Episode Spotlight: "How Can I Stop Being Lazy In My Dating Life?"
In this week’s episode of the Date Brazen Podcast-- Episode Spotlight: "How can I stop being lazy in my dating life?", I’m teaching you exactly what you need to do instead of falling for the productivity myth. (which will lead to better outcomes for your dating life!)
What you’ll learn in the episode:
✨ How to ditch the idea that “doing more” will get you better results in dating.
✨ How to do the most POWERFUL tiny steps in dating to get the biggest results.
✨ Why embracing self-care and giving yourself permission to slow down is key.
✨ How to redefine dating success on your own terms—and why that’s your real path to finding the right people for you.
____________
WORK WITH LILY:
✨ Get my free "Create Your Essence Based Preferences Guide" HERE
✨ Order my book, “Thank You, More Please”: https://www.datebrazen.com/book
✨ Get my FREE training, “3 Steps to Attract the RIGHT Partner as a Late Bloomer”: https://www.datebrazen.com/training
Links:
Follow Lily on Instagram and Tiktok.
Subscribe to Lily’s Youtube channel HERE.
Show transcript:
Lily @ Date Brazen (00:00.088)
Hello, gorgeous friends. Welcome to another episode of the Date Brazen podcast. I am so glad that you are here. Today, we're gonna be talking about this question I got on TikTok. How could I stop being lazy in my dating life? I'm gonna give you all of my hot takes. It's gonna be a powerful episode full of massive permission. And I hope that you leave feeling so inspired to be bold as hell.
in your love life and everywhere. So this episode, I want to let you know, is brought to you by the Brazen Breakthrough. It is my joyful as fuck program to help you create a self-trusting dating life that feels like self-care and that leads to extraordinary love on your terms. So in the Brazen Breakthrough, which is open right now for enrollment, so inside the Brazen Breakthrough, you're going to get my step-by-step
feminist as fuck program to create that joyful dating life online and in person. So that deep reflective work to know your essence based preferences, to know your deeper desires, give yourself permission to let your desires take up more space in your love life. And then you're going to use that reflective information to build a tactical strategy with the qualifying, disqualifying questions with.
the joyful as fuck dating profile that'll help you create with the in-person dating bingo that I have updated and expanded for the Brazen Breakthrough. And then you're also going to get monthly group coaching sessions with me. And a Brazen Breakthrough client just shared that she got more out of an hour in this community and with this coaching than she's gotten in a lot of years of therapy. And I think therapy and the Brazen Breakthrough are a beautiful both and. And
If you want transformation in your love life specifically, it's time to give yourself permission to get support there specifically, because you deserve support and you deserve a clear path forward. So go to the description of this episode to find out more about the Brazen Breakthrough and to join us. I'm so excited to have you in those doors and for you to join this vibrant community of badasses who are asking for and receiving.
Lily @ Date Brazen (02:22.168)
more than they thought possible. With that, let's get into the episode.
Lily @ Date Brazen (02:31.47)
Hey, I'm Lily Wonville, former top matchmaker and founder of Date Brazen. After setting up hundreds, I realized that with coaching, women could match themselves better than anyone else ever could. With my unconventional feminist approach, I've helped women around the world build courageous and self-trust-filled love lives, and now I'm here to support you. Get ready, because I'm about to share the exact steps you need to attract a soul-quenching partnership and feel amazing about yourself along the way. This is the Date Brazen podcast.
So I got this question on TikTok, how can I stop being lazy in my dating life? And my alarm bells started going off. It was like ding-a-ling-a-ling. The word lazy is really interesting. As you know, I love breaking down words and reading between the lines. What I am reading between this amazing, courageous human who left this comment that so many people I know like have in the back of their head.
What I'm reading between the lines of is the word lazy points to judgment and points to some shoulding that's happening. I should be what's the opposite of lazy, maybe proactive, maybe like action oriented, maybe, yeah, I think proactive kind of covers it. And that then points to an interesting either or. Either I am lazy or I'm
proactive. And then underneath that is the judgment of like, if I am lazy, then I am a fill in the blank person, right? Being a lazy person in our capitalistic world means some deep shit, right? Means some like lazy means not worthy or like, you know, that feel the feeling that I get with the word lazy is this like, you're not enough, you're not doing enough.
push harder, go harder, you are fundamentally flawed if you're being lazy, right? I just refuse to operate in that either or paradigm in your dating life or in my life in general, right? Like self-compassion, self-compassion, self-compassion. Let me back up and say, lazy probably means I'm not messaging people back or I'm not on a dating app or I don't wanna go on dates at all or whatever.
Lily @ Date Brazen (04:52.39)
I think there's a deeper issue at play, which is the issue of the myth of productivity. The idea that productiveness or production of dating is what will lead to what you want and laziness, you know, giving yourself space, not dating, not messaging, not being on apps. Laziness is not going to lead to what you want and productivity will. I think that's fallacy.
I think that's bullshit. I think it's an either or and you get to engage the both end. So I wanna give you massive permission that you don't have to perform your dating life for anybody. And get curious about who might you be performing your dating life for. Maybe it's to calm those anxious thoughts and worries that like, I wanna find what I want and time is running out. Maybe it's, I say I want to find somebody.
and my mom or my best friend keeps checking in about it, and if I tell her I'm not on a dating app, then she's gonna say, you're not trying hard enough. want what you didn't, you want it? Like in an effort to maybe hold me accountable to my desires. That is also pointing to this idea that you need to outsource accountability to find what you want. Therefore outsourcing your agency. Look, this idea that dating actively
means that I'm trying, means that what I want is going to happen. If pushing yourself and being productive, quote unquote, worked, then it would have worked by now. You would have met your person by now. And sure, there are people in your life who will say, well, I just went on all the dating apps and I, you know, went on all the dates and they probably won't say that what was true, which is I was miserable and I met somebody. So you should go out there too and do it.
Okay, so the other day I watched the great American baking show Celebrity Virgin and Darcy Carden is there and Marshawn Lynch is there and it's like the most joyful watch. It's on the Roku channel, wild. And Joel Kim Booster, who I'm a fan of, is on there and somebody is like looking around and is like, what does everybody else's look like? And Joel just goes with the most perfect delivery just goes,
Lily @ Date Brazen (07:14.35)
Like, have your own journey, like be on your own journey. And in that way, I want to say be on your own journey. Your friend's path is their path does not have to be your path. We can't talk about this dichotomy of lazy versus productive without talking about capitalism and the patriarchy and the intersectionality of race and class and ableism, right? Like it's a hot soup of intense things that I don't want to get into.
All of that right now, I just want to talk about how we have been socialized to produce labor. To, I mean, in this case, produce labor if we're looking macro. The dating industry as of right now, I've seen conflicting numbers on this. It's somewhere between three billion and five billion dollar industry. And so this,
very successful marketing campaign, this cultural idea that active dating means being on all of the dating apps and swiping all the time and that finding what you want can be accurately measured by how many matches and messages you get. That's a really good marketing campaign to make money for the shareholders at Match Group, which owns a majority of that $3 billion market share. Match Group owns Tinder, Hinge,
plenty of fish, match.com obviously doesn't know Bumble Bumble's its own thing. and it's a publicly traded company as well, but, but I digress. Like this idea that you need to produce labor to make, to, to make your dating life happen is a myth. It, don't have to perform your dating life for good things to happen. You don't have to push yourself into a, a, a, a fizz to find what you want.
Sure, there are people in your life who probably did push themselves into a fizz to find what they wanted and end up in a relationship, but at what cost? And I have seen again and again, it is possible. It is completely 100 % possible to bring more ease and flow and joy and boundaries into your active dating life so that it feels like more like self-care. may not feel self-soothing in the moment, may be vulnerable, may be intense, whatever. Self-care is for your future self.
Lily @ Date Brazen (09:43.594)
It can be an act of self care. And ultimately you wanna feel cared for in the right relationship, right? And so why not give that energy to yourself right now to normalize that state of being right now? I was beating on my chest. I don't know if you heard that in my voice, but I'm so passionate about this. You gotta normalize.
how you want to feel in the right relationship right now so that your body becomes used to that level of being, that level of belonging. And to those people who say, you're not trying if you're not going on dates, look, people have opinions. This is something that I have to learn over and over and over again. People have so many opinions and our journey, your journey into self-trust, into deeper agency means coming up with your own best.
solution, trusting your body that like you have the best answers for you. And that is courageous. That's a lot of work to come into your own agency. And it's going to be an imperfect process. It's not, that is also not an either or. It's not either I have agency or I don't. It's like a constant growth edge for us. think for me, I'll speak from the eye. So I want you to notice where
you are engaging in the productivity myth in your dating life. I want you to notice what the impact and the cost of that productivity myth is doing in your body and your brain. I want you to notice what ROI, what return on investment have I gained from that?
engaging in the productivity myth, engaging in believing that I am lazy for not being as productive as I quote, want to be or whatever, or the expectation that other people set for me, like, whose rules are you playing by here? And what might it be like to sort of step off that seesaw, step off that either or, come into your own best answer? Might it sound like it might not be impossible that I get to care for myself?
Lily @ Date Brazen (11:54.4)
It might not be impossible that I've ingested a lot of marketing messages that don't serve me. It might not be impossible that I'm doing some deeper untangling in my life. And that means some grief, like grieving this idea that productivity will lead to success. And I get that. I had that in my business recently.
where I thought if I do all of the things, if I'm on social media, I don't know if any of you follow me on Instagram, but in the past year, you probably have seen a major, maybe you're not paying attention. Instagram is so funny. It's sort of like our social media. like, I think that we are centering ourselves. And so we're like, my God, everybody's noticing that I'm not posting as much, whatever. Maybe you don't notice, it doesn't matter.
I was working with a legitimate team agency. We were posting every single day. I thought the rules are you post every single day. You do this many webinars. You do this many emails. You write out your sequence. You have somebody on your team who does XYZ. You have to be productive and consistent and blah, blah.
And I was working myself into a fizz often to participate in that productivity myth. thought that the productivity was what led to results. And in doing that for years, sure, I got some space, I got some good, I got to meet some amazing clients. I'm not saying that I did anything wrong, both and. I felt on my heart that this like deeper,
way of being more authentic way of being was available and that it existed beyond the idea that productivity was going to lead to my success, that actions alone were going to lead to my success. What if caring for myself deeply, what if listening, makes me kind of want to cry. What if caring for myself deeply, what if trusting my intuition a little more day by day, what if
Lily @ Date Brazen (14:12.256)
actually stripping away what I thought the shoulds were, what if that was gonna lead to a more authentic way of being, which ultimately, what if I need to redefine what success looks like here? And so that was a pull on my heart. I mean, if you talk to anybody who I was seeking counsel from at the time, it was a hard untangling of that productivity.
If I let go of this social media team and I don't post every day, like what's gonna happen? Because it just ended up feeling inauthentic. What about the days that I don't feel like being forward-facing? Like what about the days that I need to rest? What about the days that I'm on vacation? I don't wanna have this like idea that I need to be posting every day to be successful. Like that doesn't feel authentic anymore. And so I stripped it away. I had to grieve the idea that productivity led to my success.
And I got to come into, it sort of felt like, you know, sort of being a phoenix and getting into the ashes of, you know, what I thought was gonna work and the castle of ideas that I built over years. And then what was so beautiful was that I learned the skill or started relearning the skill of being with myself through discomfort, started being a more loving witness to my brain.
started noticing when I had thoughts like I have to do this, started asking like, do I really? Like, what's that really about? What fear is in the room here? What belief is in the room here? How can I like lovingly hold space and then question like what else might be true? And that's what led to the slowest season in my business, just being honest, and led to some scary like what's gonna happen.
Like, am I okay? Is this financially gonna work? But I kept trusting. I was like, I'm gonna trust that I have enough, I have what I need, and I'm gonna figure it out. And I'm gonna do so with so much fucking self-care and so much self-trust that I wow myself every day that I'm willing to go there with myself. And it was hard. And stripping away that productivity was hard. And then...
Lily @ Date Brazen (16:27.086)
I started having ideas. started getting so inspired. was writing ideas down in my phone at midnight because I was like, I'm starting to blossom and bloom again. I needed to hibernate a little bit. then everything that I wrote and everything that I did on TikTok and on Instagram was literally from my heart in that moment. Everything felt super authentic in a new way. Everything felt really permissive in a new way and it unlocked like,
the coolest fucking season of my life and of my business. And it led to like a new mastermind and an in-person retreat and selling out both of those things and building the Brazen Breakthrough in this new version that it exists and creating that community and resting more and playing more and just like receiving more because I was giving myself the energy that I wanted and like needed in my.
life like that you want to feel cared for in your love life, give that to yourself right now. This is about stripping away the rules that somebody else has given you. I want you to also give yourself a lot more credit than you probably are now. You are so brilliant. You are so wise. You are pretty fucking smart. So give yourself credit. You can like come, you can figure out.
how to attract love on your terms. And it doesn't have to look like how anybody else did it. And it doesn't have to look like gaslighting yourself into swiping more. It doesn't have to look like hinging your success on a dating app. It gets to look like the both hand. It gets to look like messiness. gets to look like, you know, I don't know exactly how I'm gonna meet my person and I trust that I'm gonna figure it out if that's what I want.
Maybe redefining what success looks like right now. What if success in your dating life looked like I trust myself, I practice self-trust every day, I am open to receiving. Practicing that thought out loud. Maybe it looks like I'm courageous enough to approach somebody at a bar. I'm having fun in my in-person dating life, meaning I'm joy building, I'm going to events, I'm asking friends for support, I am sharing what I want out loud and often. I am setting boundaries out loud and often. How could you redefine your success here on your own terms?
Lily @ Date Brazen (18:46.978)
So, high level, notice when you are conflating performing, pushing, discomfort, exhaustion with progress. Ask yourself what else, care for your nervous system. Ask yourself what else might be true. You get to like, to reframe, how can I stop being lazy to, what might it look like for me to care so deeply for myself?
that my love life, dating life becomes an expression of my agency and self care. What might it look like if I relieved the time pressure from myself? I suspended my disbelief for a moment and said, you know what, caring for myself is going, what if caring for myself led to what I desire? What if it's not a zero sum game, either I'm on apps or not? What if it's not a zero sum game, either I'm dating or I'm not? What if your love life existed because your desires exist? You've got this.
I've got your back. I love you. I'm your biggest fan, truly. Every time I get a DM from one of y'all on Instagram saying that the podcast has touched you or meant something to you, it means so much to hear. I'm so grateful that you're here in this community. I'm so grateful that this community has been able to grow so beautifully. That self-trusting season and like burning down what I thought was gonna work to like what actually felt good.
led to the podcast going from 200 listeners who are my people, thank you for being here. If you've been here from the beginning, you are my people. I'm so grateful for you. You are the best to now 2000 listeners per episode. And you are also my people and you are also the best and I'm so grateful for you. You have no idea what will come when you burn down the productivity myth and come into your own best next step.
Again, love ya, you're the best. You've got this and I've got your back. Talk to you next week.