When it Comes to Choosing Yourself Never Ever Settle!!!!!

I grew up in a typical but not-so-typical family.

My father raised 5 daughters on a low-income wage at the time.

He raised us to be strong, empowered and well educated.

Both my parents did their best to give me, my sisters and my only brother everything that they didn’t get in their youth.

Compared to my parents’ upbringing, I was privileged and spoilt.

I had everything my parents didn’t have, I am not supposed to not complain because they had it harder than I did, which means I should be grateful, and I am grateful for the small and big things I have received from them and everything that I have now is a result how they poured into me.

I have strong foundations, a foundation where I know who I am and what I am about.

I had love, I had my basic needs met, I went to school, college and graduated with a BA honour in Sociology and that was all because my parents encouraged me and allowed me to get far in education.

But my foundations got rocky and unsteady as I learnt about the downfall of being a woman in a South Asian Bangladeshi household. I score high with emotional deprivation just so you know, we never spoke about feelings and emotions which also seems like a universal thing when I speak to other Bangladeshi people.

I learnt through this invisible channel that I come second and everyone else around me had to be thought about before I make any decisions or choices in my life. The constant worry is I doing something wrong and would make me look bad.

As the eldest child, I fucked up in my teenage years. I made heaps of stupid mistakes in my early twenties. I was very far from being a role model for anyone let alone my siblings.

I am very aware of it and am aware of how they feel about my role as the eldest too.

Without realising it, I was taught to settle in a lot of things especially when it came to
my future around the topic of marriage.

Society has these set, fixed standards for some of us females. It is a society that dictates how we should live our lives without really questioning what WE want, what our desires are and I guess as humans we follow what our ancestors had done previously which becomes a tradition. Sometimes these traditions are outdated and do not fit into the current reality of our times.

I learnt early on that being an Asian female there are specific cultural expectations and that to be happy meant to hide or give up things, self-sacrifice and self-subjugation stare with open eyes once you sit back and realise that everything you had so far in life was to serve others, your parents, your in-laws, husband and children, career choices for heaps of us was dictated by the noise of what parents wanted for us.

It's this linear narrative that each one of us has to defy and defying it comes with a hard task especially when you grow up seeing everyone doing the same thing and no one really breaking the mould.

As an adult I have struggled with my self-image, I have experienced horrible bouts of eating disorders, and I have had low self -esteem leading to depression.

I didn’t have a clue what self -worth and self -value was and so I would settle for whatever came my way thinking I didn’t have a choice and even when making that choice for me I would feel overwhelmed with guilt with how it may hurt my parents or the standards I set for my younger siblings.

“What would your in-laws say”…. this shit started by the time I was 17 years old
Or “you cannot do what you are doing at your parents at your husband's house” throughout my twenties.

Learn to cook so you cook for your husband and in-laws. It was never about how to look after myself but future pacing for the invisible mother-in-law and husband.

This niggling disease, I feel I lived with when I look back at the days of guilt, shame and fear. The disease of am I good enough!!!!

My early days of being an amateur boxer really taught me how to be different.
How to dig deeper in order to be more than the average person, and whether you like to hear it not, athletes are not made the same as the normal everyday human. Athletes know something about themselves that most struggle with. They know potential on some level and it’s how that potential is harnessed and accessed.

To fight the conflict of being great soon started to contradict with having to settle to please others. Every time a marriage proposal came I was told he was the best thing since sliced toast and I shouldn’t be so picky and I won’t find a suitor like the one that was presented to me.

one big fck off

I started to get rejected a lot and that was ok but when I rejected the suitor, I was seen as being too fussy and accused of not being sure what I wanted.

The truth is I didn’t know what I wanted in a relationship/marriage because I was too busy trying to enjoy my youth which came with a cost so it seems. A crazy fight to uphold my identity to be ME.

Who was ME anyway at that time?

I had one identity and that was being a sports person.

And that identity definitely intimidated a lot of the marriage proposals, because how on earth will I be a good wifey if I go to the gym?

I am glad I stood my ground even if it came with a fight.

I was learning how to accept myself and NOT TO SETTLE.

Who we marry affects everything, our mental health, our sanity, our soul and our behaviour.

I knew I had more to offer the world, but at a young age, all I knew was one emotion -- ANGER.

The boxer in me learnt how to defend myself but the Bangladeshi in me was trying very hard to ensure I didn’t disappoint or let my family down.

“you have to let one thing go”

Females are taught from a young age to COMPROMISE. I am about compromising but when it comes to a proposal and his belly is hanging out then this does not align with my lifestyle and how I live my life so surely, I cannot let go of the things that are important to me.

In the need to settle most people compromise on our needs and wants, then we are not connected to ourselves and walk around life like something is missing.

I realised that this is because we are not living in our high standards purely to please others.

Nobody tells you that it is ok to have high standards and that is one way of dampening souls and spirits.

When I became a fitness coach, I was healing from old wounds such as an eating disorder the depression.

I was also increasing my dosage of self-love, self-worth and esteem.

A paradox may be between healing and loving myself but I realise that the job of healing is to elevate ourselves.

I worked hard on my brand, I wasn’t planning to settle or GIVE UP ON MYSELF.

I decided early on that my services would be different from other fitness coaches and I was going to charge according to my SELF VALUE.

I wasn’t going to settle with the types of clients I wanted to work with I upped my mindset to the point I made choices about the brands I wanted to work with rather than the other way round.

Recently, I was getting to know someone for marriage, so many things were not ok but I was ready to marry him. I now realise I was settling and the mentality of “this is the best I will get” often gave me severe anxiety because I knew I deserved more on so many levels

Deserved more you know. For the first time, I told myself I DESERVED MORE!

The poison of settling often creeps in and it does it in the snakiest way.

So my question to you is, where in your life are you settling right now?

Are you settling when it comes to your physical health and diet?

When you compromise with yourself you will see you settle for less than you are worth!!!!

Are you settling at work?

Most people are not happy at work and yet happily go to work to be unhappy

Are you settling in your marriage?

Sometimes it is very painful to admit that maybe your partner really isn’t putting in enough of the work that you may do.

Are you settling with yourself?

How much are you pouring into your own cup?

What standards are you living by?

The one society tells you, parents, or are you merely just following the crowd?

Are you settling with your appearance? Your mental health? Your mindset?

Like really ask yourself where you feel the poison of settling is creeping in.

Asking questions leads to exploring and exploring allows the answers to come up naturally.

This year I refuse to settle in every area of my life and this is why I have chosen to change location, my environment, and the people I call friends, how I do anything this year is what will be a testament to how I finish the year.

We only have 6 months left and if you are struggling with anything always start with your health, investing in your fitness game will open up a whole new world for you that will show you exactly who you are and what you are about.

It will test your character, your personality, and how bad you want something and this deep essence of wanting to live life will present itself to you.

So, choose to DESIRE MORE, you have every right to demand more out of your life, after all, it is your life.

We are all capable to be more than what we are right now.

When it comes to choosing yourself never ever settle!