with yourself for never trying.

When you look at it like that the ‘hard work’ isn’t really a cost as much as it is an opportunity.

Having to let go of your current way of identifying as you grow real through experience.

No matter what you’re trying to do or where you’re trying to get to, as you grow more REAL, you will inevitably change as a person and the way that you see yourself will change too.

For some of us, this is a price worth paying for our goals because we know that we’ve chosen to aim for something real and so – even though we may change – that change will be for the better (because we shaved away layers of unreality to reveal the REAL stuff).

The ‘problem’ for a lot of people is that they’re scared to change because the sense of identity they’ve created for themselves is actually a box that keeps a lot of their unresolved emotional ‘stuff’ at bay.

This is actually the main reason that certain people DON’T want to choose the real path – they’re not ready to pay the cost of letting go of their cherished ideas (and illusions, tbh) about themselves (and the world and reality by extension).

When you start growing REAL, however, you’ll see that this sense of identity is actually completely UNREAL – yes, we need it to function in the world and it acts as a representation of whatever we’ve been through and survived but it’s not who we really ‘are’ (just an interpretation we created).

When you realise this, you realise that losing one form of it is not really a COST, it’s another opportunity to replace it with something more real so you can go deeper into life.

Having to deal with the consequences of being real in an unreal world (i.e. dealing with people who are ‘asleep’, NPCs, etc.).

If you decide to grow real in an unreal world (i.e. a world that just needs you to conform so you can be controlled) then you’re going to have to pay the price of STANDING OUT which will bring unwanted attention and disagreement (if you let it).

The problem here is often caused by projection – if you’ve started to put yourself on the path of growing real then, eventually, you’re going to have to face some of your own ‘SHADOW’ stuff (the previously disowned parts of you that were deemed ‘unacceptable’ by your own shame and the guilt that society conditioned you with in the first place).

These can be both ‘good’ or ‘bad’ qualities but for whatever reason, society has decided that it would be better if they’re not part of the human experience.

An example might be ‘creativity’, for example, which may take you to some places that the majority of people aren’t willing to go (because they’ve disowned this side of themselves in order to be more productive employees or whatever).

If you become real and trigger some of the hidden ‘Shadow’ stuff of the people around you then it can lead to all kinds of drama and conflict.

You need to be ready for it because it’s highly unlikely that you’ll do the work of growing more real, doing more authentic things and expressing your true thoughts, feelings, etc. without upsetting somebody.

The costs here actually can be pretty high if you come across an actual nutcase who’s completely repressed and sees something in you that they’re trying to hide from themselves.

You can usually avoid such people as you start focusing on your own real ‘thing’ and start meeting other Real Ones but you need to know that this is a price you’ll possibly have to pay.

Again, even though it can be costly in some cases, the core source of the problem is still the same: whoever is getting triggered by your ‘Real’ stuff is only that way because they have an unreal relationship with themselves.

That makes it easier to ignore and move on (“Gimme something real or GTFO”) but you need to be real enough not to poke the fires and push these people over the edge (although that’s actually what they want deep down as by sabotaging themselves they can eventually destroy themselves and allow the real version of who they are to creep through).

Everybody is constantly moving towards wholeness – even those who are locked inside themselves – that’s just a natural drive we have but you don’t really need to get involved and ‘save’ anybody from themselves as the only person with that power is them.

The more real you become the more you’ll see how most people are unreal. You’ll have to learn not to JUDGE and slip back into unreality.

In short, the more real you become, you will have to live with the COST of being surrounded by people who are living unreal lives in an unreal relationship with themselves.

You need to be careful not to judge here as judgement is always unreal and will just cause you to end up back on the unreal path you’re trying to avoid.

The final cost to yourself is that you will have to work to cultivate better emotional control and self-regulation and to learn to be patient.

If people are ‘unreal’ it’s not their fault, it’s just a product of their conditioning and you basically just have to let them get on with it until the time comes for them to find something real to hold onto (assuming that time ever comes).

There’s always a choice. No excuses.

Sometimes, you convince yourself you don’t have a choice which stops you moving towards your goals. The truth isn’t that you “don’t have a choice” but that you “don’t want to pay the cost”. Ask yourself why because a lot of the time it’s just fear, pride, or other ego ‘stuff’ that you’ve CHOSEN to keep in place so you can hide from your unresolved shame, guilt, and/or trauma.

When you want to do something but you’re scared of the cost you make EXCUSES – this is just the ego’s way of trying to resist paying whatever cost needs to be paid.

If you find yourself stuck on a crossroads where you don’t know if you have the courage to move forward or not and you start making EXCUSES to explain away what you really want to do (that ‘thing’, whatever it is), then you need to remind yourself that you can only lose things that are UNREAL because reality never goes anywhere (and even then you don’t really ‘lose’ anything because it was never there in the first place – it was just a product of the way you chose to perceive things).

This means that the price you’re afraid to pay usually has something to do with your attachment to your illusions about yourself, the world, and reality and that you’ve DISTORTED your view of things through the lens of your ego in order to try and stay the ‘same’ and refuse to take action.

At the end of the day, there is no real cost – there’s just a process of deconditioning and learning to understand reality.

In short, the price never costs as much as your ego will try and convince you it does before you’ve paid it and when you understand the reality of life you’ll see that the costs are never as bad as you think (because it’s usually unreal).

You need to be ready to pay the price but you also need to be ready to see that in REALITY it’s always worth it:

You can either choose the unreal life you might already be living or step up and grow real?

There’s always a cost but there’s always a CHOICE. Which one are you going to make?

If this story inspired or helped you then please share it with others! 🙂

Sign up for my mailing list if you want to stay in touch (you’ll get access to the 7-Day Personality Transplant for uncovering your life purpose):

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The Label Trap: Is Attaching to Labels Holding You Back from Real Life and Your True Potential?

Published on

Coaching/Life Philosophy/Mindset/Psychology

Stop Holding Back

One of the biggest barriers to getting the life we want and becoming the person we need to be to get there is labelling ourselves.

This is for two simple reasons:

In order to make the most of our own REAL lives, we need to step up and be the real version of ourselves.
Labels cause us to identify as PART of a group instead of being the WHOLE of whoever it is that we really are.

Being part of a group is obviously an important part of being a human being – “no man is an island”, after all – but if being part of a group effaces who we really are because the group is based around static limitations rather than GROWING REAL then it can do more harm than ‘good’.

In the way that we’re using it here, ‘labels’ are catch-all terms that we use to describe ourselves to others that just end up erasing our own individuality (and the strengths and weaknesses that come with that which is totally normal when we’re being REAL).

Examples of labels might be:

-Mental and physical health conditions that we’ve been labelled with.

For example in my own experience: I have some health problems and could easily use these as a reason to focus on what I can’t do instead of what I can (and, thus, never do anything) because I’ve labelled myself as an “X Patient”.

-Stuff to do with our cultural background that we think we need to adhere to rigidly.

For example in my own experience: I might decide to fall into the stereotype of a typical reserved ‘Englishman’ and never really express what I truly think, feel, or want to do in order to keep a “stiff upper lip” (not that there’s anything ‘wrong’ with that if it’s what you want to do).

-Political or subcultural labels like identifying with a certain political party (and feeling cognitive dissonance when you go outside of the boundaries of what they say you’re ‘allowed’ to believe in) or even something as simple as overly-identifying with a certain subculture and being a ‘rocker’ or a ‘hippy’ (or whatever) and never experiencing life outside of what those kinds of people are ‘supposed’ to do.

For example, from my own experience: I really love rocking out and listening to rock and metal. If I needed a sense of identity then I could easily pluck an identify off the shelf and start growing my hair out even more, wearing more black than I already do, and hating any sell-outs that listen to deep house (which I also love) or doing anything ‘mainstream’ (in order to strengthen my own sense of identity and the LABELS I’ve arbitrarily decided to attach to).

-Ideas about what it means to be a ‘man’ or a ‘woman’ and how these things might limit us or mean we need to behave in certain ways.

For example from my own experience: I might decide that I’ll define myself by certain outcomes that are supposed to make life ‘meaningful’ for guys like how many women I sleep with every week, how many steaks I eat on the weekend, and how often I get in a fight when I go to the pub (not that there’s anything ‘wrong’ with that if it’s what you want to do).

-Being obsessed with certain superficial qualities of our physical bodies like the colour of our skin or how much we might weigh etc.

For example from my own experience: I might think that being a ‘white’ guy instead of being a human being actually means anything or think that because I work out and can do however many push-ups means anything in the scheme of things as a whole (when it just ‘means’ I like working out and have enough energy to do the things I need to do from one-day-to-the-next).

Sometimes, these labels might help us feel a sense of belonging – which is part of their appeal – but they can also cause us to be distanced from ourselves and to take ourselves out of reality.

Taking ourselves out of reality might feel good in the short-term – especially if we have a lot of emotional ‘stuff’ or unanswered questions and confusion we want to avoid – but in the long-term it only screws our lives up and causes unnecessary problems.

This is why you need to be aware of how the labels you’re applying to yourself might be screwing your life up and why you should maybe think about flipping the script on some of them if you want to feel better about yourself and your life.

When we’re REAL, we keep growing and we’re always works in progress; giving ourselves labels can stop us growing by making us feel like we’ve reached the end of the line (even if we don’t even LIKE where that end of the line might be).

This is something that we’re not really ‘supposed’ to talk about because – even though the labels we attach our identities to can hold us back – labels are something that we become EMOTIONALLY INVESTED in and often need to be true (to protect our own insanity).

When people have an emotional need for something to be true about themselves, the world and reality – i.e. WANTING for something to be true, rather than actually figuring out if it’s true or not – then it just increases the odds of conflict and disagreement when we question these things or try to think outside of the box that such labelling has put us in.

If you look at much of the insanity around you in the world today, it can be attributed to the WARS people are fighting over the labels they’ve CHOSEN to give themselves (and others) and a battle with reality and the rest of the world to try and prove to themselves and others that certain labels are true.

Actually, in reality, if something is TRUE, then you don’t need to fight or lapse into CONTROL FREAKERY to try and defend it – it will just speak for itself because that’s what the truth does: exist in self-evident way (it doesn’t need people to argue about it because it’s beyond conflict and just THE TRUTH regardless of any arguments).

If you find that you have a lot of UNNECESSARY conflict and dramatic BS in your life, then there’s a good chance that you’ve labelled yourself in some way and it’s causing you more harm than good.

This article will help you determine if that’s the case.

Labels are a map, not the territory (reality).

Like with many things at the level of our thoughts and beliefs about our lives, the labels we use to make ‘sense’ of ourselves, the world, and reality are not the TRUTH about any of these things themselves but our interpretations and points of view based on how ready we are to face the actual truth.

Because these labels are ultimately about trying to make sense of a chaotic and indifferent universe – where human beings are incapable of knowing and understanding everything because of our limited perception and then limited interpretations about what we perceive – then a good analogy is to see these ‘labels’ as maps that we’ve DECIDED to try and use to NAVIGATE life.

Like any tool, however, these ‘maps’ (labels) are always only ever a way of working with (or against, depending how much BS we’ve picked up) reality, not reality itself.

If you treat the map itself as the reality – which is what many of us do with the labels we’ve become attracted to – then we’ll never really get anywhere and we’ll never learn anything in our EXPERIENCE that can help us grow real in the way that we want to.

Treating the labels you’ve picked up as being the end of the line – instead of going out and EXPERIENCING LIFE and seeing what you’re capable of – is the same as looking at the Disney Land brochure online, familiarising yourself with the map of the theme park, and telling yourself that you now know everything there is to know about Disney Land.

Yes, maybe CONCEPTUALLY, you can tell yourself and others where certain things are in relation to other things at Disney Land – you might even have a loose understanding of what each ride is like because of the blurbs you read in that same brochure.

Here’s the rub, though: if you only have the MAP in your head, then you just have a BELIEF SYSTEM comprised of conceptual knowledge and information. Unless you actually go to Disney Land and USE the map to get from one place to another and enjoy the rides (etc.) then you don’t actually KNOW anything real – you just have ideas that you picked up and CONDITIONED yourself with.

When you LABEL yourself without GOING OUT and actually finding out the truth about yourself for real – by taking action – then you’re just living in the COMFORT ZONE of your mind and stopping yourself from experiencing something that’s actually REAL.

This applies even if the ‘map’ you have does point to something that exists out there in ‘reality’ (like in the Disney Land example): if you don’t go out there and EXPERIENCE life for yourself then you’re just living in your own head and telling yourself it’s all life has to offer.

Labels help you to make sense of something difficult you’ve been through.

Essentially, the main attraction of labels is that they give us something to HOLD ONTO that gives us a feeling of certainty. Unfortunately, life itself is UNCERTAIN which means that clinging to labels just creates a sense of unnecessary friction between the way that we see ourselves and interact with the world and REALITY itself.

The appeal of labels, especially if we’ve been through a difficult period in our lives – or if we have a lot of unresolved emotional ‘stuff’ like shame, guilt, or even trauma – is that the sense of ‘certainty’ they provide can give us a stepping stone towards finding a sense of direction or purpose again (in an uncertain reality they give us a taste of something certain).

In this sense, as a short-term solution to the problem of dealing with ‘life’, then it’s understandable why people find labelling themselves to be a useful COPING DEVICE for dealing with things.

In my opinion, this is why a lot of people who have a lot of emotional turbulence or who have been through difficult periods in their lives are more likely to attach to labels than people whose lives may have been a little ‘easier’ or where they have had less intense emotional ‘stuff’ to deal with.

When we have a lot of emotional ‘stuff’ to deal with, our natural tendency can be to try and hide from the uncertainty that comes with it by finding something to be certain about that can explain why we’ve found ourselves in whatever situation we’ve found ourselves in and explain away a lot of the associated negative emotions we have from being in a difficult situation.

A harsh fact about life that a lot of us try to avoid is that the current state of our lives is often a CONSEQUENCE of our relationship with ourselves and how much responsibility we’re willing to take for our own lives.

Even in situations that weren’t necessarily our ‘fault’, once things are done and dusted, it’s up to US and us alone to deal with the emotional fallout and to learn to forgive ourselves for whatever choices we might have made and to learn to REGULATE our own emotional ‘stuff’ so we can MOTIVATE OURSELVES to move in the REAL direction we want to move towards here in the present moment.

Because facing this ‘stuff’ can be painful and may lead to us reconfiguring the way that we live our lives, it’s often easier to find a label that explains a lot of our own responsibility for our lives away and gives us a convenient excuse to keep wallowing in self-pity or to – at the very least – set us up for justifying the failure that will come from not acting to change our lives in the way that we really want.

When we have this kind of ‘stuff’ going on then labels can help us to make ‘sense’ of a past we can’t let go of, a present we don’t want to face, and a future we don’t want to take any ownership over.

The problem with making ‘sense’ is that a lot of things that aren’t REAL or even TRUE still ‘make sense’ to us if we want them to. That’s fine as a short-term way of avoiding some of our pain but – in the long-term – it’s only going to bring friction, frustration, and misery to our lives as we distance ourselves more and more from reality.

Labels are like armbands – eventually you need to swim without them.

All this is to say that labels are like armbands (stick with me here) – when we’re first learning to ‘swim’ in life’s great ocean of chaos and uncertainty then they can keep us afloat and stop us from drowning.

Maybe you get diagnosed with a physical or mental health condition, for example:

In those early stages of your relationship with your ‘illness’, then you probably don’t know that much about it or what to expect; your skills at dealing with the condition won’t have been refined yet, your conceptual and experiential knowledge of the condition will both be at low levels, and your confidence in your ability to ‘deal’ with it will be almost non-existent too because you’re probably scared (because you haven’t accepted things yet as you haven’t had a chance to learn) and you don’t know what you’re capable of.

A label in these early stages can actually help you learn to ‘swim’ within the context of whatever you’ve got going on because it will give you a frame of reference for how to deal with things and a direction to move in.

There’s nothing stopping you from living according to the label for the rest of your life – in this analogy we’ve got going though that would just be the same as never taking your armbands off.

If you’re afraid of drowning without them then maybe that’s a good idea; if you really want to know who you ARE and what you’re capable of then – when you’re ready – you need to learn to swim without the armbands so that your life is really yours, not just some idea that you picked up about it so that you could SURVIVE whatever you’re dealing with and not actually THRIVE in life.

People are scared they’ll drown without the label (because they only have the label to deal with shame, guilt, and/or trauma).

This fear of ‘drowning’ helps us to understand why some of us become so attached to the labels that have helped us stay afloat: we do it because we’re actually afraid of life and by fighting for our labels we’re actually fighting for the devices that have helped us to survive whatever we’ve been through.

Obviously, there’s nothing ‘wrong’ with that – if something is helping us to stay afloat in life then it’s not up to anybody else to tell us whether or not what we’re doing makes sense or not.

The ironic thing, though, in my view, is that these labels may help us to survive in the short-term but the longer we cling to them and stop facing actual reality – i.e. looking at the ‘truth’ we may be blocking from view because of these labels – then the more harmful these labels become because they just cause us to be disconnected from ourselves, the world, and reality.

This is true of not just labels but our sense of identity as a whole: it’s a short-term survival mechanism that screws our lives up the more we keep trying to keep it in place without learning or growing through it.

In general, it seems as though people are scared of drowning without their labels, comfortable points of view, ‘ego’, etc. etc., but actually what’s happening when they cling to these things is that they’re just scared of letting these things go because they’re attempting to keep their shame, guilt, and trauma at bay (which made them create a box for themselves to live in in the first place).

The actual fact is that when you let go of these COPING MECHANISMS then you realise that a lot of the emotional ‘stuff’ you’re trying to hide from is actually unreal and that when you hit the ocean of reality you can’t drown – you can only RIDE the reality waves to wherever it is that you want to be (as long as you choose a real vision for yourself and dedicate yourself to action with consistency, discipline, and focus).

Labels just erase our individuality which is actually what will ‘save’ us.

No real human being ever saved themselves or created a REAL life by trying to be just like everybody else. Sure, we can learn from other people and see what’s worked for them in certain contexts, but – at the end of the day – no other human being has ever lived the life that we’re living and gone through the same things in the same way.

Sometimes, we might think that other people have the answers or can ‘save’ us but actually – even in the very best cases – all anybody else can really do is help us to better understand ourselves so that we can start listening to our OWN VOICE and then doing something with it as our ‘own’ man or woman.

This is because – no matter who you are – the only thing that will really help you to get where you want to be in life is your own INDIVIUALITY.

This doesn’t mean that you fall into the trap of trying to “THINK DIFFERENT” just for the sake of it (that’s EGO).

It just means that you walk your own path based on what you’ve learned for yourself by using your own CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE to weigh up all of the options and make a decision about what you need to do to be the real version of yourself.

Whenever you become overly-invested in a group (something you can only become overly-invested in as an attempt to hide from yourself and reality) then you just end up erasing your true identity and all of the amazing things about you that will allow you to actually thrive in the way that will make you feel truly alive.

In my opinion (again), this is why so many people in the world get carried away with groups, causes, and movements without really caring what they stand for or are trying to change in the world – it’s not because they necessarily believe in the ‘cause’ but because it gives them a sense of identity that they don’t have to worry about choosing or creating for themselves (through the hard work of action and experience).

In other words, they might not know who they really are because they’re not willing to face their own emotional ‘stuff’ and so by getting carried away with a ‘movement’ it does two things for them: 1) it gives them a distraction from having to face anything real, 2) it gives them something to believe in that fills the void of not knowing themselves.

You’ll know if this makes sense to you or not when you think about the world and the various movements people are getting carried away over.

To get back to the main point, though, when people give themselves to ‘groups’ either directly or by applying labels to themselves, they just end up limiting their own options for growth and erasing their own individuality to become one of the faceless members of the group or label in question.

This might offer psychological comfort if you have a screwed up relationship with yourself but in the long-term it just prevents you from facing your ‘Shadow’ stuff and growing real.

By choosing a ‘label’ to give yourself you’re just lumping yourself with all of the other people that have that same label. You’ll know how this applies in your own life or in the lives of people that you know but ask yourself this: “How am I different from everybody else with the label of [X]?” – somewhere in the answer to that question is your way to true salvation (or whatever word you wanna use).

Labels give you a convenient excuse by telling you what you CAN’T do which stops you focusing on what you CAN do.

By labelling yourself in a certain way, you only end up holding yourself back because you just give yourself a bunch of reasons to focus on what you CAN’T do rather than what you CAN.

This gives you a sense of certainty (as we saw above) but the PRICE you pay for this feeling of certainty is that you can no longer express yourself because you’re locked behind a bunch of limitations and unhealthy beliefs at the same time.

Normally, when we focus on the “CAN’T DO” because of the label we either forget about or minimise the “CAN DO”. This is just the EGO’s way of stopping us from taking action and growing real.

For example:

You CAN’T climb a mountain because you’re a X PATIENT(but maybe you CAN still walk around the park and – actually – maybe you CAN climb that mountain but you don’t know unless you go find out).

You CAN’T listen to rock music you like because you’re a DEEP HOUSE HEAD (when actually you CAN listen to whatever you want).

You CAN’T wear a pink shirt because you’re a MANLY MAN (when actually you CAN).

You CAN’T express your true opinion because you don’t want to rock the boat as a RESERVED ENGLISH MAN (when actually you CAN say whatever you want if you’re willing to live with the consequences).

Etc.

The point is that most labels only focus your attention on the actions you “shouldn’t” take rather than the ones that you actually CAN and want to take to be authentic.

Labels keep you in the past when actually you can only find solutions in the present by moving towards the future.

Because labels are really just MENTAL CONCEPTS that you’ve picked up on your life journey, they’re just a summation of whatever STORY you’re telling yourself about where you think you’ve been.

This is fine as we all need to make ‘sense’ of our lives (understanding the limitations of ‘sense’ pointed out above) but the point needs to be made that every time you try and ACT OUT according to a label you’ve identified with then you’re just repeating the past.

In this sense, then, labels just reinforce the story you’re telling yourself about how you got where you currently happen to be.

If you’re HAPPY with where you are and you don’t have any desire to change or improve anything then that’s fine: keep telling yourself the same old story because it’s obviously working.

If you do have a desire to change or improve your life then that means you need to REWRITE the story and that means assessing your relationship with whatever ‘labels’ you’re giving yourself and identifying with.

Here’s something that can help you as you try to change and improve your life:

You can only find solutions in the PRESENT and they’re only really ‘solutions’ if they move you towards a FUTURE that you want to be living in.

In this context, the past isn’t really as impactful as you might have been led to believe. That doesn’t mean that you forget about the past or that you brush it aside – it just means that you need to work on ACCEPTING it so that you can focus on wherever you are now in a realistic way and then make a CHOICE about what you want to do with it.

If you’re too attached to labels that aren’t serving you and that are just reinforcing a story that’s holding you back, then you’re just DISTORTING your vision of what’s available to you here and now in the present; you’re also limiting your capacity to achieve something real and to ACT on the story of WHO YOU WANT TO BECOME IN THE FUTURE, not who your labels tell you that you’ve ‘been’ and still happen to ‘be’.

That might sound like an oversimplification but all it means is this: as long as you have a REAL VISION for the life you want to be living and the person you need to become to make that happen then the labels and stories you’ve told yourself about the past aren’t really that important.

Instead of labels you’re better off focusing on the skills and qualities you’re trying to develop to live the life you want to live.

A lot of people won’t like to read what I just said about the past not mattering that much in the scheme of things. It really doesn’t, though: what’s done is done and you either accept it and decide what you’re gonna do about it based on where you’ve currently found yourself or you just keep dwelling on it and don’t get anywhere.

When we ‘dwell’ on things it doesn’t mean that we’re actually growing, learning, or moving forward – it just means that we’re repeating the same old thoughts in our heads again and again like a hamster running around on a wheel. Nothing ever changes and we never make ourselves any happier by doing this.

The main thing that keeps us on this ‘hamster wheel’ is the story we keep telling ourselves about who we are based on where we think we’ve been and the labels that we’ve attached to ourselves because of this. Every time we identify with those labels we’re just feeding into that BS story and greasing that hamster wheel so it can keep going.

To break free of the labels you need to ACCEPT where you’ve been and learn what you can from it and then follow this three-step process:

Create a vision for where you want to be in the FUTURE.
Be REAL with yourself about where you are in relation to that vision in the PRESENT.
Start to become the person who can make that vision a reality by cultivating the SKILLS and QUALITIES you need to make it happen.

This process allows you to become the person you want to become whilst also embracing who you currently happen to be (based on the CHOICES you’ve made and what you’ve been through).

More importantly, it helps you to LEARN from the past without putting yourself in a box and limiting yourself because of the labels you’ve given yourself.

In this context, ‘Skills’ are just practical things you’ll need to be able to do to make your vision a reality (so let’s say you want to start a production company – you might need to learn videography, editing, marketing, etc.).

‘Qualities’ are just the personal traits you’ll need to tap into like ‘assertiveness’, ‘creativity’, ‘acceptance’, or whatever else.

In relation to your own life and vision these things will be unique to you alone and the experience you already have – what’s for sure though is that if you label yourself as just being whatever it is that you are right now then you won’t take the actions needed to grow REAL and you’ll just keep getting the same old story you already have.

Stop letting ‘labels’ hold you back and go and live the life you really want.

If this story inspired or helped you then please share it with others! 🙂

Sign up for my mailing list if you want to stay in touch (you’ll get access to the 7-Day Personality Transplant for uncovering your life purpose):

If you want to find your own real life, start moving towards unconditional acceptance, and finding a sense of purpose then check out this 7-Day Course that you can start right now:

How to Stop NEEDING to Be Liked by Others (Walking Away from Life’s Great Popularity Contest)

Published on

Life Philosophy/Mindset/Psychology

Life doesn’t need to be a ‘popularity’ contest

This article will help you to deal with one of the most common but harmful problems in the world: needing to be ‘liked’.

The key word here is “NEED”.

Obviously, it’s better to be ‘likeable’ than not – there’s no need to purposely be unlikeable in life.

At the same time, we can make ourselves completely MISERABLE and take our lives of track by making being ‘liked’ our main motivation.

If we only focus on getting approval from other people then it just leads to us not spending time focusing on the REAL things we could be doing with ourselves and our lives, growing into a continuously more authentic version of ourselves, and finding a ‘tribe’ or community of people that actually like – or even LOVE – us for who we actually are (not some FAKE version of ourselves that we created because we crave validation).

If you have this problem (of needing to be liked) then you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about and you’ll probably suffer from some – or all – of the following symptoms:

You’re often anxious, frustrated, or even depressed (even if you don’t show it).
You know that you’re being ‘fake’ or selling yourself out in order to make people ‘like’ you but the thought of being disliked is too unbearable or too much hassle – because it would mean rearranging parts of your life – to start being real.
When you’re in a group of people you constantly find yourself comparing yourself to others and trying to figure out where you stand in the social hierarchy. This just stops you from relaxing and having a good time.
It’s almost like you don’t really even know who you are anymore –you’re main motivation for doing things is to ‘fit in’ and be approved of by the herd.
You’re constantly trying to make it look like you think/feel/do what everybody else does. You just want to come across as being ‘normal’ but now you’re paying the price because you feel detached from yourself.
When you’re out-and-about in public or hanging out with people, everybody thinks you’re a cheerful person who’s got it all together. You know that’s just a MASK, though, because in private you struggle with emotional emptiness and question everything you’re doing with your life.
You often find yourself having problems with boundaries because you want to be liked by absolutely everybody and so you say “Yes” to their needs and “No” to your own (when a REAL approach is to say “Yes” to your own when you’re not hurting anybody and “Yes” to others when it suits you).
You’re obsessed with your own self-image and constantly need other people to help you reinforce it for you (because it’s on unstable foundations because it’s not REAL).
(if you can think of any other obvious symptoms then please leave a comment).

To make matters worse, having this unreal attitude towards ourselves and our lives can be made worse by drama and BS in your life.

This is because you’re probably not the only person in your life or social circle that has this problem; others in the world around you also have a tendency to crave being liked by everybody else (even people they don’t ‘like’ because of their own ego stuff) and this just leads to life turning into one big Popularity Contest.

This being the case, just leads to all kinds of unnecessarily stressful situations where everybody is in competition with each other for something they don’t need in reality in the first place: the approval and ‘liking’ of other people.

Depending on how much they secretly hate themselves and have a void to fill within themselves (because of unresolved shame, usually), people will put all of their efforts into trying to build themselves up (to mask how small they feel) and to put others down.

This Popularity Contest is completely unnecessary because it’s totally unreal in its primary reason for existence: helping people to convince themselves that things that aren’t important about them or anybody else are important.

The only winning strategy in this particular ‘contest’ is not to play.

This article will help you figure out how you can check out and be in competition with the only person that matters: YOURSELF.

The Irrationality of Needing to Be Liked

Just to be clear, this article isn’t about making yourself unlikeable but about making sure that you live in such a way that you’re not bothered if people don’t like you.

That’s a subtle distinction but it’s about embracing the reality of life which – in this case – means accepting two basic premises and learning to work with them:

You can’t control what other people think about you and whether they ‘like’ you or not.
What they think about you doesn’t need to affect the way that you think about yourself.

In the first case, it’s quite simple:

You can’t control what other people think about you and whether they ‘like’ you or not.

You could be the nicest, most wonderful human being on the planet and – still – somebody out there would find a reason to dislike you (no matter how hard you might try).

Maybe they’re just having a ‘bad’ day; maybe you remind them of somebody that once called them an offensive name; maybe they just don’t like the way you talk or something about the way you dress.

The point is, that people are just weird – they have likes and dislikes without even knowing their reasons behind these feelings and – because people are varied and opinions are many – there will always be somebody out there that simply doesn’t like YOU.

This kind of ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ has nothing to do with rational reasons or logic and so it doesn’t even really reflect on ‘You’ as a person – it’s more just a ‘feeling’ that certain people have when they see you because of their own emotional ‘stuff’.

If you think about it, there are probably people that you dislike and can’t even really give a good reason as to why – there’s just something about them that speaks to your unconscious mind and makes it say “No, thanks.”

Because it’s an emotional thing and beyond any logical reasons or argument then you can’t bargain or reason with these people to make them ‘like’ you (and if you respect yourself you shouldn’t waste time doing that anyway): you just have to accept it and move on. It’s literally all you can do.

Maybe they’ll change their minds one day; maybe they won’t. It doesn’t matter. You can’t control it and so – like anything else in life that can’t be controlled – you just need to ACCEPT it.

Trying to make everybody like you is just as irrational as trying to convince yourself that the sky is usually green. It’s just the way it is and so you either accept it or make yourself miserable by going up against reality.

Trying to make everybody like you is just as irrational as trying to convince yourself that the blue sky is usually green; it’s just the way it is and so you either accept it or make yourself miserable by going up against reality.

What they think about you doesn’t need to affect the way that you think about yourself.

The second point to be made is that not only is what people think about you outside of your control (so you don’t need to worry) but, also, just because somebody thinks something about you doesn’t mean you need to believe it or change the way YOU think about yourself.

Let’s say that again for the people at the back:

What people think about you is just their OPINION; you don’t have to take it on board as a FACT about you.

In other words, what you’re dealing with is an INTERPRETATION, not REALITY.

Obviously, this isn’t always as easy to live as it is for me to write down in words – if somebody says something ‘negative’ about you then your initial instinct might be to feel a pang of shame or doubt or some other unhelpful emotion.

When this happens, you can get carried away to wherever that emotion wants to lead you, distort your own view of reality, and get sucked into the ILLUSION that another person’s words or opinion somehow have power over you.

This isn’t a sign that their opinion is valid (though of course it could be but that’s up to you to decide – it’s not true just because they said it); it’s a sign that you have some unresolved emotional ‘stuff’ that’s making you BELIEVE that what they said could be true.

This is a key point:

If you are fully aware of your own realness and are able to ACCEPT YOURSELF UNCONDITIONALLY then you will have a good opinion of yourself and the opinions of others won’t change this.

This is ultimately about a concept I’ve talked about before on this site and in my book Shadow Life: being Outcome-Independent.

What this basically means is that your sense of self-worth and levels of self-acceptance are not dependent on external outcomes – like how people might think or feel about you, for example.

The main thing that stops you from being outcome-independent and instead being dependent on outcomes (or external validation, ‘likes’, etc.) is that you have an unhealthy relationship with your own emotions, especially in the form of SHAME.

When you feel shame at some level of your ‘being’, then you’re more likely to do two things:

Create a false image of yourself that you hide behind to try and hide your shame from yourself and the world.
Try and get other people to help you keep this false image or mask in place by trying to control your relationships with them (in terms of what can be said/done/felt, for example).

Unfortunately, because this false image is completely untenable – because it’s not REAL – you can easily start to doubt yourself when people ‘dislike’ you in some way.

This is because, actually, they’re not doubting the real ‘You’ – which can’t be doubted because it’s real ; they’re doubting the false image which you also doubt because you KNOW it’s not true. Naturally, this triggers an internal conflict within you (and your normal coping mechanism for this conflict is to just try and be ‘liked’ so it goes away).

Quite simply, the reason that you doubt yourself is because you’re not being yourself – you have lost touch with what’s real about you and so you have started to yourself if the negative things they’re saying about you are true.

If you were being REAL then you would, of course, realise that these things are not true because you would be standing on a more solid foundation.

What is that foundation? The knowledge that when you’re being real you can’t be JUDGED in either ‘negative’ or ‘positive’ terms – you’re beyond either.

The problem, then, isn’t that you’re scared of being disliked but that you don’t know the truth about yourself and so seek it in other people (who probably don’t know themselves either).

The solution is to stop looking for answers about who you are in the OPINIONS and interpretations of other people and to instead ACCEPT who you are, CHOOSE who you want to become, and to DO the real work of becoming that person.

You can’t control what other people think about you and whatever that happens to be doesn’t need to affect your relationship with yourself anyway (unless you CHOOSE to let it). That being the case, you might as well figure out what you like about yourself and then keep doing it instead.

The Psychology of Needing to be Liked All the Time

So if needing to be liked all the time is irrational because you can’t control other people’s opinions and those opinions don’t matter anyway then why do some of you need to be liked?

The short answer is that there are two main reasons:

Reasons of the Self
Reasons of the World

Reasons of the Self

The reasons of the Self are just any of the reasons related to your own psychological relationships with yourself that make you DOUBT who you are and have to create a fake version to deal with this doubt.

Normally, this comes down to three emotions (or a cocktail of the three): shame, guilt, and/or trauma.

Shame: Makes you feel that there’s something inherently ‘wrong’ with who you are and so you try to make people like you to compensate.

There are millions of different ways to compensate here and if you look at the world around you (especially on social media, etc.) you’ll see shame-driven people everywhere.

Guilt: Makes you feel that there’s something inherently ‘wrong’ with the things you do, want to do, or have done. Whereas shame is always perpetuated internally, guilt always comes from some external source (that’s usually trying to control you).

When you have less shame and can see reality clearly then guilt is less likely to affect you – when it does affect you, it makes you dance around through hoops trying to be ‘liked’ again (by whoever is trying to make you feel guilty in the first place).

Trauma: Trauma is the most severe thing that can happen to a human being – it essentially means that something happens to you that makes us doubt – and even fear – your own power.

When that happens, it’s much more difficult to trust and believe in yourself and so you end up trying to outsource that trust and belief to others (which always fails because you can’t control what people will think about you and their opinions don’t really matter anyway).

Reasons of the World

When it comes to the psychological ‘Reasons of the World’ (aka SOCIAL reasons) for why you have a NEED to be liked, the short-version is that being ‘liked’ offers survival value.

Quite frankly, if nobody likes you then you’ll find it harder to have success in your career (because all business is ultimately about relationships), you’ll have no friends watching your back if things go sour somewhere, and people won’t really care what happens to you (in the most extreme cases) and so will leave you to die in the gutter (only a slight exaggeration).

If nobody likes you then that just means that – in the eyes of society – you’re lacking in status and that you’re not offering any value to the world (I know that’s harsh but it’s how it is).

We could probably say loads here about how this goes back to our “evolutionary past” and how human beings needed to hunt and live in tribes but all you need to know now is that being liked by the right people is a ‘good’ thing – living to make the wrong people try and like you to keep masking your own shame isn’t.

In terms of your own psychology, then, there are two things going on with a need to be liked:

The first is that you have unresolved emotional ‘stuff’ that’s preventing you from walking away from unhealthy relationships or causing you to outsource your ‘good’ feelings about yourself to others (which – as we saw above – is irrational because you can’t control what they think and their opinions about you are redundant anyway). Also, these ‘good’ feelings are really just a short-term high that comes from the release of tension of thinking you might not be ‘liked’.

The second is that you have all kinds of social instincts that are part of your biological makeup that make you feel like you have to be one of the herd/tribe/pack or you’re going to be cast aside to die in the (proverbial) gutter.

To give up the need to be liked you need to work on your relationship with yourself and listen to your own opinion more than others (and, for the record, if you have a ‘bad’ opinion of yourself then that means you’re being unreal and have picked up external standards or conditioning that you’re judging yourself in accordance with).

You also need to realise that your instincts to follow the herd and blend in are not reality – they’re just impulses that can help you survive but that you need to be selective with.

If you just follow any old crowd, then you’re going to end up being miserable because you will lose yourself in the crowd and no longer know who you are.

How needing to be liked all the time can hold you back

Just to drill the point home, here is a list of the symptoms you’ll face when you have the fundamental problem of NEEDING to be liked because of your unresolved emotional ‘stuff’.

I’ll also give you some quick tips so that you can actually start DOING something about this issue and moving towards a life that’s more REAL.

You’re never present because you’re always following an unreal agenda.

Problem: The first problem that arises from needing to be ‘liked’ all the time is that nobody really knows you because you’re always acting to come across in a certain light (that’s actually shadows), rather than being the REAL you.

As an example, maybe you need to be seen as being ‘nice’ (because your toxic shame can’t stand the idea of you being a ‘bad’ person or whatever) and so you have to constantly turn the volume up on how polite you are, hold back what you really think, never express your true feelings, etc.

This may help you to get what you want in the short-term, but in the long-term all you’re really doing is distancing yourself from other people and never truly being ‘seen’ (which is all any of us really want, at the end of the day).

Solution: The solution here? Start letting the REAL you out. You don’t have to go overboard especially if you’ve built a lot of the relationships in your life on an unreal foundation.

Stop being so AGREEABLE and start saying “No” – that’s always the first step to setting healthier boundaries and that’s what you’ve ultimately given yourself: a BOUNDARY PROBLEM.

Next time you catch yourself doing something purely because it will make you look ‘Nice’ (or whatever) then allow yourself to say “No” and be REAL instead. Overtime, this will definitely make you feel better about life in general.

You’re constantly comparing yourself to others

Problem: Another problem you’ll face if you need to be liked is that you’re going to constantly find yourself comparing yourself to others. This will be for two main reasons:

You want to compare to see how you’re ‘ranking’ in terms of whatever quality your ego has convinced you you’ll be liked for (being ‘nice’, ‘intelligent’, ‘alpha’, ‘beautiful’ whatever).
Your underlying SHAME (which is the main driver of needing to be liked) will want to make sure that nobody is ‘better’ than you because that will just make you catastrophise and act like there’s something WRONG with you (which is irrational but we’ll save that for another post).

In both of these cases, your need to be liked has caused you to create an ILLUSORY/BS standard to compare yourself and others to which is causing you to waste time in negative thinking and comparison.

This just stops you appreciating yourself and having REAL relationships with others (because you’re too busy comparing yourself to them to see them clearly).

Solution: First and foremost, you need to be AWARE of the fact and then ACCEPT the truth that human beings are incomparable – there will always be somebody that’s ‘better’ that you at some things but you’ll also always be better at some things than them.

Secondly, you need to try and develop an ABUNDANCE mindset – this just means realising that there’s enough goodwill in the world for everybody to be ‘liked’. Just because somebody else is likeable doesn’t mean you can’t also be likeable.

Thirdly, you need to stop worrying about other people and creating illusory competitions in your head by choosing a PURPOSE for yourself and your own life and focusing on that. When you’re busy GROWING REAL, you won’t have time to compare yourself to others: you’ll just be DOING YOU and getting things DONE.

You’re always criticising yourself

Problem: All this needing to be liked and comparison just sets you up for FAILURE. It sets you up for failure because you’re trying to do the impossible which is to change REALITY.

If you don’t realise that this is what you’re doing then you just end up living according to a bunch of EXPECTATIONS about yourself, the world, and reality that can never be met and you end up constantly criticising yourself.

This is because you keep telling yourself you ‘SHOULD’ get certain results but you never do (because you nobody can). In this particular case, the ‘SHOULDS’ in question are to be liked by everybody, to always be the best, to be perfect, etc. etc.

When you keep failing then your inner monologue (as an extension of your EGO) will keep chastising you and beating you up (or tell you you’re not good enough in the case of Imposter Syndrome).

Solution: You need to do the work to align your expectations with reality and to ACCEPT the realities of life that we’ve talked about here today in this article.

You never focus on your own goals because you’re wasting time on trying to impress people etc.

Problem: When you CHOOSE to live as though you’re only purpose here on earth is to be ‘liked’ then you make choices that reflect that – because most of these choices are UNREAL and our lives are just a consequence of the choices we’ve made then… it leads to your life being UNREAL too.

This is because in life the most important things we have – because we’re gonna be dead one day – are our time, energy, and attention.

Every time you CHOOSE to hide yourself behind some fake image of yourself, you’re wasting your LIFE.

Every time, you CHOOSE to not do that thing you really want to do because of shame or guilt, you’re wasting your POTENTIAL.

Every time, you CHOOSE to try and impress people or beg them to like you with desperate actions, you’re wasting the opportunity to be really KNOWN.

If the CHOICES you make are motivated by unreal, shame-driven, egotistical reasons then you’re not living YOUR life.

Solution: You need to start asking yourself what you really WANT from life, create a vision for it, and COMMIT to taking the actions that will help you realise it.

When you have a real vision then it makes it a lot easier to make CHOICES that are a reflection of you who really are, who you really want to become, and what you’re committed to do to get there.

Not being REAL to yourself or others.

Problem: In short, when you act like you need everybody to like you before you can like yourself then you stop being real.

This is a one-way ticket to misery because being unreal always leads to eventual frustration (see the symptoms we talked about above) and frustration always turns to misery if you don’t do something about it.

If you can’t be real with yourself (or others by extension) then you’ll never truly feel ALIVE – this means that one of the best and most urgent ways for you to improve your life is to start working on this stuff and actually moving towards self-acceptance and a life of ‘liking’ yourself first and foremost.

Solution: You CAN solve this problem but it will take a little patience with yourself and some time for you to readjust and reconfigure the shape of your life based on the CHOICES you’ve already made.

You do this by putting some thought into what you truly VALUE and INTEND to do with your life and then start dedicating yourself to that instead of the FALSE MISSION you’ve created for yourself (the mission that you think is to be LIKED more than anything REAL).

The Final Word

This has been a long article but I hope it’s helped you to see (if you had the problem we’ve been talking about) that focusing on being ‘liked’ only causes more problems in your life.

Not only does it distance you from yourself but it distances you from other people and wastes the precious time that you have here on planet earth.

If you want to start making changes in this area then you need to spend a little time becoming AWARE of who you really are and how this ‘likability’ problem is holding you back.

After you’ve gained this AWARENESS you need to ACCEPT the truth about yourself and the ways that you can express this truth in a real way through ACTION.

By dedicating yourself to that ACTION you’ll know what you want to say “YES” to (real life), that will make it easier to start saying “NO” to the unreal things we’ve been talking about, and you’ll increase your odds of meeting REAL people that actually like the REAL you for real reasons.

Don’t be liked; be real. The rest will fall into place.

If this story inspired or helped you then please share it with others! 🙂

Sign up for my mailing list if you want to stay in touch (you’ll get access to the 7-Day Personality Transplant for uncovering your life purpose):

If you want to find your own real life, start moving towards unconditional acceptance, and finding a sense of purpose then check out this 7-Day Course that you can start right now:

Mistakes people make when they’re trying to solve their problems (Do you have an actual problem or do you ‘just’ have ego resistance?)

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Coaching/Life Philosophy/Mindset

Here’s how you can tell if you have an actual problem or if you just have some kind of ego resistance (because you’re afraid to change or accept reality at some level because of your unresolved shame, guilt, and/or trauma).

Working with people in mental health and coaching people over the years (just coaching these days as I left the mental health sector) has taught me that a lot of people out there often have ‘problems’ that linger way longer than they need to.

Is this because the ‘problems’ in question are just so insurmountable that they can’t be solved?

No, not if you look at it in a REAL way.

If you genuinely can’t do something about a problem then it often means you don’t actually have a problem ‘outside’ yourself: it means that you’re struggling to ACCEPT something that can’t be changed.

And…If all you can do with something is accept it, then it can never be a problem, it’s just the way life or reality works.

In these cases, you need to ask yourself exactly what it is that’s preventing you from doing what needs to be done to ACCEPT this reality.

In my experience, it’s usually a cocktail of shame, guilt, and/or trauma that’s caused us to CHOOSE a belief system for ourselves that’s aligned with what we WANT to believe about life, not reality itself (and, to go full circle, we usually WANT to believe something other than the truth so we don’t have to face our shame, guilt, and / or trauma).

Another FACT about human life is this:

If you understood the cause of your problem, then it would be in your NATURE to do something about it.

I.e. to find a SOLUTION and to act on this solution.

Then you wouldn’t ‘have’ a problem anymore (“have” in scare quotes because actually what’s going on in a lot of cases is we’re BEING a problem for ourselves).

That’s just common sense in a way: if you have a problem and then you discover a solution then you only have two options:

You’ll take the actions that lead to the solution. Problem solved (assuming you were right about the problem and the solution that goes with it).
You won’t take the action leading to the solution, either because you have IDENTIFIED with having the problem, because it’s not a REAL problem, or because you’re scared that the problem will lead to bigger problems (for example, maybe you’re scared of success because of the extra pressure or work you’ll bring yourself).

The ‘short-version’ of this then is simple:

1) You either have to accept a ‘problem’ as part of life, in which case it isn’t a problem.

or:

2) You understand what can be done about your problem and so you do it, in which case you no longer have a problem.

or:

3) You have some kind of ‘problem’ in your life that keeps lingering, either because you don’t ACT on it, or because you can’t find a solution (which means the problem is unreal).

In the first two cases, the solution to your problem is always being real:

Increasing your AWARENESS, ACCEPTING what has to be accepted about life, and then ACTING accordingly.

In the 3rd case, the only thing stopping you from moving forward is your own relationship with yourself that is BLOCKING you because you either:

Lack AWARENESS – in other words, you think a certain thing is a problem but it isn’t or you’re dealing with a SYMPTOM and not the fundamental cause.
Refuse to ACCEPT – in other words, you WANT to believe that yourself, the world, or reality work in a certain way, rather than accepting the truth about them (for example, this is the same as having a problem with the fact that the sky is blue because you feel better about the colour green).
Have a barrier to ACTION – in other words, you’re not DOING the things you need to DO in order to move yourself towards becoming aware of a solution or implementing one.

In all of these cases, the problem isn’t the ‘problem’ – the problem is that you are being RESISTANT to reality for some (usually emotional, like we said) reason that is blocking your view or reality (almost always because of your relationship with yourself).

Here are the most common causes of this kind of ego resistance (or whatever you wanna call it):

AWARENESS: You’re dealing with a symptom, not the fundamental problem.

A lot of the things that you might mistakenly believe to be your problems are actually just SYMPTOMS of a deeper problem. Normally, the deeper, fundamental problem has something to do with your relationship with yourself.

As a hypothetical example, maybe you’re somebody who suffers from headaches. You might believe that these headaches are the main problem and so you spend all your time trying out new medication, fancy new diets, etc. etc.

The mistake you’re making is not realising that these hypothetical headaches are just SYMPTOMATIC of something deeper:

-Maybe you’re STRESSED because you have shame that’s causing you to push yourself to be ‘better’ than everybody else.

-Maybe you’re not SLEEPING ENOUGH because you’re feeling guilty about all of the terrible things you did (as an example).

-Maybe you have unresolved trauma that’s caused you to become dissociated from yourself and so you have a lot of inner tension leading to the headaches.

These are just hypothetical but the POINT is that if you don’t dig deep enough then you’ll only be ‘rearranging the furniture on the Titanic’ and the ship will still sink when it doesn’t need to.

A lot of the time when I’m coaching people I’m just working with people to help them understand whether the problems they’re trying to solve are the FUNDAMENTAL problem.

Once they make the shift, they can put their energy into something that will actually make a difference.

ACCEPTANCE: You want reality to be something other than what it is (normally because of the way you want to see yourself).

When it comes to the way that life is and the way that human beings operate in reality, there are all kinds of models and ideas about how to live a ‘good life’ and to get results.

There are all kinds of religious texts, philosophies, ideologies, etc. that are TOOLS to help us make sense of life but – at the end of the day – life operates in the same way for ALL of us, regardless of which model we decide to follow.

Some of these unifying LIFE PRINCIPLES can be hard to swallow:

-We’re going to die one day

-We’re not special in the scheme of things as a whole

-We have to put in hard work and effort to get what we want from life

-We all fail

-We all have questions that can’t be answered

-Etc.

All of this stuff applies to all of us.

Sometimes, people find themselves having problems they don’t seem to be able to find a solution for. In my experience, this is because the problem ONLY EXISTS IN THEIR HEADS because they’re trying to deny something fundamentally true about life.

This is because they WANT life to be different to how it is (because of their underlying emotional ‘stuff’):

-They want to live forever because they can’t imagine life without their identity.

-They want to be seen as special and different to everybody else.

-They want to get things as soon as they want them without doing the work.

-They want to never fail (because failure triggers shame).

-They want to know everything (so they can control life and keep their ego where it is as the main thing that threatens ego is LEARNING).

-Etc.

The point here is that when you don’t ACCEPT life you just give yourself a bunch of problems that exist in your head alone.

You’ll be trying to solve your emotional pain or existential anguish or whatever else is going on by trying to change life (which is impossible).

What you need to do is ACCEPT and grow with life.

ACTION: You don’t want to do the actions that will help you move forward to a solution.

When people aren’t AWARE of life and they don’t ACCEPT life they don’t ACT on life – they either don’t act at all or they act on some BS that exists in their heads alone (so never get results).

If you think you know the solution to your problem but you don’t act then:

1) You either have ego resistance (i.e. you know the action will show you that your self-image is BS because you might fail or you’ll have to grow through your comfort zone or something).

2) You don’t want to solve the problem because there is some kind of ‘payoff’ that comes with it (for example, maybe people will feel sorry for you, you have an excuse not to try, etc.)

In both cases, this comes down to you avoiding yourself and trying to uphold some false version of yourself you became invested in.

If you have a problem that lingers, then probably some of this stuff is going on for you.

The solution is to:

Become AWARE of the actual problem, so you’re not running around like a headless chicken chasing phantoms.

ACCEPT what can’t be changed about life and whatever is inside you that is causing you to resist it.

To ACT on the solutions that you do have without letting your ideas about yourself talk you out of it.

When you live like this you realise that actually there are NO problems once you take your identity out of the equation:

You’re either ACCEPTING reality or you’re trying to DENY it.

That’s the biggest mistake any of us can make when it comes to our ‘problems’ as a whole.

If this story inspired or helped you then please share it with others! 🙂

Sign up for my mailing list if you want to stay in touch (you’ll get access to the 7-Day Personality Transplant for uncovering your life purpose):

If you want to find your own real life, start moving towards unconditional acceptance, and finding a sense of purpose then check out this 7-Day Course that you can start right now:

Refuse to Feel ‘Guilty’ for Growin Real.

Published on

Coaching/Life Philosophy/Relationships/Shadow Life

The only people who don’t want you to grow real are people that are UNREAL.

This is because being REAL is about unblocking ourselves from the matrix of our own BS – such as self-limiting beliefs, unreal expectations of ourselves and others, emotionally-distored perspectives, attachments to opinions blah blah – so that we can simply MOVE and grow through our own edge and go deeper into a relationship with the TRUTH.

Unreal people have FRAGMENTED and divided themselves within themselves and so they have attached to all this BS and even gone so far as to think that they ARE the BS.

When they see somebody doing the INNER WORK to flip the script and put their WHOLENESS out into the world – instead of allowing the world to suppress them and to EXTINGUISH the torch of the human spirit – a couple of things happen:

1. They start to lash out because the REAL QUALITIES that are being expressed in the REAL ONE trigger their ‘Shadow Stuff‘ and all of the real qualities they’re trying to hide from themselves for the sake of their EGOs start calling to them from beneath the surface of themselves.

2. They will try and TEST the REAL ONE to see if they’re as real as they seem to think they are… This is weird when it first starts happening but it’s a good sign as it means the unreal have seen your realness and can’t quite believe it.

These ‘tests’ will be about trying to SHAKE you in some way – just believe in your REALNESS and refuse to waver (there’s nothing to ‘worry’ about anyway as all they can give you is UNREALITY).

3. They will try and make you feel GUILTY and to force you into certain ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving in the world (based on ROLES they want you to play so they can keep their unreality’s hold over them).

Here, they will tell you what you ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ think/feel/do based – usually – on how it’s making them ‘feel’ (normally because they’re playing the VICTIM and trying to make you and them believe that somebody else is responsible for their emotional ‘stuff’).

You need to remember that all of this is just the WORLD trying to suck you back into its unreality.

Guilt is a useless emotion but reality is FOREVER.

Be unshakeable.

I can help you reach your goals and grow real.

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Only Trust Them If They’re (At Least) A Little Crazy.

Published on

Coaching/Life Philosophy

It’s not the ‘crazy’ ones that you need to watch out for.

It’s the ones who think they’ve got all the answers and got it all ‘together’ that you need to watch out for.

The TRUTH is that all human beings are at least a LITTLE bit CRAZY because we all have chaos inside of ourselves, none of us know everything, and we’re all IMPERFECT in strange and BEAUTIFUL ways.

To be REAL and to be able to RELATE to others on the LEVEL then we need to ACCEPT ourselves unconditionally and that means embracing all of our darknesses and chaotic undercurrents – even if that might appear ‘CRAZY’ in the face of an UNREAL WORLD.

Being real is about ACCEPTING and EMBRACING the truth – beyond any ideas of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ – and so that means that we know we’re on a journey of allowing those REALITY WAVES to purify us through the act of living which means bringing the darkness and irrationality that exists within us ALL up to the surface in service of life.

The BIG BALLS move is to go through this process as part of our personal JOURNEY of growing real by and doing the INNER WORK required to allow the darkness to come to light in the face of our own CONSCIOUS AWARENESS without judgement or duality.

The BAD BALLS move is to find a way to express what you’re LEARNING and going through on this journey out in the world around you with your CREATIVITY and the way that you use it to speak you truth in the world.

Or as we’ve said before – do this:

1. Live to uncover the truth.

2. Act on this truth (by sharing and living it).

To live in this real way means that you are not ‘OF’ the world – the world is just our COLLECTIVE ideas and limitations about life according to whatever TIME AND PLACE we find ourselves in but what is REAL about you is UNIVERSAL and TIMELESS.

When you come from that UNIVERSAL PLACE in a world defined by its time then, of course, you run the risk of seeming a little ‘crazy’ but that’s only because you’re not letting the prison bars stop you from being FREE.

If you meet somebody claiming they have it all together or doesn’t have any rawness or rough edges then RUN – not only are they hiding from yoou but they’re hiding from themselves.

GIMME SOMETHING REAL OR GTFO.

Get in touch with me about coaching if you want to bring your own ‘craziness’ to the surface.

I’m trying to make sure my emails are REAL. Enter your email address below if you want to read them.

You’ll get a free PDF of my Lifestyle Design Canvas when you do (a tool for looking at your life and where you wanna go next):

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Your World Today is a Reflection of How the ‘Old’ You Used to Think.

Published on

Life Philosophy/Coaching/Psychology

What you put into your life is what you get out of it.

You put something REAL in, guess what comes out?

Yeah, something real.

You put something UNREAL in?

You can probably figure it out.

The ‘problem’ (though it’s really more just a ‘reality’) is that the universe operates according to a law of CAUSE and EFFECT and it takes TIME for these effects to accumulate and give you the results that you want.

What this means is that you could spend your whole life being UNREAL and then decide to WAKE UP one day but it wouldn’t change anything unless you were real CONSISTENTLY over time.

Everything in your life is the accumulation of some PROCESS.

If the process you were involved in for the DESIGN of your life came from a place where you were being unreal with yourself (not your ‘fault’ – probably because of your conditioning and/or unresolved shame/guilt/trauma) then the world you live in today will be UNREAL too.

This is because – due to everything being a PROCESS – there’s actually a LAG.

What this means in practical terms is that your life and WORLD today is just the accumulation of all the choices that the ‘Old’ version of you made yesterday or a few months ago or even years back.

I see this all the time with my coaching clients:

For whatever reason, they were conditioned NOT to be real with themselves (i.e. live according to their REAL values and intentions) and so today the world they’re living in doesn’t ‘fit’ who they truly are deep down.

The solution in this case is to start UPDATING THE SOFTWARE.

Instead of having an unreal personality that was built as an unreal response to something unreal, I have to help people UNLEARN all of that ‘stuff’ and start acting and making CHOICES in a way that is more AUTHENTIC.

Often, this means letting go of the BELIEFS and IDEAS that make them feel like they’re ‘unworthy’ or whatever else they have going on.

When you DIG DEEPER and remove those kinds of beliefs you can start the PROCESS of upgrading the software so that there’s less CONFLICT.

When you do that, things start MOVING again almost immediately, momentum is built, blocks are removed and you just know that TOMORROW is gonna be even better.

I’m trying to make sure my emails are REAL. Enter your email address below if you want to read them.

You’ll get a free PDF of my Lifestyle Design Canvas when you do (a tool for looking at your life and where you wanna go next):

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emotions

Stop being intimidated

Symptoms of Being Intimidated by Life

Passive Mindset

Restlessness

Never Speaking Up

Negative Thinking

Procrastination

Not Taking the Actions You Really Want To Take

Being Outcome-Dependent Instead of Outcome-Independent

Imposter Syndrome

General Lack of Confidence

Anxiety and/or Depression

How You Became Intimidated

Basically, you got sent into your HEAD somehow.

You might’ve listened to OTHER PEOPLE instead of yourself.

You compared yourself to others (usually the highlight reel).

You lost your balls somehow (but you can get them back)

You let your ‘protective’ emotions like anger be turned against you (often into depression or sentimentality).

You let your interpretation of the past skew your vision of yourself in the present.

How To Stop Being Intimidated.

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Live Without Your Mask

Self-Facing Faces

Face 1: Who You Wanna Be (To Yourself)

Face 2: Who You Think You Are Now (To Yourself)

Face 3: Who You Fear You Might Be

Face 4: Your Shadow Face / The Unknown

World-Facing Faces

Face 1: The Character You Play In MOST Social Situations To Survive Them (Who You Show To Strangers/People You Just Met or Want to Keep at A Distance).

Face 2: The Face You Show The World In Different Partnerships or Groups (E.G. Might Be Different Among Friends That Parents).

Reality-Facing Faces

Face 1: The OBSERVER making sense of all this .

Face 2: The REAL self (who knows what to do with all this Awareness and to ACCEPT it and to take Action)

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The Action Avoider

The All-Eyes-On-Me

The Anger Issues

The Attention Whore

The ‘Authority’

The Breakthrough

The Chameleons

The Chip-On-the-Shoulder

The Clique Member

The Comparer

The Competitor

The Compromiser

The Conformists

The Conspiracy Idiot

The Control Freaks

The Copycat

The Criticiser

The Crusader

The Deal Maker

The Defensive Type

The Denialists

Drama Kings and Queens

The Driven One

The Dumb Rude Person

The Emotional Retard

The Energy Vampires

The Entitled One

The Excuse Maker

The Expert

The Future Famous

The Genius

The Gossip

The Groupie

The Grudge Holder

The Guilt Trip

The Guru

The ‘Healed’ One

The Hero (the “more than” human)

The Identity Trap

The Inner Child

The Jealous Ones

The Judger

The Kiss Ass

The Know-it-All

The Losers