The Curvy Girl Dating Podcast
The Curvy Girl Dating Podcast
Episode 18: "Good Girl Rules" with Sara Fisk
In this episode of The Curvy Girl Dating Podcast, host Cristina discusses her journey from dating struggles to success and introduces Sara Fisk, host of The Ex-Good Girl Podcast. Sara shares her insights on dating, overcoming people-pleasing tendencies, and the importance of self-awareness in relationships. The discussion touches on dating within societal and religious expectations, creating authentic dating profiles, and the significance of feeling safe and comfortable in relationships. Sara offers practical advice on building boundaries and prioritizing one's own needs in dating and beyond. The episode is a valuable resource for anyone looking to enhance their dating experience by being true to themselves.
00:00 Introduction and Host's Dating Journey
00:42 Meet Sara Fisk: The Ex-Good Girl Podcast Host
01:41 Sara's Marriage Story: From Blind Dates to Love
04:01 Navigating Societal and Religious Expectations
05:17 The Pressure to Marry and Finding the Right Relationship
07:14 Good Girl Rules in Dating
09:11 Post-Date Reflections and Self-Assessment
15:35 The Importance of Being Authentic in Dating Profiles
19:29 People Pleasing and Setting Boundaries
30:56 Conclusion and Where to Find Sara Fisk
Sara Fisk Bio:
Sara Bybee Fisk, is the Stop People Pleasing Coach. She is the host of , "The Ex-Good Girl Podcast." Sara helps women who feel exhausted from constant people pleasing and perfectionism and are ready to stop but don’t know how. Sara helps you learn to stop making other people comfortable at your own expense and can show you a roadmap you can use to train yourself to stop abandoning your own desires and let go of the fear of what others will think. If you are ready to stop pretending everything is fine, get out of the cycle of doubt, guilt, and resentment AND step into a life of power and freedom, Sara is the right coach for you!
Sara Fisk Links:
Instagram
Facebook Group
More Links Here
Consultation Call: https://calendly.com/cristinacoaches/discovery-session
FREE Curvy Girl Dating Checklist: https://thecurvygirldatingcoach.myflodesk.com/datingchecklist
Website: https://www.thecurvygirldatingcoach.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecurvygirldatingcoach
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thecurvygirldatingcoach
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecurvygirldatingcoach
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thecurvygirldatingcoach
Email List: https://thecurvygirldatingcoach.myflodesk.com/emaillist
I'm Cristina. After 10 years of dating, I was tired of attracting the wrong type of guys and thinking I had to lose weight to find love. I finally figured out how to date and I found the love I thought I would never find each week. I'll teach you dating advice, share dating stories and help you ditch the dating drama. My goal is to help you have fun and create the life you love. If you're ready to take your dating to another level, then listen up and let's go. Hello, everyone. I'm so excited about this episode of The Curvy Girl Dating Podcast. We have our host Sara Fisk today, and she is the host of The Ex-Good Girl Podcast. Thank you so much for being here, Sara. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Sara:I am a mom and a wife. I have five kids. I have a husband. I love them, and enjoy being their mom and wife most of the time. I am a master certified coach and instructor who has been working in the people pleasing space with women for the last five years. And I live in the Phoenix, Arizona area. So we're just getting past the awful heat and hoping for something like winter or fall. I would take fall.
Cristina:I'm in Houston. So I totally get it. It's 95 degrees outside.
Sara:Oh, totally. Yes.
Cristina:I bought fall season clothes and I'm still in a tank top.
Sara:Not yet. Not yet.
Cristina:So you're married. Tell us how you got there. How did you meet your husband?
Sara:We met on a blind date. I had a friend who wanted to introduce me to him and I was at a time, when there were a lot of people worried about me getting married or not. Being able to actually find someone. I was getting set up a lot, lots of blind dates. Finally, this friend who wanted to set my husband and I up, I said,"I'm tired of blind dates where I don't know who the person is. I don't know what the expectation is. So I will meet your friend, but I want to meet him in a way that he doesn't know I am a potential date for him. I want to be able to say yes or no, without the pressure of being alone with him somewhere." My friend, organized this group dinner. I got to know him and I liked him. So I wanted another date and we just kept going from there.
Cristina:That's awesome. I like that you made it to where there's not as much pressure of it being a date. I'm sure that helped you be a little more caj maybe?
Sara:Yes. Yeah, it did. And I'm sure a lot of people who listen to this are probably going to feel the same way when you become like someone's"project," and they're trying to set you up and make sure that you get married or have someone to be with. I understand that is from a place of their heart and goodwill. It's just, I got tired of going out on dates where I was thinking the whole time,"damn it, I could be home, like cleaning my room. I could be doing something else that's better with my time right now." I had no problem with them introducing me to people. I just didn't want it to take a whole night of my time to know hey, I either like this person and want to move forward with something with them," or no, thank you. It's not a match."
Cristina:I think that it is great to do it as a group setting. Yeah. That's great. Amazing.
Sara:Yes. Yeah.
Cristina:Because then you're actually doing something with people and if you don't really like them, like you don't have to sit through that whole process and it's just very natural that way.
Sara:Yes. Yeah.
Cristina:Tell me a little bit about, cause you said it a couple of times about like people wanting you or expecting you to get married. What does that mean?
Sara:So I grew up in a very conservative, religious organization the Mormon Church, and there is an expectation in Mormon land, and I say that actually with a lot of love and affection for that religious community. Although I'm no longer a part of it, there were parts of it that were a very good experience for me. I really struggled with the expectation that I should get married because I wasn't a finding anyone that I really wanted to be married to. And it just felt like after a little while, what was more important was the act of getting married and not necessarily really being deeply connected to me and who I was. And finding someone that I wanted to share my life with and build a life together with like common goals and interests. It just felt like the religious imperative to get married as soon as possible was really getting in the way of finding someone that I really wanted to marry and be with long term.
Cristina:Yeah, I like that you said it's getting in the way of finding somebody that you want to be with longterm. Like for me, I was single for 10 years, like it was like 27 to 37. So it was when the expectation to be married, not necessarily in a religious setting, but like the societal norms was like,"you're supposed to get married by a 30 and you're supposed to have a family and move into a house and have babies." And, and I felt this pressure at 27,"Oh shit, I have to start all over. And I need to do it within three years and I need to get it going. And, how am I going to find somebody to love me and date me and be with me and marry me in three years? What the hell am I going to do?" And It took me a long time, like more than past 30, to figure out that I didn't have to have that story for me.
Sara:Yes.
Cristina:And I could create the story of however the hell I wanted it to be. And even though I wanted marriage I felt so much pressure just finding somebody to marry me, and just being married just so I could have that title then actually find like the right relationship. And I was single the whole time. So I knew I wasn't going to like just marry the first person, but It was such a struggle for me to have that balance of,"I actually need to find somebody that I love and I want to be with."
Sara:Yeah. Yeah. And so often that's the struggle, right? Like women in patriarchal countries and where a lot of this like"good girl" messaging is part of their lives. What is the most prized thing is to be chosen, and to be in a relationship, and to be, having children, and that can really take precedence over finding someone that you really just love and waiting until that person shows up, because there's so much pressure to just fulfill these roles. And not wait until it's what's best for you.
Cristina:Okay. So you were talking about good girls. So tell me about like"good girl rules," like when you're starting to date and what does society expect of us versus what would be best for ourselves to start in that dating area?
Sara:Dating is framed when you're looking through the lens of the"good girl rules." Dating is framed as being chosen. I want to be chosen. So I'm going to dress my body in a way that seems like it will raise the chances of me getting chosen. I'm going to write my dating profile. If I'm on the apps, I'm going to write my profile from the standpoint of what do I think people will choose?" I'm going to go on a date with someone and the whole time I'm going to be thinking about the experience if you're heterosexual he's having all of my attention is going to be focused on what he's saying, how his face looks, his body language, and I'm going to be asking myself the whole time,"does he like me? Is this good enough? Am I pleasing him? Am I going to get another date? Is he going to choose me?" Is the dialogue in your head so much so that you don't even stop to ask yourself,"how did I feel on the date? How did I find him? Did I feel like he brought out parts of me that I like? Did I feel interested? Was I intellectually stimulated? Did we have things to talk about that I feel like will produce a good relationship." We're so externally focused on what the other person is experiencing. It's like we get home from the date and we're like,"I don't know if I had a good time. I was just so focused on him having a good time."
Cristina:Yes, that is exhausting to have all of those thoughts at one time. And I love that you're saying this because I actually have for my clients, I have a, like a post date questionnaire for every single time you go on a date, you fill out this. So I have this worksheet that I give to my clients and every single time they get off of a date, they need they don't need to, but it's in their benefit to fill this out. And actually ask those questions about,"did I even like him, did we have any common interest?" One thing, one of the ones that I like is,"did I feel safe? Did I feel comfortable? Was my body language like, like how was my body language? Was it tight and stiff? Was I relaxed and looking forward," so I love having those questions.
Sara:Yeah.
Cristina:And you're right. Like I never thought of it the way you're saying it about. Being chosen because I just, I never thought about that, but that's so true. And you're spending all this time trying to be chosen the whole time, like with what you're wearing and I'm just having this epiphany right now.
Sara:Yeah.
Cristina:But with what you're wearing and your dating profile, it's pick me. Here's this strategy. Let me change up the algorithm so that I can be the one that's chosen. Yeah. It's like blowing my mind right now.
Sara:and it's exhausting. And it is what gets women to the point where they are chosen. But then they don't actually feel like they're in a relationship where they are cared for, where they are listened to, where they matter, where their preferences are honored and sought out. And it's because the date wasn't that way, right? He wasn't listening to you on the date. He wasn't asking you your opinions about things on the date. And we get so outwardly focused that we miss all of that. And then when we're looking back, let's say you were now like in a relationship we're looking back and we're like,"oh my gosh, it was there all the time. I was there the whole time and I was able to just to miss it because I was so focused on how he was feeling that I missed how I was feeling."
Cristina:No, it's like a competition or something that you have with every single other woman that you're around and not even realizing that one person might not be a good match for you, but it might be a good match for somebody else. So it's not really a competition. You're just like trying to navigate which person's the right fit.
Sara:Totally.
Cristina:Yeah. You know what I mean? But it's like, how do you change that mindset of being chosen to like having choices? I always tell my clients don't forget that You have choices. It's not all about,"I hope they like me. It's I hope I like them." Like, how do you think that gets shifted?
Sara:It's slowly. And it's by slowing things down at first, because our habits exist to automate processes in our lives. And in some ways, that's really good. That's why people, myself, you, if you drive, we can get in a car and we're not thinking anymore about the process of driving. It's pretty automatic. But the same thing happens in our relationships where we are the one who is used to making ourselves smaller, not sharing our opinion. We're the ones who are used to accommodating and pretzeling ourselves into whatever shape we think the other person wants. And it's very fast and it's automatic. And so the first thing to do, which is why I love your worksheet, is to slow down. The experience either as it's happening, or if you can't do it as it's happening afterward is fine. So the process that your clients have to go through when they fill out that worksheet slows it down for them and helps them see,"Oh, I was focused on him the entire time. And I want to take a minute now and check in with me and see how I'm doing." And so the process of slowing that down afterward. In the beginning, when we're building new skills, we can only look to the past and gain insight and awareness about something that's already happened. And so if somebody is filling out your worksheet, they're like,"okay, date last Friday, he actually talked over me several times. He was rude to our server. He didn't really seem interested in me or my life." Okay. Now that I can see that in the past. It's going to become part of what I can start seeing in the present because you've made me name it and write it down and pay attention to it in a different way.
Cristina:Yeah. And I always tell people I'm all about second chances and sometimes first dates are just nerve wracking and sometimes if you're looking at that page as a whole and you're like,"I really did like them, this and this was happening." I like the opportunity for them to go back. And like you said, and see in the present, if you go on a second date, are they still experiencing those same things? Were they nervous or are they more comfortable now that they got to know you a little bit more? And after that second date, if it's the same We're good."Thank you, but no thank you."
Sara:Yeah, for sure.
Cristina:Yes, do a chance to see if there is if that's a pattern or if maybe they were just, one off having a bad day, because sometimes I know I've had bad days where, I'm just not feeling it like the whole day and I'm going on this date and then I don't show up authentically or show up myself because I'm not having a good day and I'm in a bad mood. So I don't really show myself in the good light. And it's is it better to just cancel and be like,"Hey, can we reschedule to another day?" Or is it better to show up and be like,"okay, whatever," second chances are okay sometimes.
Sara:Totally. Yep. Totally.
Cristina:So what would be some advice for somebody who's totally not ready to date yet, and is considering it, but doesn't know how to get started. What do you think would be a healthy way to get into that?
Sara:First of all, figure out what you want. If you have a scorecard of these are the things that more than anything are important for me. What would be on there? If I had to start dating again now, I would be very specific about the particular qualities that I'm looking for the particular maybe life experience. The earning potential, the kind of life situation, because another thing, another place where some of my clients who have been through this dating experience get tripped up is that they write their profile for the masses. And I always remind them, it just takes one, we just need one person. And the more specific you can be, the more you will repel people who are not a good match for you. And repelling people is good. We actually want to repel people who are not a good fit. And so if you're not on the apps yet and not dating yet, now is the perfect time to start to do some of the work that would be so beneficial to you to get to know your preferences. I had a client who, she would, she kept putting like outdoorsy on her, I'm like, girl, you are not outdoorsy. Who are we kidding? She's I know, but I want a guy to think that I would be willing to go on a hike. I'm like then put that willing to go on a hike, not willing to sleep outdoors. There's a big difference. And so doing some of the work to get really specific about you and what you like, because when you are ready to put yourself out there, whether it's on the apps or otherwise, you want to be repelling most of the people. You only need just a handful of people to go on dates with to get to know better. Before you end up finding someone who is going to be worth a long time investment.
Cristina:It's quality over quantity for sure.
Sara:Absolutely. Yeah.
Cristina:It's funny that you said that about that client because I am that client. I'm just like that. Like I had that same experience. My sister was looking over my dating profile one time. She's let me see what you're writing on here." And she's going over it. She's"I just need to write it for you because you don't know what you're doing, obviously, since you've been single forever. Let me just do it." And she's reading it. And she was like,"bitch, when do you go camping? You put that you go camping, like, when do you go camping, that you like to go camping." And I was like,"it's not that I like to go camping because I haven't, but my future self likes to go camping. Like I would like a partner to take me freaking camping." She's like,"then say that." I don't have a lot of camping experience, but I would love a guy that would take me on a camping trip.
Sara:That's right.
Cristina:She was like, you need to write that way instead of Oh, I go camping all the time because maybe there's somebody who occasionally likes to camp, but it's not his thing and would be willing to do it. And you're repelling him because he thinks that you do it all the time. Like it's this hobby, yeah. And I'm It made so much sense, but I was really butthurt about that for a little while.
Sara:All of the pretending that we do to try and convince other people that we are actually different than we really are because we think they will like that version better. I can totally understand and have some compassion for why we do it, but it absolutely will come back to bite us in the ass because eventually they are going to expect that we are that person. And then we either have to continue faking it or. Tell them the truth.
Cristina:Yes. Okay, with people pleasing, because, I like to call myself for a recovering people pleaser. And I know that a lot of times I would say, Oh yeah, I'm open to whatever. And I like to do anything," and trying to, again, open to the masses and be chosen to be like,"okay, I'm cool with anything." I am, but I have a voice too. I do like specific things. But I would try to just be like,"I'm up for anything." And then a lot of times"up for anything" does not mean what my version of up for anything is and then it's turns into some kind of perverted conversation. And I'm just like,"maybe I'm not exactly up for anything." But with people pleasing people tell me what your thoughts are on that.
Sara:So here's how I like to explain it, because, in the way that I look through the lens of human development and what actually benefits humans. People pleasing is not actually the problem, because let's say that you and I are friends. I want to know what pleases you. I want to do some of those things for you sometime. I want you to know what pleases me and to do some of the things that I really like and enjoy sometimes. And where it gets sticky is, you can't tell from the outside if something is people pleasing or not. If I show up to your house with a plate of cookies, you don't know if I am just genuinely happy to be there and I made you your favorite cookie because I love you and haven't seen you for a while, or if I'm worried that I offended you, or if I'm concerned that you're trying to phase our friendship out, or I'm anxious because you haven't called me lately and I'm just showing up to try and see if I can get your attention back. People pleasing is about having that internal experience of not being able to choose myself because I'm overly connected to you and your wants and your needs and so I can't choose myself. But in connected, loving, vulnerable relationships, we do want to be able to choose the other person. What we want to be able to do is know why we're doing it. Am I chasing this guy because I feel like he's the only guy who's shown any interest, and if I let him go, there's going to be no one else. We want to know what our motivations are, because from the outside for a couple of months, I really pursued the man who's now my husband. But it was because I really genuinely liked him and wanted to get to know him better. And he didn't think that someone like me would be interested in him. But I've pursued other men in my life. Where I was really anxious and really scared that them not liking me meant something bad about me. And so catching them and dating them was really just me trying to feel better about myself. And so really understanding what the motivation is means being connected to your internal experience and that's how you can know, is it people pleasing, or is it a healthy dynamic, where in relationships we do want to do things for each other.
Cristina:Yeah, no, that's really on point because I know with my boyfriend right now, when we were dating and we were pursuing each other, it felt so natural and so easy. And I didn't ever have. All of those questions, like it wasn't ever stressed out about,"Oh, I'm afraid to ask him, what our situation is like, what kind of relationship are we like, what stage." Cause you know how sometimes you'll hear somebody and they're saying that they're afraid of asking somebody a question and it seems like it's really basic. And you're like, ask them." Like I felt the difference between dating other people that were wrong for me and dating him because I never had any of that anxiety or that like stress about that. And still now, four years later, if I want to have a conversation with them, I'm going to have it. If it's going to be uncomfortable, is it just going to be uncomfortable, and we know each other well enough now that it's just you just got to say it because we're never going to fix it. We're never going to talk about it if it just doesn't get talked about. So you just got to say it.
Sara:A hundred percent.
Cristina:And it's so interesting because I just remember so many times like basic questions like,"Oh, I'm afraid to ask him if it's okay, if we go here on this date instead of our first plan." that's a basic thing to ask. It's a reasonable request.
Sara:Yeah.
Cristina:Like, why should I be worried about hurting his feelings? If, he thinks that it's a bad date if I ask him to go somewhere else, who cares? I just want to go somewhere else. It doesn't matter.
Sara:Yeah. And here's what I will add to that. I know you're not saying,"who cares," from like an,"I don't care about this other person" standpoint. And the way I like to think about it is, ooh, this is like data that I actually want to get."What happens when I hurt his feelings?" I'm not going to try and do it. But hurting someone's feelings is a normal part of relationships. And so if I am doing everything I can to avoid hurting his feelings, I'm actually missing out on an essential piece of information that I need to be able to know, is this a long term thing? Is this something that would work in terms of a relationship or are we just having fun for a little while? And so often because we are scared of making the wrong choice or we are scared of them not choosing us. We don't actually let Situations happen like hurting each other's feelings, like disagreeing, having a difference of opinion on something that really matters, and we miss out on getting the information back that will really help us make a better decision about whether or not this person is a match.
Cristina:Yeah, and one thing too that I've noticed with people is you keep on agreeing and missing out on those opportunities to disagree and not have things in common, it adds up and then you become like resentful. Because you're not allowing these things and you're just Oh, I'm just going to do whatever they think, whatever's going to make them happy. And I don't want to have confrontation because it's going to be uncomfortable. So I'm just going to let it go. And then you have this resentment.
Sara:Yeah.
Cristina:What do you think?
Sara:Resentment is one of the emotions that is universal for someone who's a people pleaser. It might be buried under there way down deep across the board. When I talk to women who are wanting to work on their people pleasing, they say that they feel a lot of resentment because they don't feel considered. Their wants and their needs don't feel like they're on the same level and getting the same attention as everybody else's and I have a lot of compassion for that. And sometimes what I end up having to say is that's because you were never programmed right for your wants and needs to matter. And also you have taught all the people in your life. That your wants and needs don't matter by the way that you self sacrifice and you pretend like you're tough. You pretend like you can take it and do it all. You pretend like you don't need help. What are the people in your life supposed to make of that? And so there is shared responsibility there.
Cristina:No, I totally agree. And being an people pleaser, I used to cancel dates. So I can babysit for my sister, like I would be getting ready for a date and my sister would call and be like,"Oh, I have whatever to do. Can you come over and babysit real quick?" and I would cancel my date because I wanted to be a good aunt. Like I thought it meant that if I said just went and helped my sister out. I'm doing her a favor. She's going to love me more because I'm helping her out so she can do whatever she needs to do. And that's going to mean I'm going to be a good aunt to go do that. But then I'm sacrificing my own time and my own potential future for a partner, like by canceling that date and my sister, potentially could have rescheduled that, and didn't have to do it right then and there. Maybe I could say,"Hey, I can't do it today, but I can do it tomorrow." And I had to teach myself/teach her that boundary, and it started with a conversation of saying,"Hey, I love to help. And I love to babysit, but I'm not so great at the last minute calls, but I'm happy to do it if you plan a day ahead of time. I can give an opportunity to say yes or no, by my schedule. And then it also, it's a no, it gives her an opportunity to find a plan B and either reschedule or find somebody else to help out or whatever. And it made me feel like I can be a better aunt and a better sister by creating that boundary. But it, it took 35 years.
Sara:Yeah. Yeah. And I bet that if we, had the time to get into it and if I asked you about some of your internal experience, there was some guilt there, some obligation, some worrying about what she would say if you said no and a history of you bending your needs to hers for a long period of time.
Cristina:A thousand percent, because I'm a little sister. So.
Sara:And so when I talk about really tuning into what's going on inside me, you would have seen all of that. And then it might have helped you. It sounds like you did anyway, once we can see Oh, I am not actually showing up for my sister tonight because I love her and I love her child. I'm afraid I'm feeling obligation. I'm feeling guilt. Is that okay with me? Do I like that? Do I want my life to be run by guilt and obligation or do I want something else for myself? And only when you really see that internal experience, can you make a choice about having something else?
Cristina:No, that's a hundred percent. Like you can't say any better, but it was definitely a lesson learned that I had through my dating experiences. And it's it's been a lesson that's been able to grow into my dating life and my other relationships. And it just took one person to practice that with and it got easier. So now, I'm not dating anymore, but when I was dating, I got to learn how to just speak up for myself. And yeah, say what I wanted instead of being that, Oh, okay, I'm up for whatever kind of person. So definitely a learning experience and it took me 10 years to figure it out, but I finally did.
Sara:Yeah. So good.
Cristina:So how can people find you?
Sara:I spend most of my time on Instagram@sarahfiskcoach. I also have a free Facebook community for anyone who wants to start to dive into understanding how their own people pleasing affects not just their dating life, but the rest of their life too. Cause here's what I can tell you for sure is if it's showing up in your dating, it's showing up in other areas of your life as well. The group is called,"Stop People Pleasing with Sara Fisk." And I have a website, SaraFisk.Coach.
Cristina:Awesome. Thank you so much for being on the podcast today. I really appreciate all of your insight.
Sara:Absolutely. Thank you for having me.
Cristina:Bye.