018: Love on Crossroads: The Challenges of Mismatched Personal Growth

In this podcast episode of "Body Over Mind," hosts Mike Chang and Stephen Yeh discuss the topic of how personal development interests can impact relationships, particularly when one partner is interested in personal growth while the other is not. They explore the potential conflicts and challenges that can arise when one partner seeks to change their beliefs, values, and habits through personal development, while the other partner remains comfortable with their current state.

Mike and Stephen delve into a scenario where one partner wants to adopt a healthier lifestyle, which involves giving up habits like drinking and smoking, while the other partner is resistant to change. They discuss how this difference in interests can lead to disconnect and potential friction within the relationship. The hosts suggest strategies for navigating such situations, including over-expressing in sober moments to expand one's capacity for expression and communication, and openly discussing the personal growth journey with the partner to establish understanding and support.

Overall, the episode highlights the complexities that can arise in relationships when one partner is interested in personal development and growth, while the other partner may be resistant to change, and offers insights into potential ways to address these challenges.

Connect with Mike Chang:
- Instagram: @mikechangofficial
-Youtube: Mike Chang
- Website: www.flow60.com

Connect with Stephen Yeh:
-Instagram: @iamstephenyeh
-Twitter: @iamstephenyeh

Transcript

 Welcome to another episode of body over mind. There's your host, Mike chain with our cohost, Steven. Yay. And today the subject is talking about what happens when you are interested in personal development and your partner is not. And we thought this is a good subject to talk about because this is something that often happens.

And a lot of my coaching calls will be talking to people who are telling me. That their partners are not interested and there seem to be some conflicts that come up Some misalignments, and I think this is a good subject to dive into so I guess the first thing To create some context around this is what does it mean?

What is personal development, you know actually mean? What is it what does it mean? And then we can talk about how it can affect a relationship. So what do you think, Steven? For me, when I think about personal development. It's one, of course, with the word personal it's within yourself and it's a broad term just meaning to, to enhance and improve and expand upon whether it's your mind, your body or your emotions or your, the spiritual side of you in one of those areas in your life, right?

What about you? Pretty close. I'll say something similar then. Let's go on to the next thing, which is how it affects your relationship. So let's just dive right into it with, we have a partner who's not. So let's say I'm really interested in personal involvement and then I have conversations with my partner and she doesn't really care.

Yeah, I guess what's the problem with that, right? It's people can have different interests. That's a normal thing. Yeah. But what is the, what is some of the potential issues that could come up when it comes to personal development versus like I like football and she likes, plays and art shows.

There's nothing wrong, right? Everybody's got different interests. But personal development could be a little bit different. And something that I've noticed is that when one partner's in personal development and they're really looking to change certain things about themselves and the other partner is not, one issue that stands out is When a partner is, they, when they come together, there's this unspoken agreement that, Hey, I know how you are.

I know how you're like, I know your beliefs, your values, and I aligned with them enough for us to be partners and vice versa. But then now with personal development, what we're saying is we're going to change some of those beliefs. We're going to change some of these values and. And that could create problems now.

Because the other partner's going, Wait you were gonna be, you were this way, now you're suddenly that way. And I'm your partner, I have to be okay with this. But I didn't sign up for that. I thought I'm gonna be with a person who Likes seeing things in this way who likes having these habits. Yeah. Yeah.

I think that's the big that's a really big conflict Yeah, it's it's a tricky one, because we can talk about it. Let's just say very Simplistically meaning that one person just absolutely doesn't want any personal development I think especially there's actually a decent amount of people like that, where they're just comfortable the way they are.

And when they're comfortable the way they are, they don't like to change much, they don't want to try new things. How they feel is, this is just who I am, and these are the things I do. And especially if, let's say, that person has a partner who does want to grow in different fields, what tends to happen is there's going to be a disconnect eventually.

Eventually the gap is going to get too big. Let's say the couple at first, they just going out and eating whatever, and it doesn't matter. And they're happy drinking alcohol and smoking and all of that stuff, whatever it is. And then all of a sudden one of the partners is like, Hey, you know what?

I really want to get healthy. I really want to see what that's and how that can change. It's, it can be very challenging. It's what they're going to do for fun now. And here's the thing, it's for somebody who's, if they haven't drank and smoked for a little while, they eventually start to figure out other activities.

But imagine a person whose fun is to go out and drink and smoke. And now, if they don't do that because they want to become healthier, what do they do? So the other partner goes, okay, fine, you don't want to drink and smoke, yes, I know, it's not good for our health, what do you suggest? And now if the other partner who's just starting out in this may not have any good ideas, they may go let's do, they'll name, I don't know, they'll name something like bowling and then they want to get a drink, but they can't drink and suddenly bowling is boring or, and that's the thing, right?

It takes a little bit to for this transition because the partner in this case that wants to stop smoking and drinking, the other one may go That's fine. I, do you do whatever you want, honey, but I'm gonna do you mind if I drink and smoke and then a person like, oh no, you're right.

There's always how it is. Oh, no, I don't mind if you drink and smoke. I'm just doing it for me. You could do whatever you like. Oh, okay, great. So then, yeah, let's go bowling. And so one partners drinking, smoking and having a great time. And then the other one is sitting there, bored, don't know what to do with themselves.

Because, there's a transition between I'm buzzed and I'm, I'm a little drunk or just buzzed. And now I know how to act this way. But now when I'm sober, I really don't know how to act. I don't know how to respond. I'm not used to it. And it takes a little while. So during this time, the other partner may go, Hey, I noticed what's wrong with you?

You haven't, you're not having fun. And then the sober one's going to go, Oh yeah, I'm having fun. You sure? You don't look like it. You're not smiling. You're not doing your normal stuff. You're just sitting there. Just looking bored, and I think this is like real lifestyle. This is usually actually what happens, and how do people navigate through this?

Because this is kind of part of the process. Especially let's say if you're spending a lot of time together. There's periods in my life where I'm almost in like an incubator of continuing to grow. But if you're in your daily life and you still got work to do, you still you still have your normal routines that needs to get done.

And you're also trying to shift this, but you also have a partner. What are you supposed to do? How do you make a shift? I think for the, for this specific scenario of let's say, two partners are going bowling, right?

The sober partner, here's what they can do. And this is just for for this specific scenario of, let's say, drinking and smoking. Now, one is totally sober. And usually when somebody's totally sober, and you're not used to being sober, and having leisure time, you may not know how to act.

It takes a little while to get used to it. A tip I would recommend is, Act go a little over the top with your expression. Just try to act like you are drunk. Act like you are under the influence of something. Just for the, no, seriously, it sounds like really weird, but what it does is It gets you used to expressing because when somebody is under the influence of some substance, they're used to expressing in that way.

But when they're sober, they're used to not expressing. They're used to like holding themselves back. That's why they take substances. Because if not, there's no point to. But they like to have this change in reality, this change in experience of the moment. And then they can express themselves differently.

Now, when they are sober, they don't know how to express themselves differently. If they were to go and express like how they would when they're drunk or high, it will seem way over the top. So this is why you actually do that. You express over the top and it's it's like a game. Make it like a game.

It's not like this is a game. That's how you are now. No, let that go. Express it. Play with it like it's a game. You're just practicing on expressing. You're practicing on pressing against your limitations of your ability to express. Make noise at half of, ah, just do all this stuff. Because if you don't expand it out that way, you don't know what becomes your natural expression because your expression is so closed.

So in other words, this method is to open up your capacity of expression. Not that you're going to, make these weird noises or just on a normal basis, but you want to have an increase in capacity. Then you can start to become more open in your expression. Another thing that I'm thinking would be very beneficial, let's say in this case, is let's say if there is a transition that's being made, especially just sharing with your partner that you're going to go through a journey and it's not going to, it's not always going to be super smooth through the journey and you're needing to adjust and asking your partner if she is, willing to support you through this phase.

And that way she gets some context of what you're attempting to do. And then that way she'll understand more of this process and more of this kind of like growth stage. It's almost like you imagine like growing your hair out to have it long, but there's this like phase, there's this like weird phase that you got to go through first before you can actually have it properly long.

I think it's a, I think it's a good idea, but it,

It only gives It's like the formality things. It's more for formality than actually being very effective. And what I mean is that, you tell them, hey, I'm going to go through this thing. You don't know what you're going to do. You don't know the outcome of it. They don't know either.

You're just basically letting them know that, you're going to make some changes. And so even if they agree, it doesn't matter because they don't know what they're agreeing to. They don't know the time frame. They have no idea how they're going to respond in that situation anyways. But formality wise, it is good because at least we are communicating going, Hey, this is what I'm deciding.

Here's the issue with that. Now your partner goes, Oh, great. And yeah, I think that's good. Now you do that. And then now they may hold you accountable, but that may not help you out because they'll hold you accountable. So what happens is that you go, I want to be I want to be more healthier.

So I'm going to, I'm going to stop drinking and smoking like that earlier scenario. So the partner goes, okay, great, cool. Yeah, I think that's good for you. You should do that. And then suddenly two weeks in of not drinking or smoking, you break. And then you have a couple drinks. And there goes your partner going, hey, man, you're doing so good.

Why are you drinking now? And you're like, I don't, I just want to have one. Yeah, but you know how it is. That's how we all start. And they give you a lot of problems. So now, before I know it, your partner, which is you wanted to be like your friend, your support system is now. Somebody you're wanting to hide away from because now you feel guilty and you're around them.

You feel like you'd let them down. So this this could happen. It's in, but of course this is inevitable because even if you don't tell your partner you're gonna do this. Eventually, if your habits start to change, you're going to ask you and then you're going to tell them and so therefore the outcome will be similar.

It's not something you can really, really overcome. You just have to be okay with what's happening, just go through the process. I think sometimes people go different directions. But it doesn't mean, but the best scenario I find is if you can go and make the change and then your partner doesn't want to it's okay, just let them do what they want.

And that in itself becomes a big challenge for yourself, because not only is the challenge to make the change, but the challenge is also to be okay with somebody that's really close to you that isn't changing, that is still doing all the things. And. You will probably naturally want to spend less time with certain activities.

Like in this case, drinking and smoking is just a simple one, right? You'll stop showing up to the parties as much. To the scenarios where people are drinking and smoking. Of course, that's going to create some separation. Suddenly your partner is going to feel like you're not there, and if that happens, that's just what it is. It's you can't avoid it. If that's the, if the relationship was built on, you have to constantly be there and if you're not there, your partner is going to be interested in somebody else. You know what, then best see it early than later on.

If your relationship was built on partying, cause a lot of friendships are built on that, right? You got your drinking friends, for example. You get your smoking friends, but now you're not drinking and smoking and suddenly those people, there's no point to be around them because you don't know, you don't, you're not really interested in them.

You just like the fact that you have someone else to go ahead and get messed up on with. So if that's how it is in a relationship and now that's not happening anymore, it's just, it's okay. Then it's time to go separate ways. I wanted to get in More of a complex version of this, like the simplified version would be, there's one person who wants to grow in a certain area in their life and the other one just wants to maintain.

And we're just talking about drinking and smoking. Yeah. Simple one, right? Let's say for example, let's say both people are into self development. They do, they both want to grow, but there's so many different aspects to grow. It can be in, in the relationship itself. It can be in the career or the business, or it can be in family life, or it can be in, getting in shape.

Whatever it is. What would you say and what would you recommend if, let's say, both people are growing, but they're growing in different ways? Let's say we'll be an example of a different way. Example of a different way would be... Let's even give the example of what I'm currently going through right now, which is I personally right now...

And looking and what I like to do is really establish a good financial and career base. And that is one of the primary things that I'm working on right now. Let's say for my partner in general, she's more focused on improving the day to day with the family, with the kids, etc. And... I'm, what I would say is I am, I myself am doing my best to navigate and improve on all the different areas.

But at the same time, it's, it can be challenging, especially with just the amount of time that you have. You can really only put, at least for me right now, it feels like I can only really put so much attention and focus into certain areas. So let's say for example, I would rather, right now, I would rather spend a good amount of time focusing on work instead of going on vacation with the family and going on little trips here and there.

But for her, she sees those little trips as growing as a family, which also makes sense. Now, I'm not saying one is better than the other. It seems like it's more of a value thing. And it's more of what's more important for each individual right now. So what would you say and how would you navigate something like that?

I think that's I think that could be a good thing because if both of the individuals were, let's say, focused on on growing their finances, on becoming more financially stable, they're focused on business and making money then nobody's focused on family and then that aspect is missing, or vice versa, both are focused on family and building out stronger relationships, doing family stuff.

The finances are probably starting to struggle. The fact that there's a difference, that people are focused on different things, is actually, could be a good thing. Sometimes we find that we need to have other people in our life to, to share certain interests in, maybe instead of it having to be the partner, it could be somebody else.

What do you mean by that? Let's say let's say I'm interested in business and I'm trying to get my partner to be interested in business, but she's not interested. She's interested in family. Okay. It's okay because somebody's gotta be interested and keeping this family strong.

But of course, family needs financial support. So somebody's gotta be interested in doing that. Now if someone goes everything's all important. Yes, it is. But, in life, there are the different areas of life, and if you focus a lot on family, don't focus on business and work, then that part of your life may suffer, and vice versa.

You focus on business and work, you have no strength in your family, no bond. Even though everybody's focused on everything, but certain people have a certain interest, they have a certain passion towards one thing more than another. And it's good that it's like that. So this way, all areas, or whoever's interested in certain areas, those areas of life are going to grow.

And when you see it that way, It's actually a good thing that people have split interests, that you're interested in one thing and she's interested in another. So now logistically, how do you make that work? In a situation like, hey, I want to go travel. That's, this will be good for the family.

But then you're looking at it, you're like when traveling that means it's gonna be tougher for work. There's some more things to navigate around, right? For some people maybe it's not even an option. It's if I travel, I can't work, right? And then for others, I can travel because my work is online.

But they're still moving parts. If we want to have a balance, we may say let's go ahead and see what I can do about work to make it, structure it, come up with some workflows so I can travel. See, like for Natalia and I when we were traveling, we traveled for four and a half months.

But our work structure wasn't designed, wasn't set up for traveling. So when we travel things are dropping left and right. We couldn't continue the normal workflow. But because we felt that was important, that was the balance that was needed, so we did it anyways. And we started to build new workflows.

We started to build new things. We had to let certain things drop. It's just what it was. But we were able to adjust along the way. So this way, I still focused a lot on work and a lot on making sure we're financially good. And she focused on family aspect, making sure that we all have good quality time and all of these things.

And of course, I focus a little bit on family as well, because I'm still involved and having this balance and vice versa for her for work. But if I was to look at the priorities, where our most of our attention was, mine was more on work and hers was more on family. And it's okay. I think that's the part to work out and to be okay with the fact that certain balls are going to drop.

We, we dropped many things in the, during that process. Yeah, that makes sense. It's just what you said if everybody is focused on growing the same area There's going to be other areas that will be left behind especially if you have a family then there are many Different aspects that needs to be taken care of as well to create more of a harmonious wholeness.

That's within not just the relationship, but inside of the family as well, right? And I think having, and when it comes to how do we find balance in that, I think balance is just a it's a nice word, but what is balance? It can't, it's not just 50 50, it doesn't work that way.

I think every one of us inside, we determine what the balance looks like for every one of our lives. I, there is no such thing as this is what balance is, that's like saying this is what success is. No, there is no definition of that. Everybody determines their success based on what it is they want to do.

Everybody has their own definition. And I think balance is one of those words, again. We have a general idea of it, but what it really means, it's up to, everybody can define it. I know for me, I just, I define it as a sense of the amount of attention. Amount of attention and that I have, that I'm giving and I'm giving towards towards my family, which is Natalia and Riza and having a sense of closeness.

Sometimes the balance goes off and I'm focused too much on work and I haven't, and I maybe haven't seen them much in the last couple of days. And then, so to balance that out, maybe I spend a full day with little work and more time just with them. And then there's other times to where I'm spending a lot of time with them.

Everything is great. And there are so many things in work that's just piling up and things aren't getting done and I'm the bottleneck of it. Just learning how to go from one thing to another and eventually to set up a system, to set up a a structure, a schedule. For me, I've, I always do the Sunday family day.

I've been doing it for a little while now and it helps. One day dedicated towards family. However recently, over the last couple months, Sundays is now taken to where I do calls from 9 p. m. to about midnight. Partial is family day, but not fully. Especially because I can't just go and totally exit out into having fun and all this stuff and suddenly be in the right mind space to go and take these calls.

It doesn't work that way. So there's always this holding on to figuring out what I'm going to do for the night. So right now we're actually in the process. of deciding of how to create another day. I'm thinking like maybe Tuesday or something like that, another day for family day.

But the idea though, again, the, it's about creating some structure. So I don't have to constantly decide if I have a structure of this is creating some balance here with my, with family time. This is work time. It makes it a little bit easier. There's less decisions making. So going back all the way to, so coming back all the way to to personal development between partners

when we are okay by accepting who our partners are, if we want to make a change and our partner doesn't, part of this change is learning how to accept ourselves and learning how to accept other people. A lot of times we think it's about them making a change. Not realizing that actually the biggest change that we can make is acceptance.

Being able to accept who we are at this present moment now and being able to accept how they are at this present moment now. Everybody's talking about wanting to do this differently. How many people are looking at how about being okay with the way it's done now?

Being okay with the outcome of how things are now. That is a much bigger gain. than making change. Can you go, can you elaborate on that? Yeah let's say you want your partner to start to let's say you want your partner to start to speak differently, which we call conscious language.

You want to, let's stop using these words. Let's stop saying it's it's so hard, it's so hard to do these things. It can't ever happen. It'll never happen. It'll never happen. It'll never happen. And then you tell your partner, you should stop saying it'll never happen, right? Because you're into the person development now and you don't use these words.

You don't speak that way. Instead, and you tell your partner instead, you want to think, think, you want to say, how can we make this happen? Don't say it'll never happen. Don't say you can't do it. I want you to say how we can do it. And your partner looks at you and go, yeah, that's fine.

I don't know how I can do it. So watch, which is why I'm saying it'll never happen. For us, let's say we are the person saying that, then we can learn to be okay with what they are saying. So they say, this will never happen. It can't happen. There's no way. And part of our development is to accept and be okay with what they are saying.

To not try to change what they're saying. Because maybe they don't care to change. Maybe they're fine saying it that way. But then for us, if we like to say it differently, we say it differently. But we're okay with how they're acting. We're okay with what they're doing. We just change ourselves, and we don't try to change other people.

We instead be the example that we want other people to be. But we're not attached to how they are, so we are the example, and if they don't want to follow us, no big deal. We still treat them with respect, we still act kindly, we still give them unconditional love. Unconditional means, without condition. Hey, you can do whatever you want, I still treat you with love.

I still be nice and kind to you. Whether or not you do things for me, doesn't matter. This requires your partner not to change. This requires them to not to do anything differently. You want to go ahead and really develop yourself, this is what you do. Everybody wants other people to change, but the reason why is because it makes it easier. Because what I'm speaking of is very difficult. It's very difficult to do that. But real change happens when we're able to do that. When you have a lot of other support systems around you, like your partner jumping on board, and your friends jumping on board, and everybody goes, Great!

We're all going to do that together! Makes it a little bit easier.

But, easier doesn't mean you're going to develop a lot. Easier means you're going to develop less.

Because personal development is developing ourselves. It's the ability to master ourselves. And it's the ability to control ourself. Not control other people. Control ourself. To do what we want to do. And so if I say, I don't want to go and argue with people anymore. With that, would I be able to do that successfully?

If other people are suddenly all very nice to me, and nobody disagrees. Could I have been able to accomplish Not arguing with people, because everybody around me suddenly agrees with me. Or, do I need to be in a conversation where people disagree with what it is I'm saying? And I don't get upset, I don't argue.

When we have conflicts on the outside, when our partners aren't supporting what it is that we do, it actually gives us the opportunity to develop ourselves more. When our partners are agreeing, when our partners are wanting to change themselves so much, it actually slows down our progress. It makes it easier.

From the perspective that you're talking about is basically like the ultimate self development journey of whatever happenings out there. It doesn't matter. With whoever it's and essentially, if you want to go for, if you want to go for high level, I, that makes a lot of sense.

If you're going to go for it, why not just go for it? Why just go halfway? When I started this journey, and I recognize that this is what it is, that We are responsible for the way we feel that we you know If we're around a lot of conflict and you're able to be at peace with the conflict you're able to be around drama and not Be triggered that you will that's how you fully develop yourself.

That's how you can really let go. I was like, wow, okay So then after that I started to look for opportunities I started to, I looked at the opportunities in my life where there's conflict. I saw them as opportunities for growth. And man, did I find them. But that's how I, that's what was responsible for massive amount of growth in my life.

It wasn't because I made my life easier. But, it's not like we just toss ourselves in a fire or something, it's just that if our life is so happened to be where our partners aren't aligned with the direction we're going, we're just, you're not interested in this stuff. Then that's just how it is.

Because there are some people that their partners are completely aligned and they really love it. And both people are interested and talk all about it. And that's cool, or in a group, a circle of friends, other people are. Interested and like to have conversations on it, it's fine.

So it's not like we're looking for to create, just create conflict. But sometimes we are in life to where there's the conflicts are there. There's just a disalignment. And when that happens, we can shift our perspective and know that it's not a bad thing. And that actually just gives us opportunities to grow more.

If you guys want to grow very quickly, I have a hack for you. Have many children.  Just joking, but also decently serious as well. I think they, those little ones will make you grow a lot and very quickly. You're either gonna sink or swim with that. Yeah, somebody was at the house and they're, and yeah, I think they were telling like Natalia and I, they're like, wow, you guys are so calm, while he's doing all this stuff.

I think at that time, I think Rizal was like making a total mess. It was just things all over the ground. And. We're just like, yeah, that's just how it is. It didn't even faze us. Yeah, because we just practice.

 It's not perfect, but it's just a lot of practice. When Natalia and I first got together, we were in totally different worlds because I was really interested in all the development work and spiritual work, and she wasn't. But just like what I was explaining here I, I told her you can do what you like.

She was drinking I wasn't drinking, and so she just continued to drink and I just didn't. We'd go out, I wouldn't order anything, or I'd order, something else, but nothing with alcohol. And it was fine. All of her friends drank, and so I just hung around. And but then over time she started to drink a little less, and then a little less, and then one day she just stopped drinking.

And I didn't make it a big deal. I didn't go, Congratulations! Finally! No, it wasn't like that. It was just, let's just let it be. But that's the thing, it's even if you make it into a big deal, people are going to think they're doing it for you. And then that doesn't work out well.

So just let people have their experience of life. Let them go through their own journey. Maybe you're on a certain part of the journey because you had a different life and at this point you feel like, what you're interested in is this and your partner may be interested in something different.

But if you really want to grow, then part of growing means learning how to love them unconditionally and to treat them with as much kindness and compassion. And for people that are interested in personal development, isn't that the ultimate development? It's not to go and run off and go, Oh, you're not, you're not spiritual enough.

You're not conscious enough. Because that in itself is judgment. And if you can't let go of judgment, then it doesn't matter what you learn. No amount of spiritual work and transformational work is going to help you. Ultimately, you have to learn how to let go of judgment. And then when we let go of judgment, now we're able to love unconditionally.

Until then, we can't. Having partners that are interested in different things actually will help just as much. That's why there's not really it's not really an issue, but it is it is more difficult. It is definitely more difficult, but maybe that's just a path. That's right for you right now.

Be grateful for the challenges you have now, because you may not have them later on.

 Okay.  That was very power episode. It wasn't like full on energy, but it went deep into what we're discussing. And I hope you guys got as much value out of it as I did. And we'll see you guys on the next episode. If you guys enjoy this podcast please subscribe, send us a review.

And also let us know other topics that you'd like us to discuss.