How To Be Happy Being Single

The speaker, Amy Mallory, discusses the changing perception of being single and encourages women to embrace the freedom and opportunities that come with it. She emphasizes the importance of focusing on personal growth, pursuing hobbies, and traveling. Amy also highlights the need to strengthen one's relationship with oneself, focusing on self-love, confidence, and personal fulfillment. She believes that being single is an opportunity to live a fulfilling life and encourages women to embrace it. Welcome to Coaching Your Inner Self. I am Amy Mallory and I am your coach. Life is hard. Life is scary. Life is messy. Especially when you lack a sense of direction in where you want to go and who you want to be. I have good news though. You don't have to be lost. You don't have to feel empty. You don't ever have to settle. Everyone deserves the life they dream about. I can help you find it. I can help you find your path and embrace it with happiness and with gratitude. Let's go do the work guys. Good afternoon and welcome back. Today we are going to be talking about the single life and how to be happy being single. You know, just the word single alone can be a scary thing to say out loud. And it can make you feel like shit. Unfortunately, being single brings up images still to this day of little old ladies sitting alone in their kitchens surrounded by cats. You know, there's the spinster, there's the old maid, there's the growing old and dying alone concept of being single that makes the whole idea of it terrifying and it's all so negative. You know, saying that I was single in my 20s and 30s, it was almost like the word single really meant rejected. Not good enough. Not pretty enough. Not wanted. Ugly. There are so many different theories and definitions of single in just that word, if that makes sense. Because single alone isn't a bad term. It's everything else that we connotate with it that becomes the problem and turns it ugly. But times are changing and mentality is changing and the way that people view living the single life, it's changing. 2023 has been welcoming the quote unquote single life more than ever before. Women are choosing to put themselves first, finally. Everywhere I look on social media, Facebook, Instagram, you know, TikTok, whatever your social media obsession of choice is, I'm seeing more and more references to women being single and it being a good thing. You know, it's all of a sudden being celebrated when women choose to leave an unhappy relationship or leave an unhappy marriage or walk away from a boyfriend that's not what they wanted and, you know, settle for being alone instead and being okay with that. You know, women are choosing, these days they're choosing having pets over relationships because I'll tell you they're a lot fucking easier, that's for sure. You know, traveling over having a family and a child and the white picket fence and the mortgage. You know, women are choosing their goals and their dreams over just being a housewife and a mom. Shooting for the stars in your job and your career is becoming, you know, more acceptable and less, you know, something that you just need to do until you meet the right guy and get married and have the kids. Women as a whole, we're entering a whole new chapter of our lives on this planet and it's exciting. And it's about fucking time to be honest with you. It's now the time for us, it's the time for you, it's the time for us to find our freedom. It's the time for us to be single and to be finally happy with that choice. The time to be single and still be sexy and still be desirable and still be wanted and appreciated and successful and content and happy, that time is now. Because your life all of a sudden doesn't revolve anymore around just finding the right partner to settle down with and becoming, you know, the mom, the wife and the caretaker. We finally get to put ourselves first and it's okay. We finally are allowed to choose a single life, choose to be child-free and choose to pursue our dreams first with no explanation required. Right now, us women can be literally anything we want to be. And I know that's a conversation that we've been having for, you know, a while now and it has been true. But I feel that deep in my bones that that statement, you know, women can be anything they want to be, is 100% more accurate than it was even five years ago. The hardest part right now, the biggest challenge that we face that I personally have faced is how to be happy in a single life. How to not get down in the dumps about it. How to not feel sorry for yourself. How to not feel like you're missing out on something just because you're not in a relationship and you don't have children and you don't have a mortgage. The biggest challenge we face is to be satisfied and content and grateful for the glorious, exciting, calm, content and hope-filled life that we are actively choosing for ourselves. It's not easy. It's 100% not fucking easy. And that's okay. I still have days when I wake up and I want to know why I'm still single. And I'm angry about the fact that I'm still single. And I feel sad and depressed about not being in a relationship and not being quote-unquote chosen for a relationship. I still have days where I'm stuck in that head game of why not me. Staying happy while you're single, it's a fight. But what is the alternative? Settling? Just choosing any random person to, you know, be in a relationship with because they are interested in you but you have no interest in them and you don't have the same goals or interests only because you don't want to be single anymore? That's no alternative. That is a suffocating solution. So being single and figuring out how to be happy and grateful for that status, it's worth it in the end. It's 100% worth it to invest in writing your mind and writing your thoughts and being happy with being single. So let's figure out how do we get there. Okay, I've got three things that really have helped me in the past when I'm trying to maintain a positive, grateful mind frame about being single. And they were really helpful for me. So instead of focusing on being single as, you know, an everyday, every moment of everyday thought, focus on your freedom. The freedom to do or be anything you want to do or be. There is literally nothing holding you back from the life that you want and deserve. And you are 100% capable of claiming that life in your dreams. There is, and when I tell you there is nothing holding you back, I mean it to the depth of my soul. There is nothing holding you back, maybe except for yourself and the way that you think. The way that you think about yourself and your current situation is the only thing that can really keep you down. But instead of focusing on what you don't have, focus on what you do and the ability to add to that, you know. Join a hobby group. You know, I lived in Florida for a while and I didn't have anybody that wanted to go with me to Disney World. I fucking love Disney World. So I joined a website made by Match that was called meetup.com and it paired people together in groups based on hobbies. So I went to a meetup and I found three people that I have maintained in my life for the last 10 years and we rocked Disney World all the time. Join a group like that based on whatever hobby you like. Trust me, there is literally anything and everything that you could possibly think of. You know, meetup.com was great for me but also like Facebook now has groups for everything. Join a group. There is nothing holding you back from joining a group and going out on a weekend day and living some kind of adventurous life, you know. Take classes. Figure out, you know, maybe a hobby that you want to expand on. You know, like I like to write so I took a creative writing class once and I met a bunch of people from there and we had a really great time just like sitting around writing. I know it sounds very fucking nerdy but whatever. But, you know, take a class. Take a dance class, a knitting class, a hiking class, a canoeing class, an exercise class, whatever. Just go out and take a class because you literally, you can. You have that freedom to do anything. Travel, you know. I like to travel a lot. I see a lot of single women out there really embracing that solo travel life now and, you know, really embracing the concept of being able to go places and see things that they've always wanted to see without having to wait around for somebody to go with. You know, figure out where in this world you want to see and then make it happen. Do planning. You know, go through the discount travel websites. Go Expedia and there's so many websites that you can just start researching where you want to go and traveling and getting e-mails when there's, you know, flash sales and all that for travel discounts and deals. But you can literally travel anywhere because you don't have anybody that you need to compromise with about where you want to go. Being single is literally an opportunity to explore your hobbies and your interests and things that bring you joy. Not you plus somebody else. Not you plus your boyfriend or your girlfriend or your husband or your child. You can do the things that interest you and draw to you and feed your soul. You know, imagine waking up every day and being excited because you can do all of the things that just you want to do. That's a hell of a positive spin on being single, right? All right, what else can we do? So, strengthening your relationship with yourself. Once you start embracing the fact that you're single and you can literally do anything, a lot of the time you're still going to have that inner argument with yourself about, you know, who am I and what am I doing without the purpose of a relationship or a family. And for me specifically, when I am single or when I have been single in the past, it has given me the time and the ability to focus inward. Learn how to love myself. Learn how to be confident. Learn how to be confident while single. Learn how to heal my, you know, my inner child and work on my critical inner voice. You know, you have the opportunity because you don't have anybody pulling your attention away to literally zero in on yourself. Fix your relationship with yourself. Develop your confidence. Work on your happiness and figure out what you truly want. And then do that. Take the steps to become the person you want and to live the life that you dream of. It's possible. You can do it every day because there's nothing else. Pulling your focus. You can be stronger. You can be smarter. You can be more confident. You can, you know, educate yourself. You can become more fit. You can become well versed in travel. You can work on your temper or your, you know, your anger issues or, you know, take up a meditation class. You can just figure out who you are. You know, this is a really big one because when we're constantly focused, you know, in my 20s, even my teens and my 30s, so when you're focused entirely on just finding that relationship or once you're in that relationship, you're focused on that relationship, that guy, that girl. And you kind of forget about what makes you you and what you want because you're suddenly a we, right? And if you're anything like me, and this is a whole other podcast episode, you become more of what your significant other likes. And your hobbies become more of what their hobbies and interests are. So you kind of lose who you are as a concept. But when you're single, you can literally take the time to figure out what you truly want in your life and then take the steps to chase those dreams and become that person. You know, I didn't want to be a completely insecure, neurotic, angry, clingy woman when I was in relationships. So when I was single and I had the ability and the time to really examine myself and figure out why I was those things when I was in a relationship, I became a better person. And it's great. I was heartbroken all the time. I woke up finally one day when I hit 40 and I literally had my heart ripped out of my chest yet again. And I had no idea who I was because I had spent the last 20, well, probably 30 years chasing relationships. So I finally was heartbroken enough to realize that I had no idea who I was and it was bullshit. I had no idea what I wanted or what made me, me. What made me want to get out of bed in the morning? So taking this time when you're single to really work on yourself is just, it's priceless. It's absolutely priceless. And it's honestly like, when I talk to younger girls, I'm like, please enjoy your time being single. Please use it to your benefit. Please use it to work on yourself. And now here I am on this podcast preaching the same shit. Use your single time to work on yourself. Better yourself. Learn who you are and what you want. Because then you develop that sense of purpose and that sense of concept. And you're not just stagnant in the water, you know, with the poor fucking pity me party because I don't have a man. Third thing you can do when you're single to focus on being happy and grateful when you're single is cultivating and deepening your non-romantic relationships. Your friends and your family. You know, strong family bonds last a lifetime. I am lucky that I, you know, I have a pretty stable structured family. You know, I know there are people out there that have toxic relationships in their families or they, you know, grew up in foster care. And I do, you know, I do empathize and understand that not everybody has this ability for the family side of things. But for friendships as well, it goes the same way. Strong friendship bonds, those memories will last a lifetime. And the emotional and the intellectual connection that you get from friendships will last you forever. And you, when you're in a relationship, don't necessarily have the same amount of time or emotional energy to expend into your friendships or to recycle into your family relationships. But it's incredibly important when you're single to, you know, cultivate those relationships. A guy comes and goes. A girlfriend comes and goes. I mean, unfortunately, even husbands come and go these days. But your friends and your family, if you do it right, they'll last you forever. I mean, if you really think about it, like women live longer than men, right? So even if you find the one and you get married and you live happily ever after with that person, odds are, according to whatever, you know, research has been done, men die sooner. So then what are you going to do after that? You're still going to have your friends and family. So why not focus on cultivating those relationships all the time when you're single 100%? You can go and snuggle with your best friend. You can go to dinner with your best friend. You can, you know, go on a trip with your mom or with your sister and brother. You know, you can get the majority of the same connections out of friends and family that you'll be missing or think that you're missing because you don't have a relationship. You'll be building memories. It doesn't matter who they're with. Your best friend, a co-worker, your brother, your mother, your father, your nieces or nephews. You can still build memories and live an amazing life despite the fact that you're single. It's not the end of your life anymore. It's not you need to be stuck at home all the time feeling sorry for yourself because you don't have a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a wife or a husband. You can literally do and go and be anything. And not a single fucking person is going to judge you for it. And if they do, who gives a shit? So those are my three things that I do or I focus on doing. You know, focus on my possibilities in my life. Focus on my freedoms. Focus on cultivating my hobbies and, you know, the things that get me out of bed in the morning and get me excited in the morning. You know, I strengthened my relationship with myself. I really, really, really, really worked hard on this one. And, you know, I will have podcast episodes that go a little bit deeper into that because it is so important to be right with the relationship with yourself. And then, you know, working on and cultivating non-romantic relationships. You know, doing these things keep you from being sad and depressed and lonely because you're not lonely. You're not alone even though you can feel like it. And that term single can make you think those things. You know, it is possible to maintain a positive outlook on life and invest in your own happiness when you're single. The world is literally your oyster, as cliche as that may sound. The world is your oyster. So you can go and live it. You just have to give yourself permission. Focus inward and live the life that's in front of you. And you'll never be alone. You'll never be sad. And you will find your happiness in being single. I promise you. Thanks so much for listening today. If you liked the podcast, please leave me a review. Shoot me a message. Send me an email. And as always, if you know anybody else that may benefit from listening to this podcast, please share. I love getting my messages and my thoughts out there for other people that are going through the same issues that I have struggled with because I want to be able to help as much as I can. So please share this with a friend. Share this with a family member. Share it on your social media. But it really is important for us women just to be there for each other and to help when we can. So thanks so much for listening and have a great day.