Latest / Notes to Her / Note 77: When You Stop Begging for the Bare Minimum, You Become Unforgettable

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Note 77: When You Stop Begging for the Bare Minimum, You Become Unforgettable · Notes to Her

• 0:14
  Yaya: Hey, girl. Hey. Welcome back to Notes to Her,
• 0:16
  the daily pep talk. I'm Yaya, your confidence and mindset coach here to help you stop settling for the bare minimum and start expecting the kind of love you keep handing out to everyone else. Have you ever wondered if you were asking too much of someone you love? Or maybe it's a new relationship and you're still getting to know the person, but the energy is starting to shift. Maybe you've wondered if you were being too high maintenance because you wanted a text back, or you wanted him to show up when he said he would.
• 0:45
  Maybe you even apologized for bringing it up, and then spent the rest of the night wondering if you were the problem. There's a sentence that I hear from women all the time, and it almost always comes out sounding like good news, where she says, he's actually been really good lately. So you asked what he did and the answer is that he texts back the same day, showed up when he said he would, told the truth when you asked where he was. She says it was so much relief, like the man had won an award. Now let's be real, answering a message and showing up when you said you would, should be common decencies.
• 1:22
  If you have ever been relieved over the basics, stay with me because today we are talking about why you keep handing out chances to somebody who probably doesn't deserve them, and what happens when you finally stop begging for them. So let's define our terms first because the bare minimum could mean different things to somebody who expects very little. The bare minimum is what any decent adult should do in a relationship. I'm not gonna say does because yeah, we're not gonna go there. But most humans answer a message in a reasonable amount of time.
• 2:08
  And I say reasonable because if you're in a relationship with a doctor, a lawyer, somebody who doesn't have access to their phone twenty four seven, then you have to give them a little bit of grace. Nobody's gonna be texting you while they're in the middle of a surgery. Okay? And even if they do have access to their phone 20 fourseven, they are at work. So let them work.
• 2:28
  Alright, so let's get back to what the bare minimum ask. Showing up when they said they would, Telling the truth and not getting angry at you for asking a question. And another big one is, they stay kind to you even when they're upset. Lastly, when they make plans with you, they keep those plans or they tell you early enough that something has changed. None of that is a bonus and it should not be a gift to you.
• 2:58
  It is a price of admission to your time, your energy, your presence, and you don't owe anyone extra time, attention, or love for giving you that. So why do so many of us celebrate these things like they are grand gestures? It's because if you go so long without the basics, getting them back feels like a miracle. He forgets your birthday one year and then remembers it the next, and you tell your friends, oh, he's really stepped it up. I know, that's happened before I I already know you're shaking your head.
• 3:33
  Mhmm. He apologizes after three days of silence and you feel so grateful that you forgot to ask why there was silence at all. I've experienced that one, but it didn't go down like the way he thought it would. Your standards didn't disappear, they just got pushed so low that ordinary behavior started looking extraordinary. And you started handing out gold stars for things that should be automatic.
• 3:57
  You know that voice that talks you through it, where it says, he's trying, give it time. Or I don't wanna be the girlfriend who complains. Other women have it so much worse than this. Have you ever noticed how much of your energy goes towards making the bare minimum sound like a lot? That's real work, and you're doing it for free on top of everything else that you carry.
• 4:23
  Now let me ask you something and I want you to answer it honestly. Think about your closest friend, the one who picks up the phone when you call. She shows up with soup when you're sick, listens to the same story for the fifth time, and drops what she's doing when your life falls apart. If we're being honest, a lot of us get more consistent love from our friends than from the person that we're in a romantic relationship with. Now picture that friend making plans with you, not showing up and not texting to say why.
• 4:55
  Would you let that slide? Probably not. You will call her up and be like, girl, where were you? You could have told me with an attitude. You wouldn't even rehearse it for two days, you wouldn't put a smiley face on it, and you wouldn't lie awake wondering why you were too much.
• 5:10
  So here's the question that you need to sit with. Why you keep giving chances to someone who does not even give you the bare minimum? If this was behavior from your friend, you would never accept it. So why do you accept it from the person who was supposed to love, cherish and respect you? Listen to the allowances we hand out.
• 5:33
  He's had a long week. He's just bad at texting. He didn't mean it. But if this were your friend, you will call your friend flaky for the exact same things. Except for him, you wrap it in kinder words and you give him more grace.
• 5:49
  And why does it feel scarier to hold him to the same standards that you would hold a friend who probably shows up for you more? If you can chuck a friend and say that wasn't okay, and this is someone that you have known for years, then you can say it to the man who says he is building a life with you. Your partner should have your back, he should want the best for you, and he should be glad when you ask for what you need. So if he's not giving you the best, can you honestly say that he is the best for you? You don't have to answer that today.
• 6:23
  But I do want you to stop pretending that you haven't heard that question. Begging in a relationship doesn't always look like desperation from the outside. Sometimes it looks very reasonable. It sounds like a woman who is being so mature about the whole thing. It sounds like just a gentle reminder text.
• 6:41
  It sounds like bringing up the same issue for the third time and every time you bring it up, you soften it a little bit more so he doesn't get defensive. It sounds like rehearsing the conversation for two days so you get your tone exactly right. Because you already know that if you sound a little bit upset, the conversation will become about your tone and not about his behavior. It also looks like doing his part for him. You play on the dates, book the table, pick the movie, you remind him about her mother's birthday so that he looks thoughtful when he calls, And then you thank him for being so thoughtful.
• 7:14
  And it sounds like, I just want to feel prioritized in your sweetest voice with a smiley face at the end so it lands gently. Let's talk about the difference between asking and begging because I never want you to walk away from an episode afraid to ask for what you need. Asking is when you say what you need one time in plain words, and then you pay attention to what the person does with it. Begging is everything after that. The repeating, the softening, the explaining and the cheering for half an effort like it was a whole one.
• 7:45
  And I'm not saying this is shaming because I have been there. When you ask, your dignity stays intact whether or not the person answers. But when you beg, your dignity depends on an answer, and that is a very uncomfortable place to live. Now, if you're listening to this right now, I don't want you to think that you're weak or you're desperate. You're just a woman who has learned that love gets earned through effort and you happen to be very good at effort.
• 8:10
  We're just gonna point it somewhere that pays you back. Now let me ask you something, where did you learn that being chosen is something that you have to earn? Maybe you were the kid who got praised when you were helpful and easy, and you figured out quickly that attention followed performance. Maybe your first real relationship only gave you warmth after you had gone above and beyond, and your body learned that love arrived after the audition. Maybe you simply watched someone you adore work tirelessly for a person who wasn't working at all.
• 8:45
  And for a lot of women that I coach, there's another layer. You're high achievers. You're ambitious. You got every good thing in life by working harder than the person next to you. The grades, the degree, the promotion, the business that you built for nothing.
• 8:59
  So when somebody isn't giving you what you need, your brain does what it always does. It works harder, it says find a better approach or send a better email. That strategy works beautiful with the promotion because you can earn a promotion with effort, but you can earn consistency from a person who doesn't have it to give no matter how well you were at the request. And the more effort you put in, the more convinced you become that the problem must be your delivery. Maybe if you were calmer, maybe if you were nicer, maybe if you picked a better moment.
• 9:31
  You can spend a year editing yourself for a man that just isn't going to give you more and it has nothing to do with you. Now I wanna tell you about a client of mine. I'm gonna call her Renee, and I've changed some of details so she stays private, but the pattern is real. And I've seen it honestly more times than I can count. So Renee is a director at our company, she manages budgets that most of us sweat over and she has a reputation for being the calmest person in the rooms.
• 9:58
  When she came to me, she had been with her boyfriend for about fourteen months. He was funny, charming and wonderful on the days that he showed up, but he also canceled plans on the same day and he would go quiet for days after any disagreement and then reappear as if nothing had happened. Renee had a system for all of this. She kept a note on her phone called things to bring up. She told me once she wrote a message to him four different times and the final version said that she would love to feel like a priority.
• 10:28
  She took out the word need because it sounded too intense and she added a smiley face on the end. He wrote back, you're right, I'm sorry, I'll do better. And for two weeks he did. He texted every morning, he showed up on time, he planned dates and stuck to them. Renee told me about it in our session like she had won something.
• 10:46
  And I watched her glow over behavior that most of us would just call it normal. Then in week three, he canceled a dinner an hour before. She told me I was already drafting my reply in my head before I finished reading this text. And I asked her what the message said and she pulled out her phone. It was the same message she had said before, except now with no pressure, but...
• 11:08
  So I asked her a question. If a client came to you and she said she had pitched the same proposal three times and gotten the same answer, what would you tell her? Renee laughed at first and then she stopped laughing. She realized the message that I was trying to give her. So here's what she did next.
• 11:24
  Notice that it was simple. She told him, the boyfriend, one time in one sentence with no smiley face what she needed. Plans kept or changed with real notice. She also told him that she wasn't gonna keep reminding him. Then she did the harder part, she stopped managing him.
• 11:43
  She stopped planning every day, stopped reaching out first, she took all the hours that she used to spend drafting and rehearsing, and she signed up for the class that she had been putting off for a year. She booked a weekend with her college friends and she went back to the gym. Within about three weeks she could see his real level of effort with no help from her. He texts once or twice a week. The man who had ran I'll do better was doing exactly as he always had.
• 12:08
  And she told me, I thought I would be devastated, but I felt clear. She ended it a few weeks later. She cried in her car afterward and told me that she needed a minute to be dramatic about it, and I get it. And then a month later, she went to a friend's wedding. And at that wedding, she told me people kept coming up to her.
• 12:24
  She felt like she had her glow back, she got her attention back, and she laughed more than she had in the last year. And let's talk about why that happens because the word unforgettable matters in the title of this note, it's not just there for fun. When you are begging, you show up in your own life as a request. Your whole personality narrows down to one subject, which is his effort. Your friends hear the same updates every week.
• 12:49
  You stop talking about the trip that you wanna take or the book that you're reading because every ounce of your attention is tied up into monitoring one person. Think about people that you remember. The ones who stay with you are rarely chasing someone else's approval. They are the ones who are clearly into their own lives, who are warm towards others, who seem to know what they will and won't accept. A woman with standards is memorable because she's rare.
• 13:13
  And here's another thing I want you to consider, effort that has to be begged out of someone tends to come with resentment attached. The person who finally meets your standards because you spent six months pleading with him will often meet it with Sai. The person who meets your standards because they wanted to will do it with a smile. Now I do owe you some caution here because I don't want you to see this as a strategy for making somebody chase you. That's not what this is.
• 13:37
  If you stop begging as a tactic to get him to come running, you are still begging with an extra step added. The point is to get your life back and whatever happens with him, that's information. He may rise to meet you, he may keep doing the same amount that he always did. He may leave and every one of those outcomes tells you something true, and a true answer is worth more than a year of hoping. You become unforgettable when you stop auditioning because that is a day that you start showing up for yourself and people will notice a difference immediately.
• 14:10
  So what do you do with all of this? Here's a simple version, and I mean simple because you don't need a seven step plan to stop begging that will not help you at all. First, ask once. Say what you need in plain words without an apology, and no smiley face to cushion it, make it softer. I need plans to be kept or changed with notice.
• 14:32
  I need to hear from you when we argue instead of silence. Use your own words but make it clear enough that no one can mistake it for a hint. Secondly, watch what happens over weeks not days. One good week proves nothing as Renee found out. Pay attention to what the person does when it's inconvenient for them because that's where the truth really lies.
• 14:52
  Third, decide without reminders. If behavior hasn't changed, you already have your answer and you don't need a fourth conversation to confirm it. I promise you, you do not. I know it might be tempting, but your next move may be to leave, or it may be to make a clear choice about what you will or won't accept moving forward. Either way, you stop doing the reminding.
• 15:15
  And while you wait, take every hour that you used to spend drafting, rehearsing, and monitoring, and spend that on something that belongs to you. Sign up for a class, book the trip, call the friend that you keep rescheduling on. If you are early in dating someone, this applies even more because you're collecting information about how a person behaves when they're interested in you, so please believe what you see. Now listen, I know a lot of this is easier to say than do. I have been there.
• 15:45
  Understanding a standard is the simplest part, but holding yourself to it at 11PM with the phone in your hand and his name on the screen is a whole different thing. That's the work that we do inside the Confidently Her method, my sixteen week one on one program. We work on the confidence underneath the pattern. So asking once and meaning it stops feeling like a fight with yourself so that you have someone in your corner while you're practicing it. If you saw yourself and Renee today, the link to learn more is in the show notes, so come talk to me.
• 16:16
  Now I want you to take a breath and think about the last message that you wrote to someone or rewrote three times. What did it take out of you to make it easier for them to receive? What did you add or what were you protecting when you added it? If your best friend showed you that text and told you the whole story behind it, what would you say to her? And why is that advice good enough for her, but not for you?
• 16:41
  And if you got back all the hours that you spent managing somebody else's effort, what would you do with it? If this effort stirred something up on you, I am not sorry because a lot of us needed somebody to say it kindly and plainly. If you've been jockeying the same message for months, you can stop now. You have asked clearly enough for the first time and the person who cares will answer it. While the person who doesn't has already given you their answer.
• 17:09
  You don't have to be easy to keep, you get to be worth meeting and you get to become unforgettable the day that you stop auditioning because that's the day that you show up for yourself.