On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Stop Chasing Emotionally Unavailable People (Listen To This To Attract a Long Term Relationship And Stop Wasting Your Time In The Wrong Ones) With Lisa Bilyeu
Fri, 06 Jun 2025
Have you ever found yourself holding onto someone who couldn’t fully open up to you? Have you ever stayed in a relationship longer than you should have, hoping things would finally get better? In today’s episode, I’m doing something a little different. My good friend Lisa Bilyeu flips the script and interviews me. Lisa is the co-founder of the billion-dollar company Quest Nutrition, founder of Women of Impact, and one of the most honest, fearless voices I know when it comes to growth, relationships, and empowerment. Together, we unpack some of the most misunderstood truths about relationships, from why we settle to how we can start making choices rooted in self-worth rather than fear. We talk about how to stop crowd-sourcing your most important life decisions and why learning to listen to your own voice—without all the outside opinions—is one of the most healing things you can do. I share the real reason many of us struggle with being alone, how to break the cycle of chasing emotionally unavailable partners, and why true love should feel like peace—not anxiety dressed up as passion. This episode is about so much more than dating. It’s about rebuilding your self-worth one choice at a time. I walk you through my 5 daily habits that help me build inner confidence, how to tell when you’re compromising in love versus losing yourself, and the honest questions you need to ask before deciding whether to stay—or walk away. In this interview, you'll learn: How to Stop Settling and Start Choosing From Confidence How to Trust Your Intuition Without Second-Guessing Yourself How to Break Free From the Fear of Being Alone How to Create Peace In Order to Attract a Healthy Relationship How to Know If You’re Compromising or Abandoning Yourself How to Build Self-Worth With 5 Simple Daily Habits I’m so grateful to Lisa for creating this space. I hope it brings you a deeper sense of direction, healing, and the reminder that you are always worth choosing—especially by yourself. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty Join over 750,000 people to receive my most transformative wisdom directly in your inbox every single week with my free newsletter. Subscribe here. What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 01:21 The Three Reasons We Settle in Love 04:24 We All Have a Different Take on Love 06:36 The 7-Day Opinion Fast 13:15 Why Do We Keep Chasing the Wrong Person? 17:29 The Technique Men Use to Flirt with Women 23:44 The Difference Between Adapting vs. Diminishing Yourself in Relationships 28:39 This is the Biggest Reason for Breakups & How to Avoid It 31:50 Promoting a Healthy Relationship Through 'US' and 'WE' 34:52 Never Say these Two Words During An Argument 36:41 Is it Love or Just Lust? 38:24 Are You Comfortable or Complacent in Your Relationship? 45:24 Don't Let Your Insecurities Affect Your Current Relationship 48:06 The Three People You'll Fall With in Love in Your Life 53:29 Why Trust Should Be Given Easily 56:02 Fixing Someone Isn't Your Responsibility 01:00:39 Three Ways to Adapt to Your Partner's Personality 01:06:23 You Can't Live on Someone Else’s Timeline 01:12:29 This is the Type of Conversation You Should be Having With Your Partner 01:16:16 5 Daily Habits to Build Self-Worth 01:22:47 Best Nighttime Routine to Block Negative Thoughts 01:25:25 Jay's On Tour Update Episode Resources: Lisa Bilyeu | Website Lisa Bilyeu | Instagram Lisa Bilyeu | TikTok Lisa Bilyeu | Facebook Lisa Bilyeu | YouTube Lisa Bilyeu | X Lisa Bilyeu | LinkedIn Women of Impact Podcast Radical Confidence: 11 Lessons on How to Get the Relationship, Career, and Life You WantSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: What are the three reasons we settle in love?
Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose. I'm so grateful you're here. Whether it's your first time or you've been on this journey with me for a while, this space is for you to listen, learn, and grow. If you're here, it means you're dedicated to making this year the best year of your life so far. Now, today's episode is a little different and I'm so excited to share it with you.
Instead of me leading the conversation, I'm the one answering the questions. This is a powerful discussion between me and Lisa Bilyeu, where she's interviewing me on some of the most important lessons I've learned about relationships. I love this conversation I had with her and I felt I really wanted you to hear it. Lisa is an absolute force.
She asked me really deep questions that made me really reflect. And whether you've just been through a breakup, whether someone's taken advantage of you, whether you feel like someone's just led you on, this episode is for you. Thank you so much for listening. Let's dive in. The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty. The one, the only, Jay Shetty.
So many women end up settling. Now, not because we want to, but because we're scared. We're scared of being alone. We're scared of starting over. We're scared that maybe this is as good as we can get. But that fear is actually then just keeping us stuck. So how on earth do we start making choices based on our worth so we never settle for less than we deserve?
There's three reasons that we settle. The first is we settle because... The fear of being alone is greater than the pain of being with the wrong person. We settle because the suffering we understand feels safer than the happiness we haven't experienced yet. We settle because A part of us believes that familiarity is truth.
And what I mean by that is when you've experienced mediocrity for long enough, you start to believe it's destiny. You start to believe that's the life that's been paved forward for you. But the deepest reason we settle, and it's something that you alluded to, is that we think there's someone better out there, but we don't believe they exist for us. And that's the most interesting part.
We think there's someone better out there, but we don't believe they exist for us. And it's because we have such a limited, restricted view of ourselves. I don't think it's that we have low self-esteem or poor self-esteem, that's a part of it. But the bigger part is we don't actually realize what's possible for us, what's possible by us. And that comes because we've been told to play small.
We've been told to shrink. We've had people in our life, relationships, past exes that have made us believe that if you play within the confines of these walls, that's all you're meant to be. And so I think when I think about your question, the thing that comes to mind the most to me is I want people to start by looking at their life as if they didn't have any of those scripts.
If you didn't have that script, if you haven't heard those lines, where would you start? And in order to do this, Lisa, what's interesting is you actually have to disappear from your life. Now, what I mean by that is you don't have to run away, you don't have to quit your job, you don't have to not hang out with your friends, but you almost need to sometimes stop talking.
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Chapter 2: How can we break the cycle of chasing the wrong partner?
Okay, so break that down even more because it's so hit me when you said we ask people's opinions and then we take that on. So like, let's just take families because I'm Greek Orthodox and obviously you're Indian. So our family culture is very dominant, if you will, in dictating what we should do and how we should show up.
So are you saying, for instance, if we ask our parents, hey, what do you think of my partner? They're going to come from their perspective based on what they think that you need in your life.
Yes. When you ask someone a question, We think their answer is a prediction of the future, but actually it's a projection of their values. It's a projection of their insecurities. It's a projection of what they believed was possible for them. I'll give an example. I remember a friend of mine was starting to date another girl that we knew.
And when he asked all our guy friends what they thought of this girl, they all said, she's a bit dominant. She's a bit controlling. And it was really interesting because I was watching this happen and he responded and said, I kind of like it when a woman's in charge. He said, I really like it when a woman takes the lead.
Chapter 3: What is the technique men use to flirt with women?
And he goes, she may take the lead emotionally, but I take the lead financially. And so he goes, I'm not threatened by that. I'm actually really comfortable about it. But all of my other guy friends were really uncomfortable about that. Now, does this make them wrong in him, right? No. It's just showing that we all have a different skew. We have a different priority. We have a different take.
But all of the guys were like, no, she's the worst. Like, I would never date her. Like, don't go out with her. And he's now happily married to her. And they have a great relationship. Now, if he would have listened to them, because he thought, wait a minute, there's seven people here that I trust and respect telling me that this woman's wrong for me, he would have made the wrong decision.
And so I think so many of us don't actually base our decisions on even our self-worth or our self-awareness or our self-knowledge. We base it on other people's insecurities. And if you're making big decisions based on other people's little insecurities, you're setting yourself up for a big failure because you may move away from someone who's so close to being the right person for you.
Oh God, that's so true. Okay, so if you assess, this is their belief, this is their opinion, how do you then, to your words, disappear inwards so that you can start to listen to your own intuition? And then what if that intuition is saying, I don't want you to be alone? Because that's the second thing.
It's like there's one thing listening to external, there's another thing listening to your own insecurities.
Absolutely, you're spot on. And the reason why you want to get to a point where you're only hearing your voice is one voice is easier to manage than 30 voices, right? Like, let's just be honest. Most of us are surrounded by 30, 40, 50 opinions. So yes, when you disappear, move away from all the opinions. The way I recommend you do that is doing a 30-day opinions fast.
And if 30 days is too long, try a seven-day opinion fast. So for seven days, Anytime you think about asking someone for their opinion, whether it's what should I wear? What should I eat? What movie should I watch? What TV show should I watch? For the next seven days, you're not allowed to ask anyone. So every time you have that inkling of, oh, let me just ask Lisa, what should I do? No, no, no.
I'm going to ask myself first. I'm going to ask myself and I'm going to have the courage to make the decision and go out there anyway. So I'm going to resist that urge to try on the outfit, take a picture, send it to a group of friends, try on the other outfit. No, no, no. I'm just going to make a decision. And I'm going to see what it feels like. Let's start with really low hanging fruit.
Let's not do it when we're going to like the biggest party of the year or whatever it is. Do it when you're going out for movie night, picking a dinner, picking a TV show to watch. Make it really simple. Do it for the simple things. When you start doing it for the simple things, what happens? You start realizing there was no right outfit. You start realizing there was no right pair of earrings.
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Chapter 4: How do we differentiate between comfort and complacency in relationships?
Chapter 5: What are the daily habits to build self-worth?
And you're then saying, I don't need you to fix it. I need this to be a place where you can listen. And so you're telling them what to expect. So learning the language to communicate with your partners so you don't trigger them so that you both can have an emotionally sober conversation, I think ends up being the most fruitful thing that we can do.
I always say to people, use us and we, not you and me. So I've had couples that I've worked with write out what they want to say, and all of it is filled with you and me. You didn't do this. It made me feel like this. You always do this. You never think about me. So it's you and me, you and me, you and me. And I've asked them to change every you and me to us and we. Why? Because now we're a team.
If I say... Let's think about how we can get to where we want to be. Let's think about us at the center of this conversation. Let's think about how to protect us Now I'm not saying you need to be thinking about how to protect me. You should be thinking about how to make me happy. Well, then we're not a team anymore.
Now I'm saying it's all your responsibility, it's all your accountability, and it's all on you. And by the way, I'm sitting over here feeling hurt, dejected, and down. Whereas now when I say, is this what we both want? Is this the kind of relationship that we both want to have? Do we want to create a space where both of us can grow? All of a sudden it's like, yes, we're doing this together.
Yes, we're a team. Yes, we're collaborating. And I think too many people are competing for power rather than collaborating to create power together. And that competition with your partner is the worst place to be. Because now you're trying to be right, not kind. Now you're trying to win, not win together. Now when you win, it means they lose. I always say this to people.
If you win an argument, that means your partner lost. You both lost. If you win and they lose, you lose. If they win and you lose, you lose. You either win together or lose together because you're together. So us and we, not you and me solves that. And I recommend people write out what they're about to text, what they're about to say to their partner.
And if you changed every you and me to us and we, it will transform the energy of the conversation.
That's so good. That's so simple and so good. And one other thing that you just mentioned that was almost subtlety, it takes out the absolutes of like, you never do this for me. Because I think that when you're trying to make an effort and then someone says you don't ever, it's kind of like, well, why am I even bothering? And so if you say we, there was no absolutes in the we.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. There's two words you want to take out of every argument.
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