this is one of the most painful experiences you can go through in your love life so leave me a comment if this has happened to you you and another person ended up parting ways because of changes that they couldn't make and then once you were broken up they ended up making those changes for someone else the pain of this is profound and exquisite when we were with that person we consol ourselves on the idea that well we just wanted different things or this person is incapable of being what I need but then that one comfort
that we have the one thing that allowed us to sleep at night once we had left that person or been left by that person disintegrates in the light of this new information that they were capable of that change and that they did make that change they just did it for someone else and this cuts to the core of our selfworth because suddenly the attention gets turned on us what's wrong with me I am Matthew hussy welcome back to the channel or welcome to the channel for everyone who is new I the author of The New
York Times best-selling new book love life and for the last 17 years I've been doing what it says on this book helping people to raise their standards find their person and live happily no matter what so let's talk about this phenomenon they changed they just didn't change for us and I want to talk about it using a question that came to me from one of my love life members in one of our live sessions so I'll read this question and then we will get into the answer in three parts by the way if you're enjoying
the answer answering these love life member questions in these videos but you want to go a step further and get coached by me yourself the love life Club is where I do that as part of love life you essentially make me your coach in your love life for the next year we have master classes live q&as meetups an entire Suite of incredible resources that are designed to holistically help you make the progress you're seeking this year in your love life so go to loveif club.com if you'd like to learn more and Hope you become a
part of the community with us okay so this question this is from suzan who says what do I do when I have always told myself that this man won't change and that I have to accept that he doesn't want to commit but after he ended contact with me he did change he got into a relationship even though he always said he didn't want one anymore and on top of that he had a baby with his new girl girlfriend just a few months ago I find it very hard not to think that he could change just
not with me I would be very happy to get some ideas on how to deal with this so this is the hard part isn't it those horrible thoughts of I could have said something different it turns out maybe I could have done something different what did they say and do that I failed to say and do or what do they have that I don't these issues cut to the core of our self-worth they make us doubt our fundamental value and they can erode our self-esteem going into the next relationship we find so there are three
things I want to say about this today the first is we have to be very careful of not assuming that the change is real it's very easy from a distance to watch someone in what seems like them flourishing in a new relationship often the only information we have from that is what friends tell us or Mutual contacts or what we see them posting online and we get that snapshot and it triggers Us in all of the worst ways but that snapshot that little piece of Gossip that we heard or that picture that we just saw
of them with their new partner on Instagram is not a true reflection of their relationship remind yourself you know no more about their relationship than anyone else did about yours the week before you broke up no one knows what's going on behind the curtain of a relationship so don't assume that change just came easily to this person what we may be seeing is a superficial form of progress we might be seeing someone racing ahead but it's likely that their fundamental nature hasn't changed the things that bothered us haven't necessarily changed it's likely that They Carried
those into the next relationship and that whatever deeper work they need to do is still very much a work in progress the way I think about this is don't measure too quickly and in a sense we shouldn't be measuring at all because it's not our life anymore you have to look at it like this their story is no more relevant to yours now than the story of a random Barista in a coffee shop in a town that you'll never visit but what if what they've now found is great what if they do stand the test
of time let's be very clear we don't want to sit around wasting our lives hoping that someone else's relationship ship fails because they hurt us that would be a tremendous waste of our life and it would be a really internally toxic mindset to have towards somebody else so what if they succeed what if that relationship they found actually turns out to be a lifelong relationship that works that's what brings me on to point number two if the change they've made was real and if the relationship does last then don't sweat it cuz they weren't your
order audience this person wasn't for you they were for someone else your audience is still out there instead of getting caught up in but that must mean someone's better than me recognize it's not about who's better it's about who your voice lands with I think about that all the time when I make YouTube videos someone might pass by my video they might watch it for 5 minutes and go H not for me and they might find another Cod another speaker who they really resonate with does that make that person better than me not necessarily it
might just be that there's something about that other person's voice that really lands with that person for reasons I may never know and probably won't and that's okay my job is to refine my voice to lean into my strengths and make what I do as good as it can possibly be and as true to me as it can possibly be be cuz if I do that what people will experience when they watch my videos is a an Essence that can't just be replaced by someone else so when they go and experience a different video that
video might be more right for them it might land better on their ear they might resonate more with that person that personality or the things they're saying but the audience That Remains the audience that does stick on my content they're the ones who get it they're the ones who resonate with me and that's my audience those are my people that's the thing to focus on be the usest you don't worry about what anyone else is doing or thinking that they're better than you realize that your job is to find your audience and the best way
to do that is to lean into all of your own strengths now what if you're listening to this and you can't shake the thought that all of this sounds nice but in reality it's not just that in this particular case someone didn't change for you but they did change for somebody else because they found something that for whatever reason that's not personal to me was more right for them and I am still going to go on to find my audience what if when you look back through your life you feel like this is always true
for you what if you feel like every time you're the person before the person that they change for you know I hear that sometimes I'm always the person before the person they marry what do you do when you feel like the story of your life is that people don't change for you they change for other people well that's when we come on to point number three is there something we are doing in our love lives a way that we're showing up with other people that is distracting them from our intrinsic value what do I mean
by this I believe that we all have this incredible value and that that value wants to emerge and one of our big jobs is to get out of the way so that other people can experience how amazing we are they can feel that value but we all at some point or another have had some kind of behavior that has distracted people from our true value it's made us frustrating to be around it's made us abrasive it's made us difficult to have a relationship with it's got in the way of the kind of connection we create
on our best day and I think it's worth exploring for all of us what that thing is because that thing can consistently get in the way of us finding love if we're not careful for our entire lives and a lot of people walk around completely unconscious when it comes to whatever that fatal flaw is they never explore it and that's understandable it's kind of terrifying to explore it what could I be doing that is contributing to why consistently in my life people are not choosing me it's an extremely Brave question to ask and I commend
anybody who is able to ask this question I just did a getaway with the smallest group of people that I work with my club 320 program and one of the people in the room asked me a question she said Matthew you've been working with me for the last eight months what do you see as my biggest weakness and I thought my God is that a brave question to ask that and truly sit and be present with the answer and I said to her at the time I said do you really want me to be honest
and she said yes and I was just I was so bowled over by how she sat there absorbing what I was saying which by the way doesn't mean I'm right I might not be totally right I might be wrong she might choose to disregard what I'm saying but she listened and that is so powerful and one of the things that I'd love to encourage all of us to do is to be inspired by that cuz I was and to say who do I trust that I could ask for some genuine feedback so that I could
learn what Behavior what thing I'm doing what way that I'm showing up up is distracting people from my value value that is already there by the way who could you go to and ask that question who could you ask hey I know you care about me the most caring thing you can do for me right now is answer this question honestly is there a way you see me showing up that you think could be hurting me in my love life or the way that people are with me or whether they choose me and say to
them I want you to be really Brave in the way that you answer me because I know you may want to sugar coat it or you may just want to tell me what I want to hear you may think I'm going to get mad at you if you're really honest but I actually want you to be really honest and you don't just have to ask this of one person you could ask this of three people really close to you or people who really know you they don't have to be super close but they have to
be close enough to know you your habits your behaviors and certainly the way you show up with people romantically when they speak listen to what they say really be brave in taking in what they say and look at whether there's a pattern in the things they're saying because that pattern might be the information that you need to address that fatal flaw and when we discover it rather than thinking oh my God this is awful I have something that is holding me back I have something I'm doing that's screwing everything up we can actually say you
know what this is really positive I'm learning something that can actually make a difference I'm being conscious now about the thing that's been getting in my way that's been distracting people from how great I really am and by the way you're not alone in this because this is a question I in the next couple of weeks am going to be asking of a small group of people that I trust in my life what do you think is the biggest weakness that holds me back and I'm not going to like the answers I'm sure but they're
going to be so valuable to me and they are the key to me becoming an even better version of myself a year from now than I am today I guarantee none of the things I hear will be easy for me to work on they'll probably be hard because when we get these things pointed out what you'll realize is oh this is deep stuff for me this is not easy to change but that's okay we can start doing the work of giving Focus to those areas and if you've got this far in the video I commend
you because this is not some frivolous video on you know they changed for someone else not for you well screw them they were the wrong person for you you deserve better this isn't that video if you've made it this far then you really value real progress and the things that could really help you in your love life remember don't assume that the changes they've made are real that the relationship will last or that it's everything you think it is behind the scenes if it does last and it is real then you know for sure that
the person wasn't right for you because you weren't Their audience audience but guess what if you lean into your own voice you will find your audience and that will be the relationship that sticks for you and lastly never be afraid to explore the things that could be holding you back if you do that you'll become so powerful because it's what 99% of people are never brave enough to do but we are what this video is about at its Essence is being the hero of your own story as long as we're focused on an ex or
on the person that our ex is now dating we're making someone else the hero of our story to quote the old man in the movie The Holiday we are making somebody else the leading role in a movie that is about us so I want to put the focus back on us no one can stop us from having an amazing life no one can stop us from experiencing amazing love because it's all up to us we can be the ones who go out there and create more opportunities who create so many opportunities and so many wonderful
things in our lives that we never look back on that thing that we one day thought we could never lose we'll realize we could lose it because we are the authors of our own happiness and for those of you who are joining me in a couple of weeks in Florida on my retreat I can't wait to walk you through six days of everything I know about how to do this and for anyone who still wants to join there is still time but we are right there now at the finish line so if you want to
get on board before it's too late go to MH retreat.com I hope to see you there I really really do and um well I look forward to seeing you all of you in next week's video be well and love life [Music]