Never Settle - Go For What You Really Want

Guys, I wanna tell you a story about something that happened to me around 20 years ago and still haunts me to this day.

So anyway, here’s my story:

When I was in my early 20’s I was hanging around these 3 absolutely gorgeous Italian girls. I’d met them through mutual friends and over time we just started hanging out. Now, I knew the youngest one, who was a few years younger than me had a bit of a crush on me.

However, I REALLY liked the middle sister, who was about the same age as me. Physically, she was pretty much my ideal, plus she was just really cool and easy going, everything I wanted from a girlfriend.

So, I had this choice to make. I could either hook up with the younger sister who was a sure thing, but not quite what I was looking for. Or I could take the risk with the girl that I really wanted, but I didn’t really know if she liked me or not. She always played her cards really close to her chest. In the end I chose the sure thing. Now, the younger sister wasn’t exactly ugly, she actually was the spitting image of a young Madeline Stowe, so don’t feel too sorry for me, I wasn’t about to kick her out of bed. But despite her looks, she just wasn’t quite my type. And I never got over the feeling that I really wanted her sister instead. And every time I saw her sister I had a burning desire for her, which I felt really guilty about. And it made me feel bad for myself. I’d find myself finding fault with her and being short tempered with her.

Now the things I found annoying were really trivial, like she used to wear a bit too much makeup and take too long to get ready to go out, and she could be a bit precious and vacuous sometimes. But because I wasn’t quite satisfied with her, every small mistake she made became amplified in my mind, because every time I was around her I was reminded that I had compromised what I really wanted and settled. In the end I broke up with her because of this guilt. And as I reflected on our relationship, I realised it wasn’t a problem with her, it was a problem in me. I think if I’d met her without knowing her sister things would’ve been fine, she was beautiful! It’s just that I found myself in what I guess is an enviable situation where an otherwise beautiful girl has a shadow cast over her by a girl that I found almost fucking irresistible.

But by dating her sister, I’d pretty much blown my chances with this girl I really wanted. And I was a total dick to the girl I was dating. So, this situation ended up teaching me a huge lesson in life. Never settle and always go for what you really want.

So, let’s first discuss what I mean by “never settling”, because this phrase gets completely misinterpreted by some people.

Now, let’s be reasonable. There are going to be many times in your life when you’re going to have to make compromises. Never settling DOES NOT mean “never compromise”. But these compromises should be made in the short term and part of an overall strategy to get you closer to what you really want in life. For example, when you move into a position at work that you really aren’t too jazzed about, but you know it’s a step toward a promotion to a much better position. Or if you take up a job shovelling up shit at a zoo because you really ultimately want to be a zookeeper.

So again, what never settling really means is having a vision for what you believe your optimal situation would be, whether its owning a fortune 500 business, or being able to spend the rest of your life making origami paper planes, and then taking steps every day to get you closer towards that end goal.

Now a man’s end goal is generally focussed around attaining freedom. Whereas a women’s end goals are generally orientated around attaining safety. But this is a topic for another video.

But Stuart doesn’t this mean that unless I have achieved this goal for my perfect life I’ll be miserable?

Absolutely not! In fact, providing your goals are realistic for you and you celebrate your little successes that you have along the way to your ultimate goal, you’ll find the process of working towards achieving your ultimate goal extremely rewarding and fulfilling.

Say for example you may have a goal of owning a Ferrari. Well as part of the process of working towards that goal you’ll be doing research, going to Ferrari club meets and probably owning some pretty cool other cars along the way. All which you’ll most probably find extremely fun and interesting. It’s unlikely you’ll be highly disappointed and unsatisfied in the knowledge that you’re currently only driving an Alfa Romeo, because you know that owning that car is a step towards ultimately owning that Ferrari.

And who knows, by trying out different cars along the way you may find that you no longer want a Ferrari any more. And the only way you found that out was by taking action to move towards your original goal of owning a Ferrari.

However, and just briefly getting back to my story for just a moment, I experienced distress in my situation because I’d settled for something that wasn’t optimal, and that decision meant there was now literally no way to obtain what I really wanted. And this is what happens to a lot of people.

It’s like if by owning that Alfa Romeo it completely disqualified you from ever owning a Ferrari. You’d feel the same level of distress.

And this brings me to the idea of settling and marrying someone you’re not initially over the moon about. If you follow all the rules and lock yourself into a relationship with someone who’s not quite optimal for you, you’ll find yourself becoming dissatisfied with your relationship very quickly as you’ve disqualified yourself from being the potential partner of every other member of the opposite sex. Sure, long term relationships are incredibly complex and difficult things to manage over an extended period of time, and there’ll be plenty of ups and downs, as is the norm. However, if the foundation of your relationship is built upon a feeling of just settling for something that just “sort of works for you now”, then it will be hard to create something stable and long lasting.

Most people will put up with something that is less than ideal because they’re afraid that they won’t find anything better. It’s why soooo many people stay in shitty marriages, or are totally miserable with their job. How many people do you know that are totally happy with their relationship and love their job? Not a lot I’d say. However, it’s funny, but those that are happy in their marriage are often also happy with their job, because they have an attitude that they are willing to do what it takes to have what they really want in life.

We have a thing in Australia called the “tall Poppy Syndrome”. It’s basically if you’ve achieved any level success or are striving hard to be successful, everyone around you tries to cut you down to size. I find it disgusting. It’s like Australians have this collective self-hatred. We just don’t know how to be happy for someone else’s wins in life because it shines a light on just how fucking ordinary and boring our lives are in comparison.

But once you succumb to this “peer group pressure” and start lowering your expectations in one area, you’ll begin lowering them in other areas. It’s just too easy to settle for something that sort just does the job.

The problem with this is that you’ll always have this feeling in the back of your mind that maybe if I’d extended myself just a bit more I might’ve got exactly what I really want.

Now as I’ve mentioned earlier I’m completely guilty of this in the past and it’s something that I still battle with from time to time. Because it’s fucking hard to be successful and get what you really want. You sometimes have to take enormous risks to really get what you want. The path to success is littered with failure.

But you’ll know when you’re really trying your best, because you’ll fuck up more. And that’s totally ok.

I have a saying that if somethings not a “fuck yeah”, then it should be a “fuck no”. Life’s too short to be spending your time doing things you’re not passionate about, such as being in a relationship with someone that you think is just “eh”, or doing a job you think is just “eh”.

The system that we live in is design to make you constantly feel like you’re not good enough and to lower your self-esteem. Therefore, you’ll keep doing that job you hate, because we all can’t be astronauts or fighter pilots or billionaire entrepreneurs. Until technology finds a way, someone’s gotta sweep up the garbage after a concert. Someone’s gotta clean the public toilets every day. Let’s be honest, I don’t think there’s many kids out there that when they were growing up they were dreaming “man, when I grow up I want to be a street sweeper”.

And I’m not saying that these aren’t respectable jobs. I’m just stating that kids don’t dream of having these jobs when they grow up. So why do these kids end up doing these jobs when they become adults?

Because they didn’t think they could do any better, so they settled.

So, don’t be one of those people.

Now there’s gonna be people around you that will pressure you to settle down and marry that girl, and buy a house and have some children, and that’s all well and good in the right context and if you truly believe that is the best thing to do for you. But if there’s a nagging feeling in the back of your head, like Spiderman’s Spidey sense telling you that somethings not right about this, then you should listen to that voice and take the time to examine why it’s there. You should never allow anyone to dictate the path of your life. I see this all the time with parents making their kids go to university to do accounting or law or something they’re completely not interested in because it pays well. I was one of those kids, because at the time I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I sort of wanted to be a sound engineer and a professional musician, but I wasn’t sure. So, I became an accountant instead. But then you see these same people like me in their early thirties at personal development seminars having ditched their day job and trying to find something that really inspires them. It’s really brave of these people to discard something that was comfortable but completely unfulfilling and take a risk moving into completely unknown territory.

So how should I go about never settling in relationships and dating then?

Well, it’s absurd to expect there to be this one person out there that is perfect for you in every way, and for you to hold out and never be with anyone until this fictional perfect partner bumps into you on the street one day. I’ve actually met a lot of girls lately that actually think along these lines, holding out for “the one”, and you can just tell they’re going to end up being that lonely cat woman or spinster that everyone feels sorry for.

However, everyone has a set of values that they live by, and traits they find attractive in the opposite sex. Maybe you only like petite girls, or girls with big tits really do it for you. And maybe you want a partner that is conservative in her way of thinking. These things are important to you, and you shouldn’t compromise on these things if you’re looking for a long-term partner, because if you do you will end up resenting these things that you compromised on.

You should take the time to write down specifically exactly what you want in a list. If you want to be in a relationship, write your dream girl a love letter pointing out all the things you love about her. I know this sounds cheesy, but this shit works to get you focussed. Once you write this list and get specific about what you what you’re really looking for, you’ll find that magically more of these people star appearing in your life. But it’s not actually magic, it’s what NLP calls the Reticular Activating System. And for those who want more information regarding the science behind the Reticular Activating System I’ll put a link to my blog in the details below. But It’s like when you buy a new car, and suddenly you start noticing all the same cars on the road. What you focus on expands!

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