outcome-independence

“I Used To Be Creative” – How To Be REAL Again

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What Causes Loss of Creativity and HOW TO GET YOUR CREATIVITY BACK

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A problem that I find a lot of people struggling with when I’m coaching is that they “USED TO BE” a certain way – creative, joyful, confident, whatever – but for some inexplicable reason they’ve witnessed these REAL qualities fade away and they don’t know how to get them back.

When people find themselves having this particular problem they often start to believe that those qualities have slipped through their fingers forever and they just have to learn to live without them.

This article will show you that this way of thinking is actually part of the problem – as well as showing you how those qualities became clouded and hidden from you in the first place (and how you can get yourself back on the track to getting back in touch with them).

One thing you need to know before you start reading is something that’s been said on this site and in my books before:

What’s real about you is always real.

The kind of qualities that we’re talking about here – in particular, for the sake of this article, our CREATIVITY – aren’t something that are special or scarce but something that are vital, essential, and REAL to all human beings by virtue of being human in the first place.

They can’t go anywhere because they’re REAL – you can only distance yourself from them or prevent yourself from stretching the muscles you need to stretch to make the most of them.

We’re going to focus on the quality of ‘being creative’ as an example but what’s going to be said here applies to any real human quality that will allow us to keep growing, keep learning, and moving towards more WHOLENESS in our lives (i.e. a better connection to ourselves, the world, and reality).

We’ll start by looking at the main reasons you became DETACHED from your creativity – or, at least, started looking the other way – and then we’ll look at some things you can do to start tuning in again.

Here we go:

You started listening to the world more than yourself and you became conditioned to think the unreal things about you are real.

As the age old story goes, we’re born real but then the world starts to creep in and make us believe that we’re unreal.

It does this by giving a bunch of false beliefs and assumptions about ourselves, the world, and reality that we take on board as the truth about life and then hypnotise ourselves into believing.

As enough time passes, we forget that we’ve been hypnotising ourselves with these unreal beliefs and actually start to believe that we actually are whatever it is we’ve been telling ourselves we are.

Some people spend their whole lives believing this unreal story – always with a sense of restlessness never knowing why.

If you’re lucky then you can WAKE YOURSELF UP and start being real again – but only if you do the work required of diving into yourself and your belief systems and learning to flip the script by separating the real from the unreal.

In relation to why you “USED TO BE” creative but now hardly find yourself ALLOWING YOURSELF TO BE, it all starts with this unreal story and the effects of your conditioning and your capacity to resist and wake yourself up instead of hypnotising yourself.

Somewhere along the line, you’ve allowed the world to condition you into believing that your creativity is not important (or even existent in the extreme cases) and so you’ve started to value the world and CONCEPTS more than yourself and EXPERIENCE.

Unfortunately, because the world doesn’t generally want you to be ‘creative’ and instead wants us to be a productive, money-driven member of society you probably ended up valuing the cultural values and ideals of a results-driven uncreative world.

This could’ve been something that you picked up from your parents when you were younger – who perhaps didn’t value your creative work as much as they could’ve done (or simply didn’t ‘get it’ because they weren’t on the path that you were on).

Maybe it was your peers who valued video games or whatever else – usually some other distraction – over doing the creative work that you used to enjoy doing.

Maybe it was just the general culture you grew up in and the messages you picked up from movies or mainstream music or whatever about what you ‘should’ be doing with your life and the kind of person you ‘should’ be.

It might be something completely different but it’s always the case that something somewhere along the line gave you a bunch of ideas that at the very least made you see your creativity as being LESS IMPORTANT than it actually is and – in the worst cases – made you give up on it completely.

You ‘Grew Up’ and Stopped Growing

At the end of the day, creativity is something that we ALL have – even though it can express itself differently in all our lives – because it’s something that is ESSENTIAL for the process of human beings growing more real and becoming more WHOLE.

The short-version of this is that the creative process allows whatever is going on in your unconscious mind to come to the surface and to be processed in the light of your conscious understanding – this means that you’ll have a better grasp of who you really are, what you’re really thinking, feeling, and value, and will be able to make better decisions moving forward on account of whatever INSIGHT is revealed (because more insight leads to more REALITY).

See this article about creativity for more details about that process or listen to the Creative Status Podcast.

Because creativity is so vital to our growth, we can end up being a “used-to-be-creative” if we reach a stage where we trick ourselves into thinking that we’ve done all of the growing that we need to do and that we’re now a final product instead of a work in progress.

If you tell yourself that you’ve ‘grown up’ and that you know everything you need to know or that you’re ‘right’ about everything or any of the other UNREAL qualities that come with seeing yourself as ‘finalised’ and ‘done’ learning or growing then you just end up causing yourself to believe in what I call the ‘Illusion of Stasis’.

The Illusion of Stasis is just the irrational idea that you no longer need to move with life and that the ideas you carry about yourself, the world, and reality are the final word about these things.

When you start to believe this then you end up having EGO RESISTANCE to the natural flow of reality itself (aka THE REALITY WAVES) and so you end up living in a little box and trying to control everything instead of facing and growing through the CHAOS of life (because you’ve created a false sense of order with your EGO / self-image).

The solution here is to let go of who you think you are and to allow yourself to start GROWING and moving forward again. Your creativity will have to kick back into action if you do because that’s what it’s for: to help you navigate this process in the context of your own life.

You became outcome-dependent because you forgot how to play.

If we’re not careful then as we get older and ‘wiser’ (or not), we can become incredibly results-driven and obsessed with the outcomes of whatever it is that we happen to be doing.

There’s a longer article about outcome-independence here on this site, but the short version of what it means (if you don’t know) is that your feelings of self-worth and levels of self-acceptance are dependent on the outcomes of whatever goals you’ve set for yourself.

This is an irrational approach to living and a form of CONTROL FREAKERY because nobody can always achieve the outcomes that they want to achieve all of the time and so by putting your self-acceptance in the hands of outcomes you’re putting the way you feel about yourself at the mercy of chance and chaos (instead of being REAL and taking it as a given no matter what by practising UNCONDITIONAL SELF-ACCEPTANCE).

In relation to our creativity, outcome-dependence prevents us from setting out on a creative journey or by starting a creative project in the first place because we condition ourselves to believe that it’s simply not worth doing unless we can guarantee certain results.

The problem is that creativity – like life – is ultimately about facing UNCERTAINTY and the UNKNOWN and riding through the EDGE of our ideas about ourselves to be able to allow something new to emerge out of CHAOS.

In other words, if you try to get guarantees from the creative process then you’ll set yourself up for failure and be disappointed…

Creativity isn’t a one-way street – it’s a two-way exchange of information between you and reality itself. As you set out with an ‘idea’ about what you’re going to create – be it a book or a painting or whatever else – those ideas will guide you and serve as your map but you will have to learn and modify the original plan in the light of reality.

As the saying goes, “The map is not the territory”. Ever.

If you’re outcome-dependent then you won’t be able to ride out this chaotic pathway because you’ll need everything to be a certain way and try to control things to ‘protect’ your self-worth (which doesn’t even need to be protected because you’re always worthy no matter what outcomes you attain – what’s real is always real).

The opposite attitude here is to be outcome-independent which means that you set out on your creative journey knowing that all you need to really do is “do your best and forget the rest” because it’s the PROCESS that will help you the most to learn and grow real, not the end results or outcomes themselves.

If you find yourself being too ‘rigid’ about your creative goals and lapsing into outcome-dependence to the extent that you can’t even get started then you need to introduce a more PLAYFUL attitude to the way that you’re approaching things.

Ultimately, this just means staying curious, seeing what happens and taking some of the pressure off yourself to get certain results – when you were younger and “used to be” creative this is most likely the attitude that you had: it was FUN, not something serious that your whole life depends on (or at least your levels of feeling good about yourself).

In short, it’s not WHAT you do but HOW you do it.  If you create a piece of art (or whatever) in a ‘serious’, outcome-dependent way, it’s going to be a lot less real than one that’s created in a ‘playful’, outcome-independent way.

You Stopped Being Curious Because You Think You’ve Seen It All

As we get older, we can risk becoming jaded and feeling like we’ve seen it all, done it all, and been everything we will ever be.

This is, of course, a consequence of ‘growing up’ as we discussed above but there’s also a slightly deeper issue which is that our attitude becomes unreal and ends up blocking our ability to get outside of the hamster wheel of the same old thoughts and ideas we usually have and the same old things we do because of them.

Most of us will end up finding ourselves in some kind of a routine – in many ways, this is something that we need to bring a sense of structure and order to our lives and as long as this routine supports our growth without being too RIGID then it will add value to our lives.

Problems can arise, however, when we end up creating a routine at a time in our lives when we’re one version of ourselves and then life and who we ‘are’ changes around us but the routine doesn’t.

When this happens we end up just going through the motions and living on autopilot:

-Going the same way to work every day.

-Eating the same foods.

-Having the same conversations with the same people.

-Doing our hobbies at the same time each week.

-Etc.

You know what I’m talking about probably because we can all end up falling into this trap at some stage in our lives.

Having this problem of just going through the motions is a SYMPTOM of the FUNDAMENTAL problem of losing our curiosity.

We’re no longer curious about different ways of going to work, eating different things, talking about certain things, or doing our hobbies when we do – we just do it because that’s what we’ve identified with those things and so “It’s always been this way”.

The way out is to MIX THINGS UP by bringing some curiosity back into your life:

“What if I do it this way?”

It doesn’t have to be anything complicated but – ultimately – by being curious enough to at least ask yourself different questions you can start getting different results (if you act on the answers you get).

If you keep acting out on the answers you already think you have then you just end up putting yourself in an imaginary bubble and holding your back from the REAL LIFE you could be living as a consequence of your real creativity.

To be creative again, start asking yourself some new questions.

You learned to judge yourself and that held you back.

In short, the main reason why you “used to be” creative but no longer find it as easy to express yourself or to explore creative ideas and projects in the way that you used to is because you have picked up JUDGEMENTS.

Almost always these judgments are at three levels (the only three levels that exist): yourself, the world, and reality.

At the level of YOURSELF, you have learned to judge yourself if you express certain qualities that your creativity requires of you: taking RISKS, not being ‘good’ enough (because you’re being outcome-dependent), judging the version of yourself you see in the CHAOS of the creative process as it unfolds that your EGO isn’t ready for yet.

At the level of the WORLD, you have learned to judge what you think your work ‘means’ to others instead of just enjoying the process and learning what you can from it for YOURSELF (and then letting it just mean what it actually MEANS).

At the level of REALITY, you have learned to judge the way that things work and to BLOCK yourself from allowing your creativity to take you in the direction you need to go in so that you can make the unconscious conscious and grow more WHOLE.

All of these – and any other – judgements that you pick up and treat as being real take you out of REALITY because the only thing you can do with reality is accept it and judgement is the antithesis of acceptance.

When you have this attitude, you end up living in a way that is in direct contrast to the values and qualities required to be truly creative – in short, you have become CLOSED to life instead of being OPEN and seeing where life and creativity will take you (which is always where you need to go because your REAL creativity is the vehicle of your natural drive towards WHOLENESS).

How to Overcome Lack of Creativity: Get Out of Your Head and Into Reality

As always, the solution is to remember that “Real always works” and to start training yourself to be more open and real again.

This means stopping and catching yourself when you judge, embracing uncertainty and risk instead of running from it, and making sure that you’re on a journey of learning instead of ‘knowing’ everything.

If you spend too much time in your head then you can never be truly creative because you’re blocking your mind-body system from working together as a whole and fulfilling your natural drive to move towards more connection in yourself and life as a whole.

Like I just said, your creativity is the vehicle for allowing this natural drive to move forward – actually, whether you try to consciously direct it or not it will still do its thing (because what’s real is always real and never goes anywhere).

That’s a topic for another article but the short-version is that to live a life without friction,  you need to embrace and ride WITH this process instead of against it and that means opening to life instead of sticking in your head and trying to control everything from the closed parts of you.

You’ll know what this means in the context of your own life and where you’re holding yourself back (and if you don’t check out the 7-Day Course at personalitytransplant.info or read my books about it).

You “used to be” creative because you have temporarily bought into the illusion that you’re not. The way out of this temporary blip in your life is to get real again, see yourself as you are, and start living as whatever that is instead of the uncreative being you’ve allowed yourself to think yourself into being.


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

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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.

 


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

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

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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:

  1. You can’t control what other people think about you and whether they ‘like’ you or not.
  2. 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:

  1. Create a false image of yourself that you hide behind to try and hide your shame from yourself and the world.
  2. 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:

  1. Reasons of the Self
  2. 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.

 


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If Your ‘Confidence’ is Based On Feeling Superior It Can Always be Taken Away

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There’s a difference between REAL and unreal confidence.

REAL is about KNOWING you’re unshakeable because you’ve found a way to be ROOTED in yourself and reality and devoted yourself to some TRUTH about life that’s ‘higher’ than just your limited ideas about ‘You’.

When you’re rooted to the WHOLE in that way you understand who you are and what life is (and the connection between you and live itself) and nothing can ever take that away. Never.

It can’t be taken because it’s not DEPENDENT on anything – it’s just about acknowledging what’s already there, riding those REALITY WAVES, and trusting and believing (trust that life has your best interests at heart and belief in yourself and your ability to handle whatever happens).

This kind of real confidence, then, essentially comes from doing the INNER WORK, and cultivating UNCONDITIONAL SELF-ACCEPTANCE (see my book Shadow Life which is about this).

“Unconditional Self-Acceptance” just means that you accept yourself NO MATTER WHAT and that you commit to working with and growing through whatever life flings your way.

When you take the opposite path – i.e. the EGO PATH – then your confidence isn’t based on unconditional self-acceptance but CONDITIONAL SELF-ACCEPTANCE.

Whereas Unconditional Self-Acceptance comes from the INSIDE, Conditional Self-Acceptance comes from the outside.

Conditional Self-Acceptance (aka ‘Self-Esteem’) means that you’re feelings about yourself are DEPENDENT on the image you carry of yourself in the WORLD (even though the world isn’t real).

For most people, this shows up as feelings of ‘SUPERIORITY’ – for example, being able to see ourselves as being ‘better’ than other people in our group or surroundings because of some completely (usually) superficial and arbitrary quality or thing:

-Being the most handsome/beautiful/attractive

-Having more money/followers/likes

-Being the funniest/toughest/purest/whateverest

-Etc.

There’s nothing wrong with HEALTHY COMPETITION (Iron sharpens iron) but if you’re confidence only comes from external stuff it can NEVER last because CONDITIONS always change – somebody will always be more ‘superior’ eventually.

Step inside and stand on something REAL.

My coaching packages can help you find your real confidence.

 


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Only Trust Them If They’re (At Least) A Little Crazy.

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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.

 

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This is the Sign You’ve Been Waiting For to Walk Away from the BS Thing that Keeps Holding You Back.

Every so often, I like to remind people that a super power we all have is to say “NO”.

When you say “No” to something UNREAL then it frees you up to say “Yes” to the real stuff – your true values, your true intentions, your true purpose, and most importantly your TRUE SELF.

The problem for a lot of us is that we make a lot of the decisions about our lives and what we want to do with them based on an UNREAL IMAGE of ourselves:

-We don’t believe in ourselves so we CHOOSE jobs, relationships, or ‘friendships’ that aren’t healthy or satisfying.

-We don’t believe in the world so we think that we just have to follow our SOCIAL CONDITIONING and do what we’re TOLD.

-We don’t believe in reality so we don’t acknowledge that we can GROW REAL through a lot of our limitations (and when we can’t we can learn to ACCEPT and be more CREATIVE with these limitations).

When you make choices about your life from the UNREAL side of who you are (i.e. the EGO which is designed as a response to the Unholy Trinity of shame, guilt, and/or trauma and serves as a barrier to keep your SHADOW at bay – see Shadow Life: Freedom from Bs in an Unreal World) then what you get from life is equally UNREAL.

It’s pretty simple:

Unreal goes in -> Unreal comes out

Real goes in -> Real comes out

If you’re lucky enough to have something ‘bad’ happen or if you step up and do the WORK then you can start to go through the process of becoming aware of how the world you’ve CHOSEN is UNREAL:

Asleep -> Awareness -> Acceptance -> Action

If you stay ASLEEP you will feel the restless call of the void as your shadow calls to you from beneath the surface.

If you become AWARE you’ll start to feel frustrated at what you’ve CHOSEN for yourself.

If you start to ACCEPT you’ll understand why you made those choices and FORGIVE yourself.

If you accept you can start taking ACTION and the first step is to set the BOUNDARY by saying “NO” to the unreal stuff that doesn’t serve you.

Like anything, it’s a PROCESS – you might not just up and leave but you can CHECKOUT MENTALLY.

When you’ve done that the next step is to work on bringing the REAL STUFF and to keep walking.

No dramas, no stress, no malice.


 

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You Don’t Need to Force Anything to Get Where You Need to Be

Forcing life to happen in the way that you want it to happen is alway UNREAL.

In real life and nature, NOTHING is forced:

-The grasss doesn’t force itself to grow.

-The trees don’t force themselves to produce fruit or to blow in the wind.

-The clouds don’t force themselves to burst open when it’s time to let the rains out.

-The birds don’t have to force themselves to fly away for the winter.

Everything just happens exactly when it’s supposed to happen – in fact, you could go even further than that and say that it’s beyond any idea of ‘supposed to’ and more accurately we can say “stuff just happens”.

The problem – or difference – of course, is that all of these natural phenomena haven’t been blessed with the ‘extra’, higher-level faculties that human beings have:

-They don’t have human reason.

-They don’t have human drives.

-They don’t have human fears, prides, or desires.

-They don’t have human tendencies to compare or to resist.

-Etc.

All of these things are part of our human NATURE but – if misused – they take us away from nature and life at the same time.

The way we ‘misuse’ them is by using them to turn away from the nature of ourselves and reality and towards the fragmentations and divisions of ‘the world’ (really, just a set of ideas that we project over the truth because of our individual and collective ‘stuff’).

When we turn away like this, we forget that we are CONNECTED to nature and its natural processes and we start to think that we’re of the world alone (which is never reality or nature because those things aren’t just ideas – they’re experiences).

The more attached we become to the world, the more our identity becomes invested in the things that we need to happen in the world to keep that identity in place.

The more we need the world to be real, the more we try and FORCE the things we want in the world to happen – every time we do this, though, we make the choice for fragmentation over wholeness and disconnect ourselves from the process of letting things HAPPEN.

Step back from the world, admit you don’t know everything, and let NATURE work with you.

As the tree brings forth fruit so shall you.

 


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Two Ways to Free Yourself from the World: 1) Abundance Mindset, 2) Detaching Your Self-Acceptance from Outcomes

What’s REAL about you is ALWAYS real.

You free yourself from the world (and your ideas about yourself which are attached to the illusion that the world is ‘real’) when you learn about and embrace your true UNSHAKEABILITY.

The TRUTH about you is that even though the physical things about you and the world change around you there is something REAL that never changes…

In the terms we use, that ‘something’ is your REALNESS – it can never be added to, removed from, recreated or destroyed.

You can only go deeper into it or further away – but, even then, the only thing that’s ‘changed’ is your awareness.

If you don’t acknowledge this REALNESS then the world can shake you from yourself by tricking you into thinking you’re UNREAL and affecting your levels of self-acceptance.

Two things to work on that I’ve seen help people dramatically (when coaching them) are:

1. An Abundance Mindset – realising that you have PLENTY of opportunities in life and that all of the REAL things in life are non-zero sum entities (that means that me having something like ‘love’ doesn’t mean you or anybody else can’t have just as much of it).

2. Outcome-Independence – which means that the outcome of whatever goals you chase do NOT define or affect your levels of sef-acceptane (because you KNOW and FEEL that you’re real no matter what).

You can work on both of these qualities – which are both interconnected and go back to your unshakeable REALNESS – by learning to RELAX, seeing life as clearly as possible, and not judging yourself, the world, or reality but allowing life to take you where you need to be without blocking it or getting in your own way.

When you truly ACCEPT yourself and you’re OPEN to life you realise that opportunities that don’t work out for you are just FREEING you to stay on the path and find something that’s more authentic to who you are – if you close yourself because you don’t believe in abundance then you’ll miss the next ship to come sailing by.

With outcome-independence you know that even if you ‘fail’ you’ve removed layers of BS along the way and have become more real to go and find whatever is truly waiting for you.

That’s as real as it gets.

 


More detailed posts:

Unshakeable Abundance

The Art of Living Badly

 


 

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Outcome-Independence: The Art of Living Badly

How to get it together by forgetting about perfection, being real, and staying in motion.

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