Have I Become Difficult to Please?

Can you retrain your brain to be easier to please?

Knowing what you love is the whole point of lifestyle design. But once you've experienced the best of the best, the average version gets a lot harder to enjoy. So is that something to embrace, or something worth examining?

Key Takeaways

• Why lifestyle design can make average experiences harder to tolerate
• High standards or quiet snobbery: how to tell the difference
• A real-time gratitude practice for finding joy in the mundane
• How to use your preferences as a compass instead of a megaphone
• What to do when everyone else seems to access joy more easily than you

If this one resonated, send it to another brat in your life who needs to hear it. And let me know if I'm not alone in the comments on Spotify or YouTube, or DM me on Instagram @sam.laliberte.

Transcript

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Is Knowing What You Love a Blessing or a Curse?

Sam Laliberte 0:02

Hey, freedom seekers. Welcome back to another episode of "The Freedom Lifestyle." This is your space to think differently about how you work, how you live, and what you're actually optimizing for. I'm your host, Sam LaLiberty. Let's get into the inspiration for today's episode. So I really wanna start with a question that I have personally been sitting with for a little while now, and the question is this: What happens when you get really good, like really, really good at knowing what you love? Now, on the surface, this sounds like a great thing, right? It's the whole point of designing an intentional life, learning about yourself, getting clear on your preferences, stop settling. That is the work that I promote here on this very show. But something I was not expecting as an outcome is that once you know what the best version of something is, it can get a lot harder for you to enjoy the average version of it. And this is something I have been in my feelings about now for months. so let's back up a little bit. Earlier this year in February, I went to Costa Rica and attended Envision. It's a music festival in the jungle of Uvita. I've had the privilege of attending this event now three times, and as somebody who's been to many festivals, I feel like I can confidently say it is truly the best of the best. My friends joke that it seems like I've joined a cult that's called Envision, or that I must be getting paid to promote it the way I'm just constantly hyping up this experience and literally telling anybody about it who will listen. It's truly the highlight of our year. The problem with that, though, is that it happens once a year, if that. Sometimes it happens twice a year, and lately we've been hearing that it might not ever happen again, which, which would be actually devastating. But the point of this is that once we found our utopia, which is Envision, the best of the best, when the summer came around in BC, festival season started here, we did what anyone would naturally do, right? You go out and look for more of that thing. You look to experience it again So that's what we tried to do. We hit up festival after festival hoping that one of them would come close to what we had experienced at Envision, and one after another, they just didn't. The music didn't hit, the production didn't wow us, the workshops didn't spark the type of clarity and transformation that we had had in the jungle. And don't even get me started with the brutal weather we had this festival season. Like, my tent was flooded out on multiple occasions. At one event, I was pretty much in a rain poncho for 24 hours, dancing in an open field, which sounds like it could be fun. It was not fun. I was cold, I was wet, and every time I thought the rain was over, it just didn't stop. I even had to spend one night sleeping on the floor of my friend's van because my tent had literally become inhabitable All of these festivals fell short of what we knew was possible from a festival. It's not because they were objectively bad festivals. Some of the people we went with had the time of their lives and thought it was perfect. We just kept measuring them up against

When Everyone's Having Fun Except You

Sam Laliberte 3:30

Envision, my version of the best, and I just kept thinking while I was there, like, "Sure, this is fine. This is fun," but quietly, like, "This isn't it." And I wanna be really clear about something. This episode is not about music festivals. It is not about chasing peak experiences at parties and music events. I'm opening with these stories because it's one of the clearest examples I have of that feeling of watching other people enjoy something that you almost feel like too cool for school to enjoy. And it's a feeling that I am really trying to unravel and process, and I think that maybe you've felt this too. I think if you've spent any real time designing your own life, figuring out your taste, your preferences, what you actually love, you might know exactly what I'm talking about. This pattern, it can show up everywhere. It's not just at festivals. It can show up in travel, in work, a seemingly casual and harmless weekend with your friends, even in the coffee that you're now making at home every day, trying to recreate that perfect coffee you had at that cute little shop that you discovered on your latest getaway, and then every time you have that first sip, it just doesn't hit like that time you had the best of the best. For me, the version of this that really makes me confront

The All-Inclusive Trip We Dreaded

Sam Laliberte 4:55

this reality is a trip we got invited to from our family, Jared and I were invited on a family trip a couple years ago. The idea was that the whole family would spend a week together at an all-inclusive in Mexico. Our parents would pay for the whole thing. All we had to do was show up with a good attitude. And Jared and I looked at each other with honest dread because the idea of an all-inclusive resort as a way to travel is, like, the opposite of everything we love about traveling. And we felt like such brats even just admitting this, because objectively, a free trip with the people you love, I mean, that is a gift. Luckily, our family pivoted, and we didn't have to forcefully hide our disgust at the breakfast buffet. But let me be really clear. This is a me problem, okay? And it's also affecting me in small everyday pleasures as well. I'll never forget ordering one of my favorite drinks. I was in Toronto at a coffee shop in the Distillery District area with Jared. I ordered a matcha latte with oat milk, and I was drinking it, and Jared asked for a sip. Gave him a sip, and he said, "Oh, it's not very hot, and it's not nearly as good when it's not really hot. I just find you end up drinking it so much quicker." I had never noticed that before. I have never thought about that before. I was perfectly enjoying my matcha lattes for years. And now every single time I order a matcha latte, how much pleasure I get out of it is directly correlated to how hot it is. It's like once you notice something could be better, it's harder and harder

Have I Become Difficult to Please?

Sam Laliberte 6:40

to accept when it's not, at least for me anyway. And so the question I have been asking myself and that really inspired today's episode is: Have I become difficult to please? And in the end, is it worth knowing what the best of the best is if it's such a rare occasion that you only get to experience sometimes a year? Wouldn't it be better to be one of those people who's just happy with lots of types of experiences and getting to therefore experience joy more often? When you spend years doing the work of designing an intentional life and figuring out what your taste is, your preferences, what you love, how you like to travel, how you like to work, how you like to connect, the list goes on. It's in all areas of your life that you get really, really good at knowing what the best of the best is and what that feels like, which is kind of the whole point of designing a freedom lifestyle, right? We experiment, we reflect. This is the process. We test things, we tweak things, we redesign, and we do it over and over, and the natural result of that process is that you develop a very personal sense of what works for you. You no longer accept whatever life hands you, you literally curate it. And the side effect that I'm now experiencing is that once you know what a peak feels like, you now carry that as your reference point everywhere. And things that used to be perfectly fine, genuinely

The Unexpected Side Effect of Lifestyle Design

Sam Laliberte 8:05

fun, they suddenly feel average. Not bad, just not it. Multiple times, I've found myself literally in a crowd of people watching people have the best time, smiling, laughing, genuinely looking lit up, and I'm watching them thinking, "I wish I felt that way. I wish I was having that much fun, but honestly, I'm a little bored." And the next thought that comes after that, and it's even less comfortable, it's a shameful feeling, "What's wrong with me? Why can't I access the same joy that everyone else seems to be having right now?" The process of lifestyle design, it was supposed to make your life feel better, and it has, but it has also made average experiences a lot harder to tolerate. And that is the second layer of guilt that now shows up, because that voice in my head that's judging the experience, calling it average, that voice, it starts to feel a little ugly for me and makes me feel like I'm becoming a snob. And maybe I think that I'm better than everybody that's having

High Standards or Ego? The Great Divide

Sam Laliberte 9:10

a genuinely good time. And I hesitate to even share this because, yeah, that is exactly how it looks and sounds on the outside, even though that is not what it feels like for me. I actually brought this up with a group of friends recently, just casually, just kind of processing some of these thoughts out loud. And the group pretty much split down the middle. Half of them said, "This is completely normal. This is just what happens when you know what you love. You're allowed to have standards, that you shouldn't apologize for this. It just means you will enjoy those great moments even more. They'll hit even harder. Just keep searching for the best of the best. You don't need to change." And then the other half said, "Well, honestly, this kind of sounds a little judgy. This sounds like ego, and if you're feeling shame about it, maybe that's your gut actually telling you this is something worth examining. Maybe this is a shadow side. Maybe there's a mindset shift that you need to make here." I'm still trying to figure out where I land, and maybe that's okay But maybe the point of this episode is to just ask the question and bring some attention to it and see if

Don't Yuck Their Yum

Sam Laliberte 10:15

this way of being is serving you. all I know for sure is that I don't think we should be faking it. I don't think the answer is pretending that the mediocre event was life-changing or forcing myself to just, mm, mm, mm, love that overpriced lukewarm matcha. No. But one thing I do feel very strongly about is that it isn't something that I need to broadcast to others, okay? We don't need to narrate our critiques to others who are enjoying something. We don't need to yuck their yum, as people say, and infect them with the things that they haven't even noticed yet. Like, Jared didn't mean to ruin matcha lattes for me. He was just saying what he noticed out loud, and I couldn't unhear it. Another example is I have a close girlfriend who is really into beauty treatments and skincare, and a few years ago she mentioned that she was just getting all these lines on her neck, and she was really self-conscious of her neck wrinkles. I am seriously so sorry in advance if I'm about to infect you with this. I really use this show to share my personal life experiences and point of view, and sometimes that might mean infecting you now with this information. But I had not thought for a second before that about my neck wrinkles or even noticed that I had lines there that were coming. And you know damn right that now that's all I look at in certain lighting. I specifically chose a turtleneck for this episode knowing that I was going to share that example so that you weren't also now examining my necklines. But she infected me, okay? And that is what I've really realized is you can have a preference, sure, it's, it's yours to have, but pointing out what's wrong with an experience or how it could be better because you've experienced better or you have this refined taste now, but other people are already enjoying this thing, I don't think that makes us more sophisticated It just means that we're now literally stealing a moment for them too. So

Can You Retrain Your Brain to Be Easier to Please?

Sam Laliberte 12:15

one thing I know for sure is that we should, for the most part, keep our notes to ourselves as the defaults. But the question of like, can I become easier to please? Like, can I find joy in the mundane now, knowing that life will have a lot of those moments in it? I'm not always going to be on a bucket list trip or having a peak experience, but I know I could be. I know when something could be so much better than it is. Have I now permanently rewired my brain with these high standards and there's not really an undo button? Am I that cliché person who is just getting older and jaded and who has lived? I really hope not. The second thing I'm

A Simple Daily Gratitude Practice

Sam Laliberte 13:00

trying in my s- pursuit of trying to be somebody who is a little bit easier to please again and can find more joy in the every day is a practice that I've actually done for years. So when I first moved to BC about six years ago now, I was gifted "The Five-Minute Journal" from a friend. And I have done it pretty much every morning and evening now for six years ever since. It is a practice that is so easy for me to keep up no matter where in the world I am. It's simple. Just in the morning, notice three things you're grateful for, and then before bed, just reflect on three things that made the day great. Jared and I even have added a prompt to this where we also notice three things about the other person that we appreciated that day and we're grateful for, and we actually make a point to tell them about it, which is a really great hack if you have unintentionally found yourself in a dynamic with your partner where you're taking them for granted or you feel taken for granted and nobody is meaning to do that. You probably notice the sweet little things, but in the rush of the day, maybe they don't get their moment that they deserve, and this is just such an easy built-in practice to your day to make sure each of you really feel seen for those moments. Definitely feel like you can steal that one. But the three gratitudes, I mean, usually I write like the smallest things. This morning I wanted to see what I wrote in preparing for this episode and I literally wrote sleeping pills. I was like, "Okay." And then yesterday I wrote coffee. So that gives you an idea about where I am in my life and in my cycle right now at the time of recording this. So it can be very small things. and the point of this gratitude practice

Finding Joy in the Mundane in Real Time

Sam Laliberte 14:50

as it relates to finding joy in the mundane is not waiting until bedtime to notice these things and reflect on them and point them out to yourself. Doing it in real time, especially in those moments where you're feeling a little bored or a little bratty because there's always something, right? There could be one good song in a otherwise average set. There can be a funny conversation on a trip that maybe just wasn't your vibe. There could be a charismatic waiter who served you food that you know you could have made so much better yourself. There are things we can always notice and train our brains to focus on I don't think it's suddenly gonna make the moment more epic. But maybe not every experience needs to be incredible. Maybe some are actually average. Maybe some trips are just not your vibe. Some conversations are a little more surface level than how deep you wanna go with somebody. Maybe even some conversations are objectively bad. But if you've been feeling this,

Your Standards as a Compass, Not a Megaphone

Sam Laliberte 15:55

if you've been feeling like you're getting harder and harder to impress, the more amazing experiences you have, and the more particular you become in your pursuit of designing your truest version of the freedom lifestyle, maybe you're feeling a little disconnected from people who seem to access joy so easily. I don't think it means there's something wrong with us. I think it means that we've done the work to figure out what we love. We've experimented, reflected, curated, designed, and the result is that you know yourself. Most people never even get there. Most people will spend their whole lives never even getting specific enough with their desires to notice when something falls short. You've just gotten there. Maybe we can let this remind us of how far we've come, how we are now just someone who really knows who they are and what they love. So I think we can keep our standards, but I do think we can stop narrating those experiences for others. I mean, they can be a compass for what we like more and what we should do more of versus a megaphone that we need to announce to everyone. But that habit of actually noticing the good, even in those more average, basic moments, there's always something to point out, and that is maybe the things that we should be sharing loudly, because positivity and good vibes, those are also contagious. That's how I'm thinking about it though right now. I'm so curious if this resonated, if this is something you've been feeling too. Please let me know if I am not alone. You can easily drop a comment now on Spotify or on YouTube or DM me on Instagram @sam.laliberte. This is what I wanted us to think about and reflect on today, and if it hit, feel free to share it with another brat in your life who might just need to hear this too. So until next time, enjoy your freedom