Ep 23: You Are Worth the Effort
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Kelli: [00:00:00] Welcome. This is Anything & Everything with Kelli Youngman Singh. We are here to live the most expansive experience of your life, guided by intuition and desire and rooted in self trust, authenticity, and love. That's what expands your capacity to receive, allow and fully enjoy what you really want. Nothing is off limits. Nothing needs to be justified. Here for an extraordinary life and to have it all on your terms. Let's begin.
Hello and welcome back to the podcast. I honestly have, like, flutters in my chest as I'm sitting down to record this because I'm so excited to connect with you and to be here with [00:01:00] you. And as much as I have wanted to hop on here, I've just been navigating lots of things, and part of that is what I wanna talk about today.
Because in the last couple of weeks, I had my birthday on August 7th. I am a Leo. And leading up to that birthday, I feel like I was putting in so much effort, so much effort to give myself the birthday that I really wanted to have. And what was so fascinating about it, and again, what I wanted to bring to the podcast today, is that despite all of the effort and all of the conscious decisions I made to create the experience I wanted to have, interestingly enough, the actual lived experience of what I created [00:02:00] wasn't exactly what I intended.
And on the back end of everything not only was I a little bit tired, but I was also a little disappointed. And that's not to say I didn't have a great birthday because, oh my gosh, believe me, or believe you me, we really did. Terry took me out for my favorite sushi on my actual birthday, and we had such a romantic, relaxed dinner. We got sent a bunch of extras through a friend that works there, and then we had an amazing house party on Saturday, a darty. Do you guys call day parties darties? That's what I've heard they're called, or dagers, as my younger sister said. But we had an amazing home party that Terry [00:03:00] cooked for, and yeah, just like friends came through and different people from different chapters of my life, and again, it was not, not a success. It was just interesting to see how I felt in the experience of it, and helping to identify what I, I really was after, which was celebration. So... Oh, and then Sunday we went and celebrated with my family in New Jersey because my dad's birthday is August 8th, and that was also super fun because I got to see my family, but we were literally so exhausted from just the planning, the prep, the errands, and also hosting, which again, is an interesting point and something I'm gonna talk about in a second.
But I think when we do these things for ourselves, or at least my [00:04:00] human brain, the day after while I was processing my disappointment, it was interesting to watch my brain navigate the feeling of disappointment, and I mean, at this point I've really practiced and allowed myself to hold two things at once where I could be so grateful, so happy, so, so lit up by the experience and disappointed at the same time.
Like, I feel like that's a whole podcast in itself, but as I was processing the disappointment and allowing that, it was interesting to watch my brain at first wanna tell me that it wasn't worth the effort. And that's really what I wanna talk about today because I think that's something we do a lot. We are sort of weighing the pros and cons of doing something with the amount of effort that it takes, and I think it's really easy for our human brains that are designed to conserve energy to say, [00:05:00] "You know, that would be nice, but it's not worth the effort," or, "That would be nice, but it's not... you know, it's not worth it. We don't really have to do that." And I think it's a way that we talk ourselves out of fulfilling the desires that we have, knowing that, yeah, there might still be times where it doesn't go as planned or we're disappointed or, you know, it just doesn't pan out the way we thought.
And something that I've been thinking about so much, and part of why I think I've become the kind of person that gives myself anything that I desire, is because I've also built the belief system that I am worth the effort, that my desires are worth the effort, that the effort is just worth it. And I think it's really fascinating because I've been asking myself a lot, how did I become this way?
Because I wasn't always like this. I [00:06:00] think the way my family was, I think the way that I was conditioned in the world, I definitely was the kind of person that would sort of outweigh the pros and the cons, the risk and the reward, and I just don't think you actually can determine that ahead of time. I think that my belief now is that it's always worth the effort.
Because in the effort... And let me say this because my brain is shouting it at me, 'cause I think I have been the kind of person that in my coaching I've talked about the energy of effort and trying and hard, and I just wanna clarify that that's not exactly what I mean. But just that the energy that is required to do something can be worth it, and doesn't even have to feel like effort.
Like, I think there's a lot of ways that efforting can feel really hard and [00:07:00] heavy. And maybe the thing is effort is neutral, right? Effort is just energy output to create a result. So maybe my stance on the word effort or the vocabulary of effort, my relationship has changed to that a little bit. And in this context, right, it's like the effort to produce something that you desire is always gonna be net positive. And maybe this is the switch that had to happen in order for me to really become the kind of person, the kind of woman that allows myself to have what I desire.
Because so often we say, "Eh." We try to be easy, right? We try to be easy, go with the flow. Like, again, our brain wants to conserve energy. That's just how it's designed. But then we also don't wanna be a burden to other people. We don't want to, you know, make people go out of their way [00:08:00] or cause a scene. And It's so interesting that all of those constraints or those obstacles to added effort can sometimes feel like it's protecting us, but also most importantly, I think we do that when we're trying to protect others or we're trying to protect ourselves from the judgment of others if we're really seen going for it.
And I think it's really fascinating that when you eliminate others and you really give yourself permission to ask yourself what you desire, the effort or energy that you put into something might be great, and the result could also be great, right? I don't think we spend enough time thinking about how it could be worth it even if, right?
I think this is really similar to what we've been talking [00:09:00] about when it comes to getting up and going to auditions, getting up and pursuing our dreams, getting up and doing that extra hour of chores so that we can really enjoy our home.
I think it's so fascinating that when we're in the experience of it's not worth it, I think that's coming from a lack of understanding that we are gonna be the one to benefit from the effort. I want you to imagine that the extra energy that it's gonna take for you to do the thing, whether that's a workout or, you know, finding time to meal prep, or going across town to the restaurant you actually wanna go to, that on the other side of that effort, that you're the one that's being rewarded, that you're the one that's gonna get the benefit from that extra [00:10:00] effort.
And so I've actually been thinking about this for a while, and I wanna give you another example that really kind of brought it into the forefront, and just a little example of how I notice the difference in my mentality of how I think everything is always going to be worth it, right?
So a couple weeks ago, I think it was end of July, my sister and I go to the beach together. And she has a car, so we get to go and drive, and her and her husband have, like, a full setup of beach chairs, an umbrella, a cooler, the whole nine yards, which is very different from the kind of beach experiences sometimes Terry and I will do because, you know, not to get onto a side tangent, but we live in the city, so we'll get on the subway or the ferry, and we'll go with as little as possible to travel really light. And so it was such a treat to have the chairs, the umbrella, the whole nine yards.
[00:11:00] And when we got there, of course, we tried to go as close to the water as we could, you know, finding our window and being respectful of people's space. And we had been there for maybe, I don't know, an hour, hour and a half, and we were pretty comfy cozy where we were. There was a couple kind of in front of us to our left, and then there was a dad with his daughter kind of in front of us to our right, and they're, you know, making sandcastles, all this stuff.
And eventually, they start getting ready to leave. And I look over at my sister and I'm like, "Ooh, we should move up." Like, " we should take their spot and move up closer to the water." And she's like, "Eh, it's fine." Like, "I'm gonna have to move everything." Like, "We're already settled here." And I'm like, "Yeah, I know.
But, like, I think it'll be worth it." She's like, "Eh, okay.." Like, after a couple minutes of convincing [00:12:00] her, they start leaving. I'm like, "I'm gonna ask if they're leaving." And she's like, "Okay." So I go to the couple. I'm like, "Hey, are you guys heading out?" And they're like, "Yeah, we're packing up." I'm like, "Okay, cool. We're gonna steal your spot." And so slowly but surely, I just get up and I'm like, "We'll just do it one little bit at a time. I'll move my chair first." I'm like, "Okay, now I'll move my bag, and then I'll just move..." I'm like, "We'll just do it one piece at a time." And I convince my sister to move up.
It's gotta be, I don't know, 10 feet, 12 feet. And so we move the umbrella, we move everything, and we're sitting there. And even though our original spot was good, it was kind of in like a dip in the sand. So we could see the ocean further away, but we couldn't see the waves crashing, you know? When we moved up this 10, 12 feet, that, took us about maybe three or [00:13:00] four minutes to move everything. My sister did have to like re-put the umbrella into the sand. But as we're sitting in this like new spot that required effort I was like, "Wow, this is amazing." I'm like, "Tar, look at this. We're like beach front view right now. We can see the whole ocean. We can see the waves crashing." Like, I'm looking at her like, "That was worth it. Come on, that was worth it." She's like, "Yeah, it was."
That moment stuck in my brain forever because we can get so comfortable thinking like, nah, it's good enough where we are. I don't need to expend extra effort. We already set up here. We're already comfy cozy. It's not gonna make that much of a difference. Like, we tell ourselves that, not just about our beach chair, but about our life, about the quality of our life, about, [00:14:00] like everything. And we don't realize that if we were to just put in that extra effort, that extra energetic output to give ourselves a better experience, that it could completely change the experience that we're having.
And let me tell you, it was really interesting to watch my sister in this moment 'cause as we moved up towards the water, the, the umbrella was having like, I don't know, it was just like shaking a little bit more because of the wind, 'cause there was more wind by the ocean, and she's watching it, and she's like kind of being hypervigilant. I'm like, "It's okay. Look, it's all right. It's steady. It's good." It's, it's like so easy to tell ourselves, "Well, we can't go over there because the umbrella might shake more. It might not be as steady. It might be this." And our brain could find all the reasons not to.
But in the end, the second half of our day, we were sitting, [00:15:00] watching the waves crash, being completely like unobstructed view. Like, we were like literally ocean front, right? There was no one in front of us. We had such an incredible view, and we almost didn't do it. Well, my sister almost didn't wanna do it, for like that extra five minutes of effort to move the chairs. Right? Really think about where in your life do you talk yourself out of that little bit of extra effort to give yourself the experience you wanna have, even if that is...
and this really took me a long time to master, if I'm being honest with myself, because I used to, especially when I lived uptown in Harlem and when I was in my previous relationship, just me existing in the world as an adult, I would definitely let dishes pile up in the sink. I'd be like "Eh, I'll do it at the end of the day." Like, "It's okay if I'm having lunch now. I'll leave it till later, and I'll wash that later." And my husband [00:16:00] is, like, such a stickler about it. Maybe not stickler, but he's so diligent about washing dishes is not a separate part of cooking dinner or, you know, cooking a meal. He very much considers washing dishes as the final step of preparing a meal. So he even does the dishes before he sits down to eat. Like, he'll make everything, wash everything as he's going. The kitchen will be clean before he even sits down to eat dinner, right? But to him, that extra effort gives him peace of mind knowing that after having an amazing meal, he's not gonna have to do a sink full of dishes. The extra effort contributes to the experience. It contributes to the outcome.
So now let me circle back to what I was talking about earlier with my birthday, because it felt like a lot of [00:17:00] effort to plan the meal. Because, again, we love hosting. Let me just say that out loud. If you don't know this about us, we love hosting, and part of what was on my vision board for years was hosting dinner parties. And, like, I just, I couldn't wait to be in a relationship, in the kind of home, in the kind of family where there was, like, a sense of community and hosting, and I always loved that energy, that idea, right?
And so fast-forward to being with my now husband, like, he loves hosting too, and he's such a great cook. We were actually just talking about this last night. Sometimes, like, I try to go out and have food experiences that are, very nostalgic, or I used to think of them as so great, and now I'm, like, so spoiled and taken care of with Terry's cooking that sometimes it's, like, a little bit... It falls flat because my husband is just such a great cook.
And so anyways, we knew that we were [00:18:00] gonna prepare food, and we wanted-- I knew I wanted to have a cake, and even that was a little bit like, "Eh, do I really need a cake? I don't have to have a cake." I was like, "Of course I'm gonna have a cake." But that meant, like, if I wanted to get the good cake, I was gonna have to go down to the East Village and pick it up, right?
So anyways, in the midst of all of this, we're going to the grocery store. We've got a giant cart in New York City. We're, like, meal prepping the day before. We're, w- we woke up early that day to, like, I also wanted to make sure I got my workout in, so that was a little bit of extra effort. But it was like we just decided we were gonna host this party.
So because we love hosting, we really go all out. Like, really go all out. Like, I was making, like, place cards that had the dishes to match the theme that gave the ingredients. Like, I really love doing the most. And so Terry had prepared, [00:19:00] like Korean Mexican style tacos. We made, like, three different sauces. Well, Terry made three different sauces with gochujang and guajillo peppers. Like, we really went all out. And it was incredible. Like, everyone loved it. Like It was really such an awesome experience for everyone, including the cake that I went down to the East Village to pick up the morning of the party. People were coming back for, like, seconds and thirds of the cake. They were like, "Oh my God, this cake is so good." So many people came and showed up and brought flowers and wine and gifts. It was just such an amazing day.
And equally, I noticed that I was a little overstimulated. Terry had his record player out. I thought we had talked about the music, but we hadn't really talked about the vibe. So he was thinking it was, like, a really loud dance [00:20:00] party because I think originally I said I wanted to, like, just dance and play music. Like, I was kind of treating it like a dance party. So my husband was 100% delivering on what I wanted, but then the day of, I was tired, and it was a little overstimulating. And a lot of my friends kept going outside to the balcony, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with that. I wanted people to be able to be outside and to enjoy the balcony and our views and all of that. But there were moments throughout the party that I noticed that I felt a little lonely. And what I really wanted was connection. But because I was so tired and a little overstimulated and trying to host and managing all these different things in that specific moment, I couldn't necessarily really advocate for what I wanted. Because, again, I was in the experience of being in what I thought I [00:21:00] wanted, but there was this missing texture that I thought I was gonna have.
And I don't think it's good, bad, right, or wrong, because I look back and it was a great party, and all of our friends who came had a great time. People got to meet new people and connect, and, like, everyone raved about what a great time it was. But even still, even through all the effort, it didn't deliver on what I wanted.
Now, this is where I say that's not a problem, right? It's actually not a problem. And it's okay that I felt simultaneously very grateful and happy and joyful to be around people. Thank God we cut the cake. We almost forgot to cut the cake, and, like, a lot of people started leaving. I didn't take a lot of photos 'cause I was very present, even though I was a little out of body because I was tired, and maybe also I was getting over a little bit of a summer [00:22:00] cold, so there was also that. But we were just tired.
And so as I was processing the disappointment and allowing myself to feel disappointed , I was talking to my husband about it and I was like, "You know, it's not that we failed on accomplishing what we set out to create. We absolutely created the experience we wanted to have. And these are the ways that I think I missed the mark, or we missed the mark in terms of really discussing or creating our experience ahead of time." You know, the music, the volume. Like, I was saying I wanted a dance party, but actually I wanted to be able to talk to everyone. I wanted to connect with everyone. I wanted to, like, hear what was going on in their lives, and, like, there wasn't a lot of that because that just wasn't the environment we actually created.
The other thing was that Terry and I were both in host mode, and I think that I really could have relaxed and [00:23:00] let myself enjoy, because my husband was on it. He was, like, making sure everyone had food, that they had drinks, that, you know, that they felt comfortable. Like, and I tried to empower people by putting little sticky notes on the fridge, like, "Help yourself." Like, "Here's where you can find everything." But even still, the energy of hosting just, we love it, but again, in the hosting energy, we didn't get to really, like, relax and enjoy.
And so for me, it wasn't like, oh, this party was a failure because I was disappointed and it wasn't worth the effort. It was like, no, that was a great party, and here's what we would do differently. And I was already telling my husband, like, "Listen, next time we throw a really big party, we're hiring someone to come help. Like, we're gonna hire someone to be there to make sure people have drinks, that someone's making another batch of margaritas, that, you know, whatever we need, someone's taking care of the [00:24:00] trash, the dishes, like, so that we can relax."
And it was really funny because at first my husband's thought was like, "Really? We're gonna spend another couple hundred dollars for that?" I was like, "Absolutely, yes. Absolutely, yes." Because think about how much more we're gonna get out of the experience when we know that our guests are taken care of and that we can just be attendees at our own party. I was like, that's gonna be so worth it." And as soon as I said that, he was like, "No, you're absolutely right." If someone else is taking care of all the little things and making sure the, you know, the dishes are replenished and that the food is hot and drinks are nice and cold, like, if all of that's being tended to, right, flowers coming in, someone is there putting them in the vases, like, think about how much we're gonna get out of it.
Even if that little extra effort in that moment is financial, right? Like, that is going to add to the value of the experience. And I think that we [00:25:00] get so caught up in, like, the output that we don't think about what we're gonna get in return.
I think the same is true when we think about investments, right? We think about hiring a coach, or we think about being supported or, I don't know, paying extra for a service. And we're like, "No, no, no, I can do it on my own." But we don't realize that what we would get in return could create so much more value, 10X the value, than what's going out, whether that's financial or energetic or physical, right? Like our physical effort. That we could actually get more from the extra effort, the extra output that's required. That that could feed into us, right?
And so I've just really been thinking about this in so many areas of my life. And to kind of recap so this doesn't get long, it's sort of like what if you are worth the added effort? [00:26:00] What if you're worth the extra step that it takes for you to have what you want?
And I'll give you one other example. It's like even yesterday, we went to get ramen, and it was just really noisy in the restaurant. And I know when you go out to eat, it's like kind of part of it. But if you can like hear everything in someone else's conversation, and they're being so loud that you can't even relax and just have a quiet moment, if that's what you're wanting, right? The extra effort of asking to move tables. The extra effort of saying, "Hey, like, would it be possible to move?" It was so interesting. Even yesterday, we were like, "Wow, next time we're definitely gonna do that," 'cause we by the end of our meal, we knew everything about the table next to us. They were like total former frat boys were counting their college days, their house . like it was just such an [00:27:00] interesting thing to be sitting next to and experiencing. And I was able to tune it out a little bit more than Terry was. But either way, if it's gonna impact our meal in a negative way, why wouldn't you make the request to give yourself the experience you wanna have?
The only reason we wouldn't do it is if we're afraid of being difficult or, you know, we don't wanna be inconvenienced, or we don't wanna be a burden. And we sort of take on or assume ahead of time that it's not gonna be worth the ask, or that we're already gonna be denied, or that, you know, in the end it would've been easier not to.
And I just wanna advocate for the opposite because what I've found in allowing myself to be high effort, allowing myself to be the kind of person that puts a lot of energy and effort into giving myself what I want, is that in the end I get the experience that I want more of the time. [00:28:00] And even when I don't, I get closer to knowing how I can support myself in the future.
I start identifying ways that, again, in hindsight, we didn't move yesterday at the restaurant, but we decided moving forward we're always gonna ask. The minute we're not having the experience we wanna have, we're gonna give ourselves permission to do that.
Like, sometimes you will go through the experience and have something come out of it that's unexpected or unintentional, but if you use that information for you, is it not then to your benefit? Right? I think that becoming high effort or allowing myself to be high effort in how I take care of myself, how I think of myself as an asset, something that I've been working on a lot with my coach, it's like I'm allowed to be worth the effort. In the energy of being the asset, I'm allowed to take care of myself to a really high degree. I'm [00:29:00] allowed to require more of myself and of others if that means that that 10% extra is really going to make the experience that much more special.
And even if it doesn't , like in the case of my birthday, there were still like shortcomings. Like the effort that Terry and I put in to make my birthday a great moment of celebration, even though it didn't quite hit the mark, like I'm so much happier being the person who was willing to give myself what I thought I wanted, even if when I got there it was like a little quite, not quite it, right? Like, I would much rather be the person who gives myself what I want.
Whether that's in my bathroom when I'm deep cleaning or, you know, we just repainted our bedroom we've been doing all these home apartment little upgrades, and it's so easy to say like, "Oh, no, [00:30:00] that's, that's okay."
One of my best friends was actually talking about this too because she was getting ready to move, and they were selling some of their furniture, and they were cleaning things like really, really to the nth degree. Like, they were really doing a deep clean on everything, and she was like, "Wow, it's just so wild that we don't let ourselves live into the standards. We'll do it for other people." Right? Like she's getting ready to sell the furniture, so she wants it to be pristine, and she's like, "How interesting that I, I wasn't giving myself permission to experience and enjoy my home to that level."
Like- How interesting, right? Like how interesting that I'm not giving myself permission to raise the standard.
So that's what I got for you this week. I want you to think about the places in your life where you've maybe been cutting corners for yourself, telling yourself that it's not worth it.[00:31:00]
I mean, even on my birthday, oh my God, Terry was like, "Get the uni." I was like, "Nah, it's uni." Like, "We- I've had so much uni. I don't need uni today." I, I don't know. I was being a little bit, like, budget conscious. I was like, "I don't need a $20 piece of sushi today." Like, I've had uni plenty of times. It's great, right? Thinking about the cost of the party and all the alcohol and all the things we got, like, I was like, "Yeah, it's okay." Like, I don't, I don't have to have uni every time. And Terry was like, "What are you talking about? It's your favorite. It's your birthday," and he orders me the uni. And it's like where in our lives are we thinking like, eh, we're not worth it? We don't have to go all the way.
And my husband is so good at this. Like, even when we were in Santa Barbara for, like, our mini moon last year, I remember we rented a car, we drove to Santa Barbara, we're there for the uni, and I was like, "All right. We've had, we've had enough uni." He's like, "What are you talking about? Like, we came for the uni. Like we're not gonna skimp now. Like, we're gonna go [00:32:00] all the way." And I love that about my husband, and I love that about myself being willing to step into that now too. It's like wait a second, if I wasn't afraid of the extra energy or the extra output of this moment, if I wasn't afraid of the extra spend, whether it was energetic, financial, physical...
but I knew instead that I would benefit from being the kind of person who gives myself the fullest experience of what I'm trying to create, what in my life would change?
What changes when I raise the standard, the baseline of how much effort I'm willing to put in for my life, for me to have what I desire right now?
I think we'd all be living radically different lives, and I've been trying this out for myself lately, and it has really been life-changing [00:33:00] to start asking myself, "What else would I love? What else would I love?" And, like, finding the small, subtle moments where I try to talk myself out of the fullest experience, and I let myself lean in, right?
It's like, whoa. What if I could be willing to do a little more work for myself to really have something great? And not to say that right now is not good, right? Like our first beach spot wasn't terrible. It was still really good, but when we took that extra effort to move up the 10 feet, what was existing there that we didn't know was existing, was infinitely better.
If everything in life could be infinitely better from just a little more effort, would you be willing to give that to yourself? And I wanna advocate for you to say yes.
Yes, I am worth the effort. Yes, I'm willing to [00:34:00] give myself what I want. I'm willing to be the kind of person that knows that I'm worthy of that extra effort.
All right, I love you all. That's what I got for you. I'll meet you back here next week.
