Goes Without Saying - how to get your #goals: is self-help unhelpful?

Episode Date: January 11, 2021

not you creating unrealistic goals and getting upset when you don't reach them! in this episode we're welcoming in 2021 with a chat about setting healthy goals, fighting internalised capitalism, and how to navigate self-help culture. from toxic productivity to balanced goals and aspirations, we're learning to let go of perfectionism and actually do whatever the f*ck we want. new year, same sephy and wing!follow along with our ~free~ 14 day empowerment programme! join the conversation every monday. speak your mind on our instagram! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Acast helps creators launch, grow, and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.com Welcome! If this is your first episode to Goes Without Saying with Sephi and Wing, I'm Wing. I'm joined by the one and only Sephi. Hey guys. In this episode, we discuss all things self-help, pretentious bullshit, Instagram world of bettering yourself versus resolutions and goals are useful vibes, which I mean, you've probably got the wrong idea about what team I'm on. I mean you've probably got the wrong idea about what team I'm on I reckon you'll be surprised about our points in this episode so um stay tuned please don't go I really rely on you for my validation so don't leave now we're just getting started okay should we do a little bit of reflecting

on the year that was 2020 let's do it so I mean go without saying some things went down. How was 2020 for you? One of the most kind of chaotic years of my life but I also feel like as much as things externally were like imploding internally I think the growth was astronomical. Astronomical as they say. Yeah what about you? Yeah I completely agree. I feel like I have really come to a point of peace of what that year was and also i feel like i'm at a peaceful point in who i am now as a result of that and in response to that stunning what was your biggest lesson from 2020 oh i i don't know i know or just one of the big lessons a big takeaway do you have one do you want to go first no I don't have one I never have an answer to the questions I ask you that's why I ask you

so that they hopefully don't come back at me I think this year the theme 2020 the theme was and I actually think I'm going to make this my kind of theme of 2021 if my theme of 2020 was kind of shedding ego living in a more authentic light getting rid of kind of the baggage of identity that we all carry through life that was maybe my theme of 2020 everything was stripped from us and it's back to kind of the core my aim for this year is implementing everything i learned about identity about the meaninglessness of ego 2021 is living with authenticity in the external world i think rebuilding so what does that look like for you what does it look like for you to be authentic in the external world and whatever's left of the external world that is exactly in the sense that it's easy to be quite authentic in your pajamas at home but

maybe your ego slips in when the external factors are validating you is this making sense i'm staying with you i'm staying with you keep going she's gone okay so if we're thinking about new year's resolutions and all of that self-help shit and we're reflecting on the year that has been and the year that's coming up maybe you could tell us one little insy beansy little piece of information of what you might be looking for maybe by the end of 2021 what would be one thing that you would be that would be nice for you to have under wraps or well i may have constructed quite a detailed notes on my phone about this are you happy to share that um i can share a bit of it parts i can share some bits of it i mean yours it's quite long if win can see right now can i say that the

top one i can see on the list is roller skate. Yup. That's my number one mission. If I can roller skate, well, I should preface. I'm actually really good at roller skating. I'm quite good at roller skating, I'll say. She kept it a secret, by the way. I act quite coy. Well, you're like roller skate. What's that?

That looks cool. And then you suddenly get your skates on. You're a girl about town. You're Diana in the crown, prancing around buckingham palace i can't deny if i can end 2021 being a pro roller skater i'm happy with that okay what what um what negates pro i thought you were pro already no i'm winning awards for it i'm skating i'm skating i'm skating i'm entering competitions i'm joking one of the things is i would love to have a nice pair

of roller skates a roller skating look like a nice a cool pair cool pair of blades cool pair of blades and i skate around this town people are going who's that girl on the roller skates wow yeah and then i'm kind of going past that's that would be a goal and you've got your music and and you can't hear what's going on kind of the skates on world out skates on world out world out so by the end of 2021 you're skating quite freely well it was just one of my ideas amongst about 50 no no i love it each one kind of is a whole new identity the next one is get into medicinal vegan herbs it's like okay you can't do both well i kind of think that's what life is because i almost think that's what 2020 has been i almost think that's what 2020

has been kind of every week i'm trying on a new role for size and then i just switch it out by monday and i'm a whole new gal and who knows who i'll be in next week exactly the way that resolutions are structured it's almost like you have to tick each one off it's like if i don't finish 2021 skates on world out i'm fine with that like that's not even it's not even a goal like that it's kind of like that will be a fun direction for the year to go but also it doesn't necessarily have to is it ever is it ever healthy to have those goals that are like that if i don't complete this goal it's a failure the world will be over or whatever is the can that ever be healthy no did you make resolutions this year i've got goals like like general things that I'm thinking of but I've got specific resolutions

like like that I can measure but they're quite harmless so for example really harmless one would be I want to read 45 books this year 45 Jesus last year I did 40 so I'm thinking but but just kind of scraped by but I think I can get because originally I was gonna say 50 and then I thought there's 52 weeks in a year and it just feels quite intense that's a bit much what was your favorite book you read last year I'm really bad because I read and then don't remember which is also why I think if you say you're gonna read loads of what I just kind of blitz through yeah and then I can't remember I remember that I read it and I remember the gist but I don't have like the the nice important takeaways I don't have like the nice important takeaways.

I don't dwell on it. I don't like indulge in it. So maybe more mindful reading. Okay, what was my favourite of last year? I'm also generally quite unimpressed by books. You know what I did love? Akala, Natives. Stunning.

Is a great book. Stuns. So everyone go read that. We speak about that actually in an episode so but i and i think that's fine to have like a measurable it's like a bit of fun it's like i also a goal would be like for the end of this month i want to have watched all the episodes of the new season of sabrina absolutely have to although it is a weird vibe i'm not sold on that vibe i haven't started it yet so i'm nervous i do love sabrina but also the vibe is

is very strange like what the direction that they've gone in within that show is quite strange it's like why why is it a teen musical but now you've cut the songs because you it clearly didn't work oh i can't wait you're really selling it to me honestly i actually can't wait to watch it but also i agree with you authenticity i think is going to be a thing for 2021 for me it just kind just kind of has to be. And I'm really feeling it. The other day when we spoke on the phone, this was off the record, but I will now speak directly to you on the other side of this podcast, that I am feeling really amazing. joke it was quite serious you you i don't know where you'd found it but someone had said like how what a blessing that you get to wake up another day on planet earth and i was like another day on planet earth like what a fucking joke like lucky me but now i'm really feeling like another day on planet earth i'm feeling great i literally think that is so stunning because also those moments where you catch that are so they feel so fleeting that it's like you need to just hold on to it and live in that moment and you know for me they are very rare

but also it could last it could last months well it's lasted the whole of january so far what day is it today the seventh seven whole days and counting so that's a week that's the first week down i just think it's important to hold on to the feeling and live in it like not with a desperation to cling on to it and make it last but to live in that and know that whilst you can feel extreme lows you can also feel that extreme high yeah so it's like there is a spectrum of just it exists it's there you can come back to it again i feel quite ready for whatever 2021 is gonna bring me i think i've still got a bit of fear like i think i'm living in a little bit of fear i'm not quite ready for everything 2021 is gonna bring because it's a bit like don't bring me more shit i'm living in a little bit of fear i'm not quite ready for everything 2021 is going to bring because it's a bit like don't bring me more shit i'm only ready for you if you bring me stunning things well

that i think that's what i feel like i've come to the other side of that i lived with extreme levels of fear i think a lot of people did in 2020 it was like living with every day like something new to be scared about and now i just feel like look even if the worst was to happen it's another day on planet earth being me what more could i want it's kind of fake it till you make it everyone start finding the holes in my argument they're like we don't believe her to be honest neither would i also does it matter does it fucking matter who believes but also i hope you're all feeling like that too and if you're whether you're feeling kind of at peace with everything within you or a literal chaotic mess is absolutely fine the year's been a fucking mess and they will continue to be messy so just try and find some peace within yourself is it i feel like i've been sounding really like i've been meditating

recently and i feel like it's quite obvious in my speech oh that was another one of my things meditate every single day i feel like that's everyone starts a new year with kind of i'm going to meditate well i've got seven days down let's do I normally meditate every day anyway but if I say meditate every single day then I'll do it which is why I think in part resolutions can be helpful and goals can be helpful but I also will use my own goals and my own desires to fully eat myself alive and attack myself with so well that's the worry one of the things that so my list of things was actually inspired by someone that we love so much and i just saw this and i thought this is how to do resolutions like this is the way to fucking do it mine was inspired by blitz it's blitz so stunning

because i think people do them it's like um for example read 50 books is like that's a measurable outcome yeah it's something that's like it could become a stick to beat yourself with in the way that it's measurable yeah but blitz is one i just thought was so nice she's an asmr youtuber queen queen and hers were just so nice they were like learn and practice intermediate tap dancing combos it's like yeah that sounds fun improve and master sharpening on a whetstone things like this and each one is just more random than the last and i just thought this is the life one of them is lease a horse dot dot or buy a horse if it feels right no well surely all of them should be if it feels right that's kind of the point that's why i love them yeah they're so absurd and it's kind of things that it's like

they're not gonna all happen you can't master sharpening on a whetstone and also practice your tap dancing combos it's like they're realistically that's a million people in one but it's just like whenever you're bored it's like what do i want to do oh sharpen on a whetstone okay well that's what i think new year's resolutions are about at least for me i might have never been like that before so what have yours been before what is what's your most destructive new year's resolution do you think that you've had in life well i think it's this there is the obvious the common one of every single person has on their list um exercise more eat healthy blah blah blah and i think there's a fine line between eat healthy eat good food eat delicious food and get down to the fucking gym and work your fucking ass off every day a measure at this size for example

and you're gonna lose you're gonna by the end of the year be like a size six that's obviously the traditional idea of new year's resolutions is toxic like that and that's why you see the spike of everyone going to the gym and diet culture is thriving yeah i completely agree and i also i think it's as much as obviously it goes without saying, it's about diet culture and the institution of diet culture and patriarchy and all of those things. I think any construct in life, be it New Year's resolutions or whatever, if your mindset or where you are right now is low, you will use anything that you're given to just further dampen your mood.

Like if I'm feeling shit and someone says oh it's monday tomorrow say oh i hate when i hate my life my mondays and whereas if i'm in a good mood it's the same fucking monday but now it's like oh great i'll get on and i'll start doing whatever i'm doing another day on planet earth famously another fucking day on planet earth it's like can i be on any other planet though there's a lot at play okay so i took a note of something that somebody said okay one that i just thought was funny it was a message about new year's resolutions and we asked on the story and somebody said i choose not to buy myself by the illusion of time but if it works for others good for them honestly so true bestie so fucking

true do not bind yourself by the illusion of time well yeah it's so fucking true like yeah i don't buy myself by the illusion of time whatever next i do i'm heavily bound yeah we are completely bound okay i've cut the top of this one off so i actually don't know how they started it but they said they have become so steeped in patriarchy that the way we talk about them is not good we are obsessed with setting unrealistic goals and then hating ourselves for not achieving them and then they said also and don't get me started on how setting resolutions has become synonymous with losing weight which i just thought was a great point yeah but i quite like how that person said the problem is setting goals that are unrealistic or just unattainable if i'm feeling shit i'm gonna just say oh yeah and i if i'd read

fucking two books this year and i wanted to be a cunt to myself i'm gonna read 50 books this year like a real cunt it's like not gonna fucking happen and by march when it's looking like it's not gonna happen because the weeks are flying and the weeks are coming and they don't stop coming gotta hit the ground running exactly i'll hit the ground fucking running when i start to um torture myself about it that's the danger with having any goal that is measurable even though having things that are measurable and like tangible are nice if you reach them by the end of the year in december 31st you're looking back and you can measure all your things that can be a nice thing but you're also running the risk of that being a nasty thing where you look back and

go okay when i wanted to using the idea of reading books i wanted to read 50 but i read 25 and actually if you don't have measurable it's just read more and you read 25 books that's a success if you deem it to be but it's when things start being measurable that it's like fuck i didn't but i almost i almost think it's because we i don't know if it's as a society or as a generation or just as a small sample size that i interact with in my life and that i see like on the internet feel like we just all have a problem with doing things under our own discretion and like holding ourselves accountable which is like if you know that you have an issue with your body image and stuff like that why are you torturing yourself on January 1st and I understand that the responsibility ultimately is with diet culture absolutely and the massive

institutions behind it but also I do think we do need to help ourselves and i also think with like read more some of us like me for example if i say i'm gonna i'm gonna do this more it's too vague it's like yeah i might but it's not enough i won't so i so i think it's about being realistic or unrealistic it's like you actually need to hold the responsibility within yourself if you're doing something that is unrealistic what did you expect don't blame it on the concept of new year's resolutions blame it on yourself you little piece of shit like yeah if i started saying okay by the end of this year i'm gonna know fucking spanish no i freaking won't like all i know is hola fucking buenos dias motherfucker like vino tinte doce anos like i haven't learned spanish since i was 12 and it

shows yeah i'm And I'm not going to beat myself up December 31st when I don't know Spanish because I'm not a fucking dumbo who sat around putting all of these ridiculous things on a list saying I'm going to do them by the end of the year. No, I'm not. I also just think it's like, let it take its course. Let it take its course. You can have all these ideas and you can drive at them you can go okay so i'm going to every single day i'm going to do um i'm going to go for a 25 minute run every day every morning i'm going to do that that's gonna be my thing it's like yeah it's up to you to do that but also let it take its course like you might decide that you hate running and i think there's something about news

resolutions which is a bit about proving to yourself oh i can do it it's like is this coming from a need to validate yourself if you tick tick these boxes, then you're worthy. Or do you enjoy running? I don't know. If you don't, then you don't have to fucking do it. The only person that's watching is yourself. That's the problem with everyone's New Year's resolutions being a carbon copy of the New Year's resolution

they saw of the influencer that they liked this time last year. If you don't want to buy or lease a horse, you don't have to. Blitz is doing that. Absolutely. Do not try sharpening lease a horse you don't have to blitz is doing that absolutely do not try sharpening on a whetstone nothing to do with you no yeah if you don't want to roller skate you don't have to and i think we do that all year round with any goals that we set ourselves and we've said this before you confuse everyone else's goals for your own

as you say with running it's like there's no point saying you're gonna run a fucking marathon this year if you know every time you've tried running you don't really like it and you could get the same enjoyment from doing yoga for an hour once or twice a week the end or you could get the same enjoyment from watching tv yeah you could get something that is not um applauded by society you could get the same sense of satisfaction from a meaningful conversation fucking playing basketball yeah something that doesn't fit your aesthetic stop trying to build an identity around goals that have been fed to you from the day you were born stop trying to build a brand i think one of the most distasteful uncouth uncouth and parts of i guess kind of gen

z slash millennial culture is this idea especially as women that you should have a brand around you and that you can't do anything outside of that brand and for example it's like okay so we've got potentially a feminist brand if you suddenly want to um again play basketball does not match the brand that we someone may say have have created in your little jordans yeah but it's like fuck it be a fucking basketballer do not limit me yeah and i think that's one of the things people feel like things won't fit in with their brand or that it doesn't make sense oh well i'm a i'm a cancer so i couldn't possibly go and do ballet i was gonna say ballet dancer i'm a ballet dancer so i could never start cooking it's like you can do both you can have um you can have nuance it's allowed

exactly yeah you're not a 2d caricature well people want to be multifaceted but only in the way that they think people will like them more for it well it's kind of they want to have like a bit of a side hustle and that it's like it all fits into one cohesive thing it's like you're kind of the manic pixie dream girl and you also make your own earrings it's like yeah because that fits i've seen i've met about 20 of those girls in the past three years and they're great i quite love the vibe but it's also like it's a great vibe but is it is it you i don't know probably not do you also want to start um fucking snorkeling sort of volunteering an allotment like it's been completely random it's not hot it's not instagrammable it's just random but do you want to

do it you don't need to it doesn't need to be stunning it can make people go what well it will be stunning when you're living it yeah but that's the thing it's like new year's resolutions are very often instagrammable it's like yoga meditation is that just because we as a society it's about this people who are doing it not the concept of a resolution maybe but that's why i love sharpening on a whetstone because it's like never heard of it don't know what it is and i want to do it now because it's so random it's not giving a vibe that i understand but it's also still look i'm not coming for blitz but blitz has more of a brand than most people very wholesome it's a wholesome domestic natural living vibe who knew this was going to be about blitz who is our queen and i'm not attacking her but it is interesting the things that we choose to show and the things that we don't it's so true so

interesting to put fucking sharpening a fucking whetstone on a list and then publish it out to your million followers or whatever selling a brand is you can never show every facet of yourself and do you have to to be authentic no not necessarily but it's just interesting that we not only perform within these brands ourselves but also identify others with them and use a concept of an aesthetic to categorize people and put them in boxes depending on how useful we think they might be to us or how aspirational they might be to us now or in the future and in what ways that is attainable to you it's like blitz's brand if you don't know who it's Blitz is, just go and look because this will have made zero sense.

You're probably going to be surprised I think when you see her. You'll be like, what the fuck? I think you'll be surprised as well. Like why do they love her? If you don't like ASMR, you'll be, she kind of like massages like beautiful women.

Yeah, honestly. The weirdest person we're obsessed with. It's quite a divine experience. It's quite a godly experience. It really is. Like you will be watching her videos. you will be fast asleep snoring within seconds because she will snap her little fingers and you'll be asleep she's great and where are we going with that i don't know what are we talking about yeah but this isn't about her as much as we love her this message

i thought was interesting got me thinking i thought was funny, but I also thought it was interesting. They said, I always have goals no matter the time of year, laughing face. And it's just a simple message, but it made me think, yeah, I always have goals no matter the time of year. But then I thought, I kept thinking, dangerous. And I thought, what would happen if all of your goals were taken away? What would your life look like? Because it's almost like,

I don't know if I'd be better or worse. I think then you live with authenticity in a way that you don't have a held narrative about yourself. Yeah, but I almost think, would you do anything? If all of your goals were taken away? Yeah, if you just didn't live with goals at all. Because I almost think it's nice to think like, oh yeah, if I didn't have goals,

if I wasn't pressuring myself so much, I'd be doing all these amazing things. I'd go swimming in the river every day yeah it's kind of first quarantine back in april but our situation where everyone thought oh life's been taken away look at all these wholesome activities that we do you're baking banana bread we can spend hours writing our novel we can bake banana bread we can go for a nice pleasant walk in the evenings and the sunshine and realistically we all just watched Tiger King and... And bitched about it for six weeks. And attacked Carole Baskin.

Exactly, yeah. So I kind of think like, it's a nice thought. Like, yeah, I'd be thriving. But I don't know. I don't know maybe how true it is for me then personally. Because I am a big fan of having like a goal going, some lists on the go yeah some charts i think it's about whether you take the idea of goals too far and i think i do oh i know you do

i think i might take it a little bit too far at times a little bit too far for example i phoned erin the other day and one of my New Year's things that I started, I started myself a syllabus. Well, the sentence was, I've made a syllabus. What have you done this week? Well, I've made a syllabus. It's like, that's not a sentence that I would ever want to hear you say.

And when I tell you it was a hard core syllabus. I know I'm in for a long phone call when it starts off with you saying, I started a syllabus. For the first three months of the year, I'm going for a long phone call when it starts off with you saying, I started a syllabus. For the first three months of the year, I'm going to start a syllabus. And it was a mental syllabus. And I've deleted, well, I haven't actually deleted it. I've deleted it from my bookmarks.

But I think I'm going to have to delete the whole thing. Because it wasn't healthy. And I think I do take goals too far. To the point where they're not even goals anymore. They're just attacks. They're just like criticism on a list. In this that we're in this realm not the spiritual realm the feminist realm of instagram quote unquote in the feminist realm of instagram that we're in and also the wider realm of this spiritual plane and just existing on this earth yeah in this dimension

we are in the circle of instagram that is kind of self-development critical thinking feminist instagram it's like actually there can there's a fine line between wanting to improve your life casually and being happy with it how it is and then creating this kind of unquenchable thirst to be the most perfect human and i think sometimes i overstep the line into being like if you are not perfect in every way yeah well i think we all do but you the way that it comes out it manifests for you in a syllabus in academic structure which is really really unhelpful acas powers the world's best podcasts here's a show that we recommend. In the early 1980s, gay men started to get sick from AIDS. Years before ACT UP, before HIV was discovered, before the history you know,

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Yeah, so I think, yeah, I would quite like the idea of goals going. Well, if it was in a balanced way, it would be helpful. But I think there's no balance. There was no balance in that. No, no, there was no. There was no sense. I'm sure you won't mind me saying. I don't mind to say there was no balance. It sure you won't mind me saying i don't mind to say there

was no balance it was you'll be working from dawn till dusk well tell us a little bit about because they're probably thinking what the fuck like what do you mean well i don't want to say too much can you maybe say like what the syllabus involved yeah don't give away too much because it all still might come to fruition by the time this episode comes out the syllabus will be back up and running i'm also thinking i'm still kind of half doing it but like exactly because i haven't quite deleted the page yet but i might lower the pressure on the syllabus because actually i have actually been reading some of the books that are on the syllabus well it's nice to have a bit of structure in life i think you struggle to give yourself a healthy amount of structure yeah i do because i

either i will go i'll go hardcore and I think that is not productive it's kind of the worst I'm quite I can be quite binary with my thinking sometimes it's either a day off or it's a day on and I mean on on and even your day off it's not a day yeah it's thinking about pleasant I don't know it's making a syllabus for the day on and sometimes it's not great and I don't mean this in a cute like I'm just like hustling workout i mean this in a way that i am brutally torturing myself yeah with an unhealthy amount of um and you almost can't see past it i can't get out of it i go mad but also it's like nothing good really comes from it like you hate everything that you do in that time and it's all just a waste there's

an there could there's the fine line between obsessing over a goal and just having nice healthy goals and i'm trying to get to just having nice healthy goals because you don't need to be that i think it's the perfectionist thing it's the it's a bit of a capricorn thing if you're going to put capricorn on it or like internalized capitalism or any of these things it's kind of the belief that it's big time internalized capitalism it's like you you're a machine you're not human you've got to be producing it's like actually your existence if all you want to do that day is do yoga and rollers this is why my goals for this year are quite not entrenched in capitalism because i think i naturally tend towards that anyway so it's like

just fucking roller skate but you can't get paid for that yeah it's like if you put roller skate down you probably would be signing up for like 10 competitions of roller skating by the end of the year anyway so there's no point making it numerical now because you'll find a way because oh boy it will be numerical by the end yeah yeah see me at the olympics see me on that squad with your gold medal hanging swinging about from your neck every stride you take when you say like okay capitalist goals all of that shit you struggle to make it healthy are there goals that you have in life that you find it easy to make healthy i think one of my main goals is just being a bit to relinquish all control and trust the timing of life yeah this is

why we balance each other out yeah exactly and boy do we and boy do we i hope you listening have people in your life that balance you out maybe maybe you're just balanced on your own that's fine maybe you're just perfect maybe you're just god's favorite who cares don't rub it in my fucking face god shut up like leave us alone jeez you're fucking perfect we get it so this person said i love a fresh start in like glittery emojis. So I find them helpful, but learned the hard way to help make them achievable. Yeah, I love a tabula rasa vibe too. Tabula rasa.

It's a quote, it's a phrase we use quite a lot, the tabula rasa, the blank slate. I don't know, I think I just said it once. And now we say it all the time. Like literally every fucking day. All the time. A tabular asset for those who do not know just google it it's a blank slate and it's the idea that we're kind of born new we're born as these blank slates and society and it's very much the nurture over the nature debate yeah so if you if you did psychology you'll know it yeah if you didn't you might still know it

if you did english i did it learn it from english i think latin bit of philosophy maybe philosophy you'd know it no one cares no if you did any subject you may you might just know it i don't know where you've been all right i don't know your fucking life it's a well-known phrase tabula rasa you might want to use it in your life we don't know but we love the tabula rasa vibes and this is definitely one are you feeling tabula rasa vibes are you feeling like you're in a fresh start or not really? No, I've still got the stagnance of last year kind of hanging over me, I feel. I feel like you're feeling it though. I'm massively feeling it, but I get very stagnant towards the end of the year.

Very like restless, like I want to tear my skin off. I remember from like, yeah, probably like November, probably since like November, you were saying, I want the tabula rasa. Yeah, oh, I was craving that tabula rasa. And now look at me, I've got it. I knew what I wanted and I got it. The universe gave in in the end as it does. Yeah.

I don't know. I just, I love a fresh start too. I do. But I also kind of think, would I love a fresh start so much if I was in that low state? Probably not. Like the fresh start would be happening i was in that low state probably not like the fresh start would be happening around me and i wouldn't be able to get into it do you know what i mean

it's like if i wasn't in this fucking fluke of a mood where i'm actually feeling all right for once and i'm feeling positive right now and i'm like oh my god it's because of the fresh start it's because of the new year i'm feeling really good for 2021 blah blah if i was just feeling like normal i'd be like yeah no i'm not really feeling the fresh start i think it's not obviously not really about the binds of time as much as it is just about your own state of mind or just what's ever going on with you rn i completely agree it's also it's just the idea of new potential and stuff but that's why i kind of think new year is positioned in the calendar at a really weird time it should be at spring in that it's like winter's not done like the bleakest bits of the year are still to come january feb feb is the bleakest month of the

fucking year all the feb babies are fuming january is pretty bad but i'd say feb is the feb is as bad as it can go yeah i always say it to my mom and she's like i think it just it marks the end of the bad times it's like god our family's bleak so why do you think february is so bad valentine's day v-day bitch capitalism bitch i know there's valentine's day but it's almost like you've got the happiness of the the new year vibes that carry through half of jan they fade kind of the second week in then you've got february which is dark dingy and then you've got kind of march it It's like beginning. And then it starts creeping up. And it's like, okay, this is getting good again. You know when I feel bad?

For me, it's May. It's gonna be May. What? The height of the summer? Well. Is it? I don't know. Is it the height of summer?

I don't know. May? What time calendar are you working off? I'm like, God, I'm the May Queen. Yeah, I don't know. May for me is when I feel like i'm fucking army crawling myself through the year oh my god may i'm like god get me maypole dancing yeah no i don't think that's a phrase i've ever said maypole dancing we used to do it at my school god get me maypole dancing did you really

i'm not surprised for those who don't know you may know from philosophy you may know from information you may know from psychology if you did know from English, you may know from psychology. If you did psychology, you might know what a maypole is. And you may even know what a maypole dance is. You hold a ribbon, you make a little thing, it's diddly dum dum diddly dum,

and you all go underneath. And by the end, most stunning display of colours you've ever seen. You did them at the Mayfair. And I remember the colour I was was brown. How shit. Oh, that is shit. And you had to wear a brown outfit.

And it's like, oh, we're going to get one of those. Fashion disaster. God, what colour did you want? And who got it? Any other colour. Literally any other. Well, I would want like purple. Red, pink.

Yeah, purple, blue, red. I'd go for any of these. I do think red's my colour. So I would go for red. But I had got brown. That's gutting. Gutting. Who puts brown on a maplepole it's kind of pole dancing for babies some may say yeah it is kind of pole dance there is a pole involved and there are usually babies involved there is a pole

and you are dancing so therefore that's all i need and you skip a little round you skip skip skip and it looks stunning so may is a great month for me well maybe i'll join you this may but honestly my mays are bad what's so bad about them but again such is time like who cares like it's not is it may or is it me i think it might be you yeah but that's the thing it's like why is february so bad or the the last end of jan feb november why they bad is because there's no um it's all just a bit nothingy in those months it's just like you're kind of ticking through time unless it's your b-day i saw this thing recently and i'm gonna butcher it but listen it's our fucking podcast if you don't like it you should have honestly left yourself in 2020 um i saw this thing and

it was talking about just the age-old thing all the things we know about trauma, all those sparkly, beautiful things in life. And it was saying something about, which I guess we kind of know, but maybe it's just a good point to make, that the trauma will live in your body and come, you know, you feel it biologically. So if you remember that Feb, I mean, obviously, obviously that massive trauma happened to you in February. No wonder you're saying that. What happened? I'm joking. I just wanted massive trauma happened to you in February. No wonder you're saying that. What happened? I'm joking. I just wanted to see the look on your face. I actually do think my parents split up in February. Did they?

I don't know. But I'm thinking it could be February. Then it was followed by the month of the parent trap where we could not stop watching the parent trap. I wonder what your parents thought when they saw you watching the parent trap and they thought, God, we've trapped them big time. Yeah, we're going to trap those motherfuckers. Didn't work. No, it didn't work. Not yet anyway. Still time. Spoiler alert. Didn't work. The night is young, as they say. Just got to get them on a boat together.

Well, yeah. Anyway, if you feel, I wonder if other people have certain times of the year that they don't like. I also get funny around birthdays and stuff. By the way, I don't think it was in fact. Oh, I wish it was. It was just to make the podcast more interesting. It was just, guys, it was just a joke. It was just a joke. It was like 15 years ago.

I'm fine. I'm like, text your fucking sister. Get your sister on the phone. Like, honestly, we're both fine. So something that I often think about in life, because as we said earlier i don't know if we said this on the pod or we just say this to each other off the record in our normal lives but we were saying that we are a walking talking cliche did we say that on the podcast

i don't think this was to me i don't remember that no it just happened just happened what i think it was i think it was earlier when we were talking about probably something embarrassing we were walking we were walking talking cliche it's not a song it really sounds like it's kind of root in two sing walking yeah fair enough we were saying earlier that there's a lot of cliches and it's just what we do is we kind of say like live with intention yeah kiss kiss like just be yourself smiley face live with authenticity yeah or kind of we randomly throw out like in this realm and it's like actually go fuck yourself shut up yeah they're walking talking cliches i can hear it now but i also kind of think along with just the narratives

that accompany us and our existence here and our kind of our public presence, small, but albeit it exists. We won't die. Small, small, but we are soon to be Kylie Jenner. But still there. We keep getting quite scary DMs from people being like, 2021 is going to be so big for you. It's like, oh God, what's coming? It's like, what do you know that I don't?

Yeah, you've got something in store for us. Put something up your sleeve, do you? My ego loves it, but my fearful side thinks, oh God. Your rational human mind thinks I'm in danger. Something's gonna start. I don't know what it is. Well, I'm struggling now, so I don't know what that's gonna fucking look like.

But about 20 people have said, this year's your year. It's like, oh God, oh God, what's gonna happen? Sorry to disappoint you boys but nothing's fucking happening we're walking talking cliche it comes out in many forms yeah but i just often wonder about how useful the self-help umbrella of content is because i think it's something that we often fall under and i i feel like a lot of people have a problem with it i personally don't i love it what i mean by that is i think a lot of people see a phrase like live with intention or live your authentic self in your own life immediate eye roll yeah and they eye roll and they think it's vapid

but i'm just not one of those people i think like well sorry that you're so fucking pessimistic you want to shoot down everyone else's fun times. Like it is true. You should live with intention. And yes, there's a lot more nuance and context that could be offered to that conversation. I think it's dangerous when it's accompanied or when it's offered to you and packaged up and sold to you by the capitalist market, for example.

And it's kind of Sir Philip Green, whatever his name is, selling you a t-shirt that says live authentically. And he's actually murdering all of the girls in Bangladesh that are making his t-shirts. But if it's fucking me and you on an Instagram, I'm buying it. Like, I kind of think if it's just coming from one of my peers, basically. If it's coming from someone that I identify with

and I feel like it's genuine. Also, when they're practicing it. Yeah. Philip Green is not practicing whatever he's claiming to god knows what he's definitely practicing a little bit of pedophilia here and there i can tell you that much just a daily dose of pedophilia and he's absolutely practicing kind of genocide but what you're gonna get mad at me for putting some nice words on a pretty post i think people don't like it because it is kind of flowery and it is

kind of it's a little bit wanky in the way that it's like affirmations are embarrassing i remember definitely there being an embarrassment about um self-help books like in the beginning of a movie when someone is struggling you might see them listening to like a self-help tape or buying a self-help book it's the sign of someone struggling it's society says but i actually think it's a sign of someone thriving well it's changed a lot now hasn't it like the self-help books have become like instagram basically they've become a whole market and they've become this kind of aesthetic white blonde girl sat in a beautiful armchair looking out of the corners of paris saying live with intention saying live with intention but i also think

like is it flowering vapid or are you just a bit lazy and that you see one sentence and think oh that's vapid they haven't done anything for me it's like well they gave you a sentence to start with and now you need to go and do the rest of the fucking work yeah well it didn't work well not my fault i'm sorry to hear that like lots of things don't work for me but you don't see me turning up at someone's front door saying i don't like your aesthetic oh my god could you imagine do you know what i mean yeah i just kind of think like yes like self-help is kind of vapid like yes it is pretentious like yes and the real things are yes it's classist and there's privilege and all of these go listen to our self-care episode if you're thinking any of these things because yeah we agree yeah listen to our

self-care episode as i said earlier about taking accountability i just think a lot of people push the responsibility of their own happiness onto others yeah whether in their own real lives or whether it's people that they find on the internet completely no one wants to actually have to try to make their life better because they just can't bothered and i get it when i'm in november i don't give a fuck catch me in may oh dear me you do not want to see me in may she's got her arms folded around that maypole she's saying this is not for me this is not for me i completely agree though because i think it's everyone wants a savior everyone wants someone that is gonna take all of their problems wrap it in a nice little bow and hand it back to them in like a manageable palatable little like

sandwich delicious now all my problems are solved but realistically especially when you're getting things from like general media i.e books podcasts hi and kind of instagram all these things movies blah blah blah it's like those are all as much as they're big parts in your life the podcasts i listen to are big parts in my life they give me wisdom they give me tools i can use but then i've still got to go and implement that in all the different areas of my life and then before i know it i'm creating a syllabus yeah to torture myself with so it's like okay so the person my little savior that i listen to on a podcast tells me don't overwork yourself but realistically my little self is there not even realizing that i'm going against it i think it's difficult when you want

someone to come and like punk themselves down your life and fix all your issues but realistically it is on you yeah this is why new year's resolutions is like it is on you so don't create things that are going to be torturous to you i completely agree and i think that's also why like we are just all and i'm not kind of pointing the finger i'm well if i am i'm pointing at myself too like we are just lazy when it comes to the things that we want maybe because they're not actually the things that we really want because if you wanted it maybe you'd go and get it. Yeah, but it's hard. It's the classic thing of like, it's the classic thing of why the biggest kind of search

ever searched on Google would be how to lose weight, how to lose a fucking 100 pounds in a week or something, or like how to clear my skin overnight, or how to get rich quick. It's like, Jesus, are you in a, where's the fire? Grow my hair in two days it's like jesus it doesn't work like that literally it's like why don't you just enjoy yourself you might have long hair when you're dead and you didn't enjoy a single part of your life because you were waiting

until your hair was long enough your hair keeps growing long after you're dead for i actually think i think i heard that somewhere i actually think i actually think might be wrong. I think it's that your nose and ears don't stop growing throughout your life. Yeah. I think that's what I'm thinking of. Yeah, not your hair stops growing. Starts growing when you're dead. Any corpse, dig them up.

All the corpses are completely warm because they're just wrapped in long hair. Every shampoo advert you've ever seen is actually a corpse with makeup on. Something that I did think of though, not to do with that in any way was in the it's gonna be hard it's hard to implement things and it's hard to reach your goals it's hard i've been obsessed with the show silicon valley i've been obsessed

with it for years but i've re-watched it all recently and there's a moment in that so that show is about they're creating an app it's hilarious and they're creating an app that's like multi millions of pounds on the table, billion pound deals happening. And they're like struggling to get their money. There's a lot of money in here. A lot of money for Pied Piper, their app. It's hilarious. This sounds like a very serious business show.

What does the app do? Well, it's an algorithm, but he implements it in like different ways throughout the show. Like it starts like, you know, it's a whole thing. It's a whole journey. Yeah. It's middle out compression algorithm to be specific.

I've never wanted to watch something less than i want to watch silicon valley right now and by the way it is a hysterical but there's one bit in it they're struggling throughout the whole series like four series i'm struggling struggling and one at one point he's like this is too much this is like too much i can't cope with this and this guy's like oh is it hard to become a billionaire it's like yeah it is fucking hard your goal is to become a billionaire oh is it hard was that a hard thing to do no it's like okay so i i want to become a famous painter oh is it hard to become a famous painter yeah fucking obviously it's hard got you it's not going to be without its struggles it's not going to be without you having to sit there and do the work and struggle yeah i i love it

that's my point from silicon valley i love it i think it's so true i just think a lot of people yeah thought they could click their fingers including us like and you're sitting there going oh i'm bored of writing not writing because that's kind of me it's kind of too real i think you should put that in okay fine i'm bored of writing i'm bored of writing it's hard just step inside sephie's mind if you will it's difficult to do it it's difficult to write stuff and then you go oh is it hard to be a writer is it hard to be a writer oh that yeah that's why everyone in the world isn't a fucking writer oh it's hard to be a genius is it is it hard to be a child prodigy

yeah it's hard to have unique ideas and formulate them into a narrative a cohesive narrative and create three dimensional characters yeah it is hard that's why few people have managed it so it's kind of like yeah okay so you're trying to design an app of course it's fucking hard otherwise everyone would do it well because i think a lot of people are blinded by the end product in that they see for example someone being the ultimate successful writer and they think well i could do that job better than they're doing it. So I actually must be the rightful most successful writer. But actually, it's hard because it's hard to force yourself to sit and do something. It's hard because you're not always going to be in the mood.

It's hard because you're not always going to know the right people. It's hard because it maybe isn't right for you. But you're seeing the end result and thinking, I could do that better. Yeah, maybe you could. But I guess we'll never know. I guess we'll never know. I guess we'll never know because you might not'll never know. I guess we'll never know because you might not get to that end goal

because it was too hard. Oh no. What happened? Sorry, I thought I just broke my hairbrush, but I didn't. Oh no. Oh no, I did. That's fine. I know, I did.

Forget it. God, feels like May. Got May written all over it. Okay, are we wrapping? i think we're done i hope this has been helpful guys we're not doing any more podcasts for the rest of the year so we'll see you in 2022 imagine i was like i was about to go no no this we're in 2021 this is the first one back i was like about to be really serious imagine i'd be gutted oh my god i'd be guts of course i really enjoyed our week off as well we're doing a new i don't think we've said this yet but we're gonna do 10 episodes and

have one week off then 10 episodes and have one week off just to make this sustainable for us because we kind of did like 40 episodes and then took a week off and it's like right yeah we need to we need to work on that bit because we just exhaust ourselves and how much do you want to hear let's give you some chance to catch up the guide the guide oh well the guide is out we haven't even spoken about the guide i hope you like it the empowerment guide 14 day empowerment program out and about 14 days of pretentious aesthetic vapid bullshit about two little bitches trying to make your life better unpaid two little bitches trying to make it in the big city we're all facing the trials and tribulations of 20s life trials and tribulations adulting oh god knows what else imagine adulting

imagine it was like stephen wing guide to adulting sick i'm sick that feels like may that feels like 2013 may real may energy that has my big may energy i'm going like that's kind of feb energy not gonna lie feb slash nov energy but yeah the guide is out and i think it's pretty useful and i think it's cute designed and produced by yours truly erie emmy's erie emmy's whoever that bitch is she seems honestly great i would love to meet her she's a great designer her graphics blow me away every time you know her i haven't met her oh you haven't either ariemi i've never met i haven't seen her since i think march so she's a fading memory god well lucky you say goodbye to your memories

let's end it on a gilderoy lock very much ariane is behind the microphone very much alive okay well i think you've heard just about enough from us i think it's a snake i think it's a snake skin and a dusty old hat a songbird and a dusty old hat. A songbird. And a dusty old hat. Give me my wand, Tom. What are we just going to do? You little twerp. Give me my wand. Give me my wand, Tom.

I love when he's like, we were saying that when he said, when I said I wasn't hungry. When I said I wasn't hungry. Good cover, Harry. That was close. Nice one. they all knew you were lying oh fuck can we panic now okay god we're really gonna let's go right that was some chamber of secrets banter now let's go the bant you wouldn't believe in this building we're only about 15 years late that's adult that's got adulting energy all of that had a major adulting energy that's got big adults adulting vibes all over it yeah awful sorry about that that's got comedy written by a 57 year

old man for teenage girls written all over it so sorry about all of that i'm sorry about that we were having that kind of harry potter exorcism it's quite a riff off like rap battle i'll take your songbird and i'll raise you with a dusty old hat okay well let's go say goodbye to your memory