How to Stop People-Pleasing and Seeking Approval? The Disease to Please. Stop Being Nice Person

1. Introduction: Are you preoccupied with what other people think about you? Is it difficult for you to know what you want? Do you find yourself saying yes when you desperately want to say no? Is it hard for you to express your feelings when they differ from the opinions of other people? Does your happiness depend on the approval of others? There is hardly a human being on planet Earth who does not struggle with the need for approval to some degree. A people pleaser is just a nice person who goes overboard by trying to make too many people happy. As a people pleaser, you feel that you must always be serving others in order to be accepted. You will jump through hoops for a simple smile and thank you. You will often find yourself doing things that you are not good at because you don't want to upset the plans of others. You agree to something. But then fume quietly to yourself and get mad at whoever asked you to do it. You feel unappreciated for all the things you are doing for others. You worry about troubling or irritating other people. You feel guilty about doing something you want to do. You avoid asking for what you want directly. You hide your opinions to avoid friction. You hesitate to speak up until it's the right thing to share. You are too concerned about the way you are perceived. If you are a people pleaser, you feel overwhelming tension and negative emotions. Whenever you are in a situation, where you need to stand up for yourself, say no, and refuse others. For example, you see someone cut in line ahead of you. You know it's not right. You understand you are perfectly entitled to remind the person where the back of the line is, but the speaking up causes a rising tension within you, tying your stomach in nuts and forming a lump in your throat. You can't bring yourself to do it. You decide it's better to let the occasion slide without ruffling any feathers. In this course, you will learn why people seek approval from others. What causes us to people please? Why being too nice is wrong and how to shed excessive niceness. What is the opposite of people pleasing behavior? How to overcome the addiction to approval? How to handle disagreements and other difficult conversations? How to speak for yourself. Ask for what you want and become a more authentic person. 2. What is People Pleasing?: Most of us are addicted to approval, but not everyone knows it. We believe that others will be upset with us for speaking our minds or leave us for being honest. We feel it's bad to hurt someone's feelings and we are selfish for saying no. Traditional people pleasers take pride in their ability to get things right. Choosing the ideal birthday gift or hosting a perfect dinner party. They exist to make life easier and more comfortable for other people. Ask them what they want and they will draw a blank. Their self esteem has been replaced by others esteem, and they are only good enough if you say so. A pat on the head from an authority figure feels like winning the lottery for a pleaser. They task themselves with the job of bringing individuals together to a place of harmony while taking up no space themselves. Neither too much of this nor too little of that. They occupy the common ground, never voicing a contentious opinion or a preference that might be unpopular. People pleasers may struggle with finding their own happiness, either because they don't know what it looks like or because they put the happiness of others before their own. They fear disrupting the piece by voicing their opinions. Even when asked, they will offer answers that others want to hear, rather than their honest views. They will worry about how colleagues, friends, and even strangers view them. A simple example is choosing clothes in the morning. Rarely will people pleasers put on something that makes them feel confident and comfortable. Instead, they will wear something that others will approve of. Even the decision of what clothes to buy will be based on whether others will like the clothes rather than what clothes they like. 3. Are You a People-Pleaser?: In order to find out if you are a people, please or think about the following statements. It's extremely important to me to be liked by nearly everyone in my life. My needs should always take a back seat to the needs of people I love. I often do too much for other people or even let myself be used, that I won't be rejected for other reasons. I believe that if I make other people need me because of all the things I do for them, I won't be left alone. I go to great lengths to avoid conflict or confrontation with my family, friends, or coworkers. I almost never stand up to others in order to protect myself because I'm too afraid of getting an angry response or provoking a confrontation. If I stopped putting others needs ahead of my own, I would become a selfish person and people would no longer like me. I believe that nice people get the approval, affection, and friendship of others. Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to buy the love and friendship of others by doing so many nice things to please them. It makes me very anxious and uncomfortable to say or do anything that might upset another person. I feel guilty when I say no to requests of others. I feel like I am accepted only if I think and act as others require. I should be treated better because of my niceness. I have struggled with feelings of disillusionment or betrayal because of people who have taken advantage of my good nature inwardly, I speculate why people are not as considerate as they should be. 4. People-Pleasing Patterns: Do you see yourself mirroring the behavior of others? You can't say no to the last drink, or you take unnecessary risks to fit in with the people around you. Do you go out of your way to avoid arguments? People pleasers, avoid conflicts and heated discussions because they find it impossible to defend Their side of the argument. Are kind words and praise essential for your happiness. Do you hide your hurt feelings that time when someone says, sorry, did I offend you? And you laugh it off with a no, when really even a small comment has deeply upset you. When you are unable to let others know, if something embarrasses you, enrage you, or irritates you, you will find that your relationships do not have a genuine connection. Do you feel pressured to do things you don't want to do? It could be something trivial like where to go shopping, or something more significant like the location of your new home. When you agree to do things that you don't want to do, you are giving the control of your life to someone else. If you are a pupil pleaser, socializing is often not enjoyable and can feel like a performance conflict or hurt feelings feel like the beginning of the end that is terrifying. 5. Symptoms of People Pleasing: Disapproval is threatening and unacceptable to people pleasers we hesitate. Overthink what we will say next. Do not interrupt. Smile or no. Excessively are too quick to laugh. Agree when we don't really agree. Hold the back. Do not speak up. In groups, avoid eye contact, hide parts of ourselves, lie to fit in name drop. Try too hard to impress. These patterns drain your social power and make you feel less comfortable and free around others. They result in people taking you less seriously and being less attracted to you. They can feel that you are trying too hard, that you need something from them, and that you are not being genuine. This neediness and inauthenticity is a strong relationship repellent. Others might not outright reject you, throw a drink in your face or tell you off because you are being nice and pleasing. You won't get harsh rejections, but you will have an endless string of polite rejections. You remain hidden in relationships. You keep parts of yourself out of sight, avoid certain topics, and mold yourself to be the person that you think others want. You hide your anger, dislike, frustration, sadness, and despair. You hide anything that is negative, undesirable, and unlovable. People pleasers never feel fully loved and safe. Underneath there is always the fear. If they saw the real me, how I really am, they would be turned off, repelled or disgusted. They would leave, reject me. Not want to work with me, or not want to date me. Paying attention to your own feelings is not the norm. You pay attention to the feelings of other people to keep them happy and take away their pain. If you are lucky, your efforts will be rewarded by their positive reaction to you. For a time, you might take a feeling of ous from that. Being nice is inauthentic, but other than that, it's great. It makes you a good person who is respectful of others. It keeps you safe, small, and protected from rejection. 6. How Nice are You?: We often use phrases like, she is nice but, or he's a nice guy. But the discounting but generally signals some reference to a negative character quality. People pleasers can be the nicest people you meet. One of the biggest traps of people pleasing is the idea that being a nice person is the same thing as being a good person. That if you are less nice, then you are selfish and bad, that you should feel ashamed of yourself. Most people are nice, at least part of the time. We live in a world that encourages niceness. A person has to know how to follow the rules, play well with others and rab folks the right way. In order to succeed, you appear to be interested in what people are saying, green and not a lot. Maybe you laugh at the jokes and remarks people make, even if you don't get them. Perhaps you avoid interrupting or speaking up before someone asks you a question. Maybe you restrain yourself and not make big gestures. Speak up fully or laugh loudly. You do not bring up controversial topics, ask probing questions, or challenge others. You may be a nice person if you often don't know what you want. If you are always thinking about what you wish you had said. If you constantly second guess yourself. If you apologize frequently, if you take what you are given instead of asking for what you want. If you do favors for people with the secret, hope they will reciprocate if your emotional state mirrors your partner's. If your partner isn't happy, you aren't happy. When another person is angry, you go into the appeaser mode. You struggle to choose a partner or leave a job, or make other adult life choices without first consulting some external source of authority. For example, your parents. You might feel better if everyone agrees with the way you spend your money or how you raise your children. It might upset you deeply if they criticize your choices or dismiss your opinions. 7. Characteristics of a People-Pleaser: People pleasing isn't a benign habit to learn to live with a flaw full of good intentions. It's anxiety, inaction, it's the fear of something you can't control, namely other people's emotions. Pleasers will go to great lengths to hide their truth, to avoid causing upset, they often swallow the points of view of others without giving themselves the time and freedom to reflect on their validity. People pleasers have to be nice. They are nice, whether it's called for or not. They are nice when being ignored or even insulted when they want someone to like them. They over function, over adapt, over apologize. When things aren't working, they try harder. Nice people are anxious to please, especially the central people in their life, Parent, spouse, boss. They show anxiety in relationships by clinging, ingratiating, and over adapting. They will often minimize their unhappiness and tell others that they are much happier than they really are. They are out of touch with the full range of their anger and aggression. They believe that their safety and happiness depend on their ability to please the significant man or woman in their life. They are often troubled by romantic longings and obsessions. They use relationships to mask their inability to love themselves. They feel contempt for their own people pleasing traits and hate their need for love, affection, and reassurance. Like other addictions, people pleasing habits are rewarded on a random, occasional basis, rather than continuously. Just as a gambler at a slot machine becomes hooked by the periodic and random jackpot, you are addicted to the praise that you receive for some, but not all of your people pleasing efforts. For this reason, you find yourself compelled to please more and more people agreeing to more and more requests in order to increase the frequency of your rewards. At its core, people pleasing isn't about being caring, it's about organizing the reactions of other people to avoid a feeling you don't want. Giving up people pleasing is not about changing who you are, rather it is about finally discovering and unleashing the real you. 8. People-Pleasing Habits: You have a number of expectations about the way other people should treat you, given how nice you are and how hard you try to make them happy. For example, people should never criticize me because I always try to live up to their desires and expectations. People should be kind and caring to me in return because of how well I treat them. Other people should never live or abandon me because of how much I make them need me. All these rules could be restated as preferences rather than shoots, for example. I would prefer that others wouldn't reject me is a more realistic statement than prohibiting others from doing so. It also allows for the possibility that another person might reject you for the reasons that have to do with that individual's biases rather than with your shortcomings. You can say I would prefer that others, especially those I love, stay with me and not abandon me. This is a more rational statement than one that essentially forbids others to leave. Because you say they cannot, you are not in control of what other people can and cannot do. The preference statement contains an acknowledgment that others have free will to make choices, even though they might disappoint or hurt you. Try as you may. You cannot impose your will on the world. You believe that you should always listen to everyone's problems and try your best to solve them. You should never burden others with your own needs or problems. The expression of negative feelings toward others, such as anger, resentment, or disappointment, is prohibited because you avoid difficult emotions. You never allow yourself to learn how to effectively manage conflict or how to deal appropriately with anger. As a consequence, you relinquish control too easily to those who would dominate you through intimidation and manipulation. 9. People Pleaser’s Rules: There is no rational reason why other people must love and appreciate you, even if you stand on your head to please them. But it would be nice if you received love. It would be even more desirable if others loved you for the person that you are, rather than for all the things you feel so compelled to do for them. You may wish to be a reliable friend on whom others can depend. However, to command that you should never say no or let other people down is an excessively rigid requirement that you simply cannot guarantee. However, by stating your intention to be reliable and supportive to your friends, you allow for the realistic possibility that sometimes you may need to say no due to factors outside your control or due to mere self preservation. When you demand that other people and the world treat you in a certain way, you set yourself up to feel angry, disappointed, and depressed, when inevitably they do not submit to your will. Imposing your shoots on others is coercive and controlling. Instead, try using phrases such as, I would prefer if it might be better, I would like it if instead of the manipulative and you shouldn't statements, imagine how another person would respond if you were to instruct them directly. You have to like me because of all the nice things I do for you. It might be pleasant to have other people like and appreciate you, but they have no built in requirement to do so, no matter how nice you have been to them. 10. Why is People Pleasing Unhealthy?: There is some flaw in our cultural assumption that nice is good and more nice is better. We think it is important to put others first and pride ourselves on never showing that we are angry. We think being considerate is a good thing and the world doesn't need more selfish people. Being nice makes life more pleasant and can help things flow more smoothly. The world is happy to have people who over function and doesn't mind that they are motivated by feelings of inadequacy. People pleasing is based on this inaccurate theory that if I please others give them everything they want. Keep a low profile and don't ruffle feathers. Then others will like me and shower me with approval and anything else I want, people pleasers believe that being nice protects them from unpleasant situations with family and friends. Keeping a front of niceness all the time prevents you from showing anger and displeasure. However justified they may be, you avoid criticizing others so that you won't be criticized. It is all too easy to take the path of least resistance criticism. Confrontation and anger are dangerous emotional experiences that you wish to avoid at nearly any cost for the people. Please re life itself is just exhausting. From eating Italian when you wanted Chinese, to moving cities because your partner wanted to each situation that forces you to say yes can tap away a little bit of your happiness. Every action you carry out for someone else takes away some of your time and energy. Again, this isn't a bad thing. As long as there is a balance, when all of your efforts are turned toward making other people happy, you end up feeling exhausted. Particularly when the people in your life keep coming back with more problems for you to deal with. 11. The Cost of People Pleasing: Your choice to be kind is devoid of its meaning. If you are acting out of sheer duty, if you do what others expect of you out of obligation, your behavior may appear correct on the outside, but inwardly, you are not acting upon a well conceived free choice and that feeds emotional tension. Nice people often live lives of quiet desperation. They are able to work or marry, or function in normal society, they just aren't happy. They ache for a sense of belonging, for an inner peace that can last for longer than a few moments, and for authentic intimacy. People pleasing is not a bad characteristic. It is good and necessary if families and organizations are going to grow and thrive. But it's possible to carry good characteristics too far. The problem with people pleasing is that it takes a normal human desire and turns it into an absolute necessity. It turns a preference into a serious attachment that we obsess over as if somehow we won't be okay if this person is upset with us or bored by us or is not super excited about us finding your way out of people pleasing is more like maneuvering your way out of a straight jacket. You will need to reclaim who you really are. You will decide what is right for you, how you want to live, and determine your own rules. 12. What’s Wrong with Being a People-Pleaser?: Being a people please or means being a nice person. It means you are caring. You don't hurt people, and you do the right thing. You put others first. Avoid saying critical or mean things and try to make others feel happy. But there is a problem with being nice. It is different than kindness, compassion, and love. It isn't necessarily the same thing as being a good person. Generosity and friendliness are excellent qualities to possess. They help communication and cooperation between people. They are necessary in order for societies to get along. In almost every scenario they beat the alternatives of selfishness and hostility. These are traits that are beaten into our heads from childhood for good reason. But don't confuse people Pleasing as generosity and friendliness. A people please or is kind to a fault. The drive for their kindness is not that it's just the right way to be or that they want to enrich people's lives. Instead of coming from a sincere desire to make the world a better place, people pleasing stems from insecurity, fear and shame. Being nice does not come out of goodness or high morals. It comes out of a fear of displeasing others and receiving their disapproval. It is driven by fear, not virtue. Being nice is blocking you from standing up for yourself, being honest with others, creating deeper relationships, or boldly expressing yourself in the world at its root. Being a people pleaser is about being liked, which in itself is not a bad thing. It's actually the most natural desire in the world. Let's say your friend was about to introduce you to someone at a party. And you could choose between these two options. Option, that new person likes you, option B, that new person doesn't like you. Which one would you pick while trying to be nice? What are you focusing on? Are you, in the moment, speaking freely, spontaneously, asking what you are most curious about and being fully engaged? Or are you observing yourself and others reactions? Are you watching your language and how others react to you analyzing the situation? Did he like that? Was it funny enough? She seems a little irritated by me. That guy by the drinks was completely disinterested in me. I wonder what I did that pissed him off. You are monitoring yourself to make sure you come across in a pleasing manner and don't offend anyone. You are making sure others like you and don't have any negative feelings nor Boredom, irritation, anger, no discomfort whatsoever, just happy, positive approving thoughts and feelings. 13. Is People-pleasing Toxic?: People pleasers are always cheerful in all situations on the outside, they never complain about anything. They have no apparent negative feelings. In fact, their sunshiny behavior is probably making other people uneasy. Being around someone who is obviously putting a false face on is off putting and uncomfortable. At best, it seems dishonest. At first it is manipulative. People pleasers never assert what they think, believe or want. It's all about everyone else. If they are going out with someone, they will never recommend what to do or where to go. They will never speak up. If they are having a terrible time, they don't want to ever be the reason for unhappiness or dissatisfaction. They will simply agree with the general sentiment of the group, rather than risk being an outcast. They feel, whether accurately or not, that they are fine with everything. This allows resentment to build a little by little over time until they are a volcano waiting to erupt. People pleasers promise to do everything for anyone, even if they hate it or are lying. They will pledge to do things their friends don't want to do or things they know will be lie to their friends and earn a reaction of thank you so much, you are the best. But people pleasers don't necessarily plan on actually doing these things. They just say they will with the intent to gain temporary approval and make their friends happy. In reality they are continued promises and inaction just take their friends off as it becomes apparent that they only say what people want to hear. People pleasers never ask for anything even if they need it. They want to be seen as providing and unselfish. Even if a people pleaser does muster up the nerve to actually ask for something, she will give the person she's asking 1 million different options or opportunities to tell her no. She wants to minimize the chances of inconveniencing or annoying others in the slightest. While he's talking about how selfless he is, the people pleaser will grumble about his needs not being met. Make no mistake about it. People pleasing is harmful. You may get the approval you seek on a short term basis, but it will be fleeting and fake. You will have to deal with the consequences, for instance, passive aggressive behavior. Or might end up with skewed relationships. Because you are putting yourself in a subordinate role and constantly putting on a face. While people pleasers may think they excel at making others happy, their real challenge lies in making themselves feel miserable and inadequate, right? 14. To Be or Not to Be Nice: In groups or organizations, nice individuals simply don't make waves. And while they do not offend others, they rarely impress others either. You may feel compelled to be nice because you anticipate and expect rejection from others due to a real or imagined flaw you find in yourself. The perceived flaw can be physical in nature, such as overweight, an apparent disability or deformity, an unattractive face or facial feature, bad hair, or short stature. Or the flaw can be psychological, such as feeling unintelligent, under educated, unsuccessful, or ashamed about not having a lot of money. By being nice, pleasing, and inoffensive, your hidden motivation may be to manipulate others into liking you or at least into not rejecting you. If people do accept you, your self esteem will still remain impaired because you will attribute their acceptance to the nice things you do for them rather than to your value as a human being. On the other hand, if people reject you, your false belief that you are fundamentally unworthy will be confirmed in your mind. You will feel the need to be even nicer in the future in order to protect against further painful rejection. Being nice won't always protect you from unkind treatment from others. Don't reward people who treat you badly or unkindly by acting nice and pretending that it's okay. If you have to compromise your own values, needs, or identity as a special and unique individual, then the price of nice is just too high. It is far better for you to say what's on your mind, even if you must communicate some negative feelings, then to stuff your thoughts inside and become anxious or emotionally ill, just to stay nice. The solution lies in recognizing that the person whose acceptance you most need is your own. When you address the real issues that make you feel unworthy and separate your essential value as a person from some attribute of your appearance or fact of your background. The wound in your self esteem will begin to heal. You don't need someone else's approval to do what you want to do. If you are not planning on committing a crime, hurting another person, or doing something destructive, you have the right to do whatever you want rather than tell someone you intend to do something and ask them if it's okay, just say you are going to do it and then do it. 15. Is Niceness Good?: People pleasing involves putting on a disguise. You are cloaking yourself in service to others. You conceal your true feelings, thoughts, and opinions. You aren't honest with the people around you. You certainly don't mention if there is something you need from someone else. Repressing your emotions is almost never a good thing. Niceness is used as protection. After all, if you don't make waves or rock the boat, the other passengers shouldn't want to throw you overboard. On the surface, your pleasing behavior may appear to be very giving or other focused. But by earning the goodwill of others through the generosity of your character and action, you are actually acting in your own self interest. If you are kind and giving to others, other people will be kind in return and therefore won't be as likely to cause you stress. This is the way to protect yourself from being rejected, disapproved of, or otherwise hurt emotionally. Niceness would not protect you from everyone all of the time. You may be the nicest person alive and somebody out there won't like you. May be precisely because you are so nice. Certain people could and would cause harm to you emotionally, regardless of whether you treated them kindly or not. This might occur because the other person is intrinsically hateful, prejudiced, or bigoted, or because she holds an old grudge and is out to settle a score by punishing you. Or simply because she's not emotionally healthy or mature enough to be loved and to love in return. 16. Is It OK Not to Be a Nice Person?: The belief that being a nice should protect you from an interpersonal slight or hurt is grounded in a root expectation that life is fair. But no matter how nice you are, there are no guarantees against being insulted or excluded by others. A person who is prejudiced against you because of your race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual preference will likely reject you for their own irrational, hateful reasons. Your relative niceness won't make any difference. Or if someone is jealous of you, they may take a stand against you. In spite of all the nice things you may have done for them, it's not fair, but neither is life. Being nice is not an appropriate response to someone who is hurting you emotionally. On the contrary, being nice to someone who is using you as a verbal punching bag only rewards their abusive behavior. In effect, niceness gives the other person permission to mistreat you. If you are the target of verbal and emotional abuse, niceness not only will fail to protect you, it will strengthen the person who is hurting you. This is not to say that people pleasing causes others to be abusive towards you in the first place. Those causes lie within the personality and life history of the abuser. You may think that by trying even harder to please someone who is being unkind, you will change the other person's behavior toward you. But in fact, your continued participation will only embolden the abuser and erode your self esteem. Eventually, you may even come to believe that unkind, hostile, or abusive treatment is all you really deserve anyway. No. 17. Having Self-Worth: We each have traits or behaviors that point to some personal flaw. If you are human, you have something for which you could feel guilty. Some of your guilt will be the result of minor errors in judgment. Healthy individuals are fully aware of their shortcomings and they make no particular effort to hide that fact. When they do something wrong, they admit it. They recognize specifically what they did wrong. They choose the better alternative, then they move on. In short, they practice true guilt, the acknowledgment of blameworthiness, which then leads to a constructive and freeing response. For example, the husband who speaks insensitively to his wife will admit the error of his words or attitude. He will seek forgiveness, and if needed restitution, he will learn from his mistake by choosing to change his insensitive ways, then he will move forward with no further reason to feel guilty. In such an instance, true guilt served its proper function. People pleasers, instead of making the necessary adjustments and moving on, tend to follow in the emotion way beyond the point of constructive change. They harbor within themselves ongoing judgment and condemnation. Resulting in a powerful yearning to be forgiven. But never really believing that to be possible. Human worth transcends performances or appearances. You were once a little child who had achieved nothing yet. You recognize that from the beginning of your life you were worthy of love and respect. The judgment of another human does not negate your intrinsic worth. That judgment is not a reflection on your worth at all. The opinions of human judges are driven by their own insecure or selfish motives. Human performance and intrinsic birth are two separate matters. If anything, judgmental thinking is the judge's need to establish a pecking order in which the judge gets to be in the lofty position. It also means, of course, that someone has to be in the lowly position. Birth is an inherent trait that you possessed on your first day of life that no human could deny. It continues to be a part of you until the day you die, irrespective of your level of achievement or others judgments, okay? Okay. 18. People Pleaser’s Sufferings: The easiest way to detect the presence of fear in a person's life is by observing the tendency toward defensiveness. Fearful people tend to have their guard up more powerfully or frequently than is necessary. They do not take me as I am approach toward life. Instead, they have an inner sense that something or someone out there is going to make life miserable. Because of this, they have difficulty maintaining a feeling of true openness or confidence. Too often they over explain their reasoning for doing what they do. They tend not to trust their own decisions. You may endorse the beliefs that having fun, taking a nap, and going for a leisurely walk, are wastes of valuable time. You probably delay and procrastinate your relaxation and other pleasurable activities until you have finished doing all the things that you think you have to do. If you do find a small bit of time for yourself, you may have converted activities that are supposed to be stress reducing into mandatory obligations that now produce stress until they are accomplished. For example, exercise becomes one more thing on your lengthy to do list. That must be accomplished in order for you to avoid feeling guilty. If this is the case, you are likely deriving far fewer benefits from exercise than you may believe. While you may be building muscles and burning fat or calories, you are also canceling out the stress reduction value, one of the important payoffs of regular exercise, by surrounding it with feelings of obligation, pressure, and guilt. People pleasers rarely allow themselves to feel satisfied with how much they have accomplished in a given day. You may be reluctant to pat yourself on the back. Give yourself credit for your accomplishments or feel happy and satisfied with yourself, or fear that you will grow complacent without the edge of discontent. You may fear that your performance will fall even shorter of some imagined high mark than it does now. You may also believe that by staying hard on yourself and denying yourself pleasure and relaxation, you will somehow appear more worthy and giving to others when your self force is so closely tied to what you do for others. Being sick and requiring care yourself can make you feel worthless, useless, burdensome. You also may feel resentful and disappointed that other people in your life don't seem to know how to take care of you. You are holding on to the stubborn rule that you should not have to tell people what you need or teach them how to best care for you. They should just know. But communication, not mental, telepathy is the hallmark of satisfying successful relationships. 19. Why You Shouldn’t Be a People Pleaser?: People pleasing is not the same as generosity or goodwill. It's not something you do because you have true interest in the betterment of humankind or concern for your loved ones. Being able to tell the difference between such fake kindness and genuine compassion is easier than you think. Found out people pleasers aren't regarded highly at the root of it. All we please and serve because we want a certain outcome from people. In trying to do everything for everybody, you are trying to manipulate other people's opinions, feelings, and reactions toward you. You are really trying to exert control over their lives and situations in a sneaky and underhanded way. You want there to be a wellspring of emotional debt that keeps you in people's good graces. People pleasers have an image to maintain and that comes at a cost. We shield and conceal our feelings to the point that people don't know who we truly are, they only know our people. Pleasing disguise, we try to be nice to others so they feel good around us and want to spend more time with us. Whether it's friends, colleagues, or in your lover, we show up as our best selves. Hold back our judgments and criticisms focus on other people and are attentive, generous, and caring. We do the right thing. We are good people, but we don't feel deeply connected to others. We don't really trust that. They absolutely love and adore us. When you are being nice and people respond well, something is a little off. They might like you or even love you, but they don't really know you. They know a part of you. They know your mask or persona. While this might give you some connection in the form of people to hang out with and talk to, it doesn't give you the connection you really sick. This only comes when we share more of ourselves with others. When we are able to remove the mask and share what's really going on, how we really feel and think, including our fears, desires, and challenges. If you are silly or like to do funny voices or passionately sing classic rock songs with your eyes closed, this needs to come out as well. It's not just what you share that makes you, it's also how you share it. How you show up and how life moves through you. People pleasing is a big stop sign on all of that, on the sharing, the vulnerability, the authenticity, and the self expression. It is a controlled, managed, and rigid way of being in the world which keeps the real trapped. Nobody should have to feel like they have to hide their emotions or tiptoe around. 20. The Darker Side of People Pleasing : If you are anxious about pleasing others, then you are afraid they will reject you for your looks, for the way you talk, for how smart you are for not being good enough. Their opinion means more than yours does. Part of you resents taking care of others, listening to them so much, putting them first. Most of this is happening beneath our awareness. The nicer you are, the more powerless you feel, the more trapped you become in this land of hesitation, self doubt, and inaction. But you can't become one of those selfish jerks who just take what they want from others and from life. When you are so consumed with the needs of others, you are not paying yourself any attention. Maybe you have made social plans after work with friends you haven't seen for a while. But you find yourself working long into the early evening to fix a problem that could have waited until the next work day. Or you find yourself skipping a workout to deal with a family issue that's not really an emergency for you. You must be able to equalize your needs with those of other people and strike a fair balance between the two. Putting yourself in a subservient position will naturally make you build up anger and bitterness with the people in your life. This resentment can leak out in the form of cutting remarks or scornful quips. Senior executive who is more concerned about profits, might place an unreasonable amount of work on your plate that you do, without complaint seeing how effectively and loyally you complete all kinds of tasks. People start considering you the go to person for all sorts of things. They have no idea you are being exploited and spending nights at the office simply because you don't give off the impression you feel that way. People please exhaust themselves, making life better for others, but don't experience any prosperity of their own. Yeah. 21. Responsible for Other People's Actions: If you have a negative relationship with yourself, blaming beading and seeing divorced in yourself all the time, then you will be desperate to seek from others the acceptance and love you crave but cannot give yourself. You may be more likely to tolerate maltreatment from a partner. You may feel you deserve the verbal or emotional abuse you are enduring. People pleasers can sidestep bad behavior because they have been told that it's the thought that counts. If someone means well, you are duty bound to accept their relationship, but if someone repeatedly treats you badly, lets you down, or abuses you, the thought does not count and only the actions do. The central component in healthy striving relationships is the willingness of each individual to be responsible for personal issues. For instance, if a person has a problem with his temper, it is his job to say, I know this is wrong and I need to learn how to handle my anger appropriately. It would be wrong to assume that others around them must behave a certain way. Before that temper, people pleasers tend to overlook the reality that others are responsible for their own problems. Instead, they tell themselves, I must be the one to act in such a way that other people keep feeling good. I've got to respond in a way that keeps that person from being so angry. They take on the role of problem solver when they do not belong there. It is good and desirable for you to be attentive to the way your choices affect others, but you are not responsible for controlling people's moods. That's their job. 22. Negative Aspects of People-pleasing: In an ideal world, you would expect that your acts of kindness and your attempts to be sensitive would be met with appreciation and be reciprocated in fair measure. Ideally, you could think, I will treat you nice with the calm assurance that you will do the same in reverse. This is no ideal world. People can be unappreciative, argumentative, unwilling to compromise, and manipulative. Not every person is this way, but some are. Only naive People assume that their pleasing behavior will be universally met with right responses. Instead of receiving kind gestures with a spirit of gratitude, some people expect you to continue treating them in a special way. Your people pleasing may actually be irresponsible on your part because it ultimately keeps others bad habits and attitudes in motion and unchecked. For example, at work people know you will cover for their ineptitudes in marriage, your spouse pulls back from being a full partner because you can handle it. All your kids have poor housekeeping habits because they know you will pick up after them. Your friends dodge distasteful tasks because you will do them. Instead, you can maintain your loving and giving nature in a responsible fashion. Sometimes the most loving behavior is not comfortable. It requires limits, and it may cause others to feel frustrated with you. Sometimes loving firmness will be met with resistance, yet you can hold your ground anyway. People pleasers often assume more responsibility for others, emotional reactions than is warranted. For example, a man tells his friend that he cannot support the friend's charity in the fashion he would like. The friend is clearly offended. Then maybe I ought to write him a check so he thinks I'm a good guy. A woman's supervisor puts a pile of work on her desk, giving her an impossible deadline to complete it. When she tells the supervisor that something is going to be left undone so she can do the new task in the allotted time, the supervisor walks away. In a half, the worker is left wondering, am I just not efficient enough? In each of these examples, a person's decisiveness drew a frustrated response from the other individual. The people plezzers assumed they caused the other person's emotional distress. Not considering that the distress was caused instead by factors outside the people pleasers control factors that lie squarely on the shoulders of the other person. It can be unnatural for you to tell someone that you can't do something. It may be awkward, but you can't control how others feel about you. Others won't acknowledge your limits until you first demonstrate that you acknowledge your own limits. You may have to train people to think a little less loftily about your capabilities. 23. Is People-Pleasing Dishonest?: People pleasing is based on the sad belief that you are not enough. Thus, you need to increase your value by catering to people's needs and desires. Duty and compulsion often outweigh free choice in your decision making. You don't willfully choose to do what you do because that is your genuine preference. Responsibility is best pursued when the mind is motivated by free will. While some responsible acts are a drudgery, like cleaning bathrooms or filing expense reports for example. People are at their best when they choose to act right, as opposed to doing so out of sheer obligation. Your emphasis on helping others is good, as long as you are allowed to say no when the request proves to be unfeasible at the time. If you are free of people pleasing, you can give yourself permission to say no When someone else's request interfere with your own legitimate and immediate needs. You distinguish the difference between selfishness and legitimate self preservation. Sometimes people pleasing behavior has a self serving aspect linked to the desire to be in control when you step in to save the day. It's because you want things in order, and doing it yourself may be the best way to get what you want. For example, an overly helpful mom constantly picks up after the rest of the family as opposed to taking the time to give them the instructions to learn how to do things for themselves. An employee goes out of her way to be helpful, then refers to those helpful incidences. During her employee review with the supervisor, a husband does extra chores around the house. His wife can have no ammunition against him when she discovers the mistakes he has made. It is not wrong to seek some control, attempting to maintain reasonable order or structure. But when people try to manipulate others against their will, then it can be wrong to attempt to control people. Pleasers are frequently dishonest about their real feelings or perceptions. Consider the people pleaser who is asked to help on a project that he has no interest in and no time to give to it. When he says, sure, I'll be glad to help. How honest is that? Through the smile on her face and through her helpful acts, she's openly encouraging others to assume that she feels something she does not. Dishonesty is not part of a healthy lifestyle. In growing thriving relationships, traits like openness and full disclosure are present. In any relationships, differences will emerge. Healthy relationships allow for these differences to surface. Appeasing behavior can represent the false notion that goes something like this. If I am really nice, then you will return the favor to me and we will be even. But the people please virtually never comes out. Even in the transaction. We ignore our own needs and work over time for our family and friends. They will see us as valuable people they would never think of rejecting. But the value we feel from this behavior isn't real. It's not something we can depend on over the long haul. You may enjoy seeing the barista from your local cafe, but take away his ability to make coffee and what remains, not much of an incentive to spend time with him. 24. People-Pleasers Are Passive: On the surface we're please to make other people happy. Underneath we're please to get something in return. Sometimes we please to earn the esteem of others, but in doing so, we often push them away. With our desperate need for recognition. No amount of people pleasing can secure us a place in the esteem of others. Only when you stop forcing other people's appreciation can they give it to you voluntarily. Resentment is anger towards others for imposing upon you, and anger towards yourself for accepting the imposition. If you notice you feel resentful, you probably need to reset a boundary with the person you resent. Pleasers can kid themselves that they act out of the goodness of their heart, that they are only too happy to help or have plenty to go around unconsciously. The pleaser may hope that some of their generosity will be repaid. They feel let down when they realize there was no reciprocal arrangement, no words of appreciation, and no award for the employee of the month. If someone asks you to do something and you say yes, but later you tell them you didn't get round to it. This could be an unconscious passive part of you resisting their demand by letting time pass, getting busy with other things, or simply forgetting you didn't actively defy them because that would go against your people pleasing principles. Yet it just turned out that way. It's a last ditch attempt to have some say in a world where none has been afforded to you. We don't want to say no, but we don't have the capacity to mean yes, we fall short and feel like we have failed when we inevitably let people down. We can only hope that it's our intentions by which we are measured and not our actions or our output. We can become manipulative and make pleasing deposits in our relationship accounts in the hope that we will be entitled to make a withdrawal when we need to. We set people up to be there for us in the future by accumulating pleasing credit in advance. It's important to do what you are willing to do freely and without strings attached. Doing something begrudgingly in the hope that it will accrue your credit down the line is a hassle. It's a manipulative way of placing someone in your debt and shoring up your future asks. It might not sit comfortably with you that your pleasing acts aren't entirely selfless. You don't believe you can ask for what you want directly. You scratch their back and hope they will feel obliged to scratch yours. In return, you send a message to get a reply and you help out to feel appreciated, not believing that you would be appreciated or worthy of a reply regardless, and not yet secure to be okay without it. Give yourself this permission. Do it or don't do it. But don't resist. Ask for what you need and be prepared for conflict and compromise. 25. People-pleasing and Negative Feelings: You use your niceness to dodge negative emotions aimed at you from others. As long as you are so nice and always try to do things to please others, why would anyone want to reject or criticize you? Consider a spouse who spends too much time working on their partner's needs and has to shelve their plans and goals to do so. Over time, the spouse might have to deal with a slow burning anger over never being able to do what they really want. After a few months of quiet simmering, it all comes out in an unforeseen rage against their partner. If you cannot express negative feelings, your relationships will simply lose their authenticity. You will come across as a one dimensional cardboard figure rather than a rich, multidimensional human personality full of interesting facets and sights. If your niceness prevents you from telling others what is making you upset or disappointed, or from hearing their complaints, there is little chance of fixing what has gone wrong. Conflict avoidance is not an ingredient of successful relationships. Rather, it is a serious symptom of dysfunctional ones. Negative emotions between people are inevitable and you must learn to deal with them effectively. Niceness is the psychological armor of the people, please. You believe that by being nice, you will be protected from meanness and conflict when you are exposed to a negative experience with another person, which happens inevitably as part of everyone's life. You believe that it is because you weren't nice enough. 26. Anxiety and People Pleasing: Trying hard to be a nice person creates anxiety. You think about others, feelings, your performance, and whether so and so thinks you are good or bad, smart or stupid, beautiful or not. You replay conversations in your head, worrying about losing face or making a fool of yourself. Your mind picks apart all the things you did wrong, all the ways you spoke too much or too little said the wrong thing, or otherwise sucked. What's tricky about the anxiety of people pleasers that it appears to them to be circumstantial. They attribute their anxiety to a seemingly endless stream of circumstances. It seems as though there is always something in their life undermining their security, whether it be finances, career, family, dating, school, et cetera. Their minds will always be able to point to a few things that are making them fret. But they are unlikely to conclude that they have a chronic condition that prevents them from being able to maintain their calm. Their anxiety might spring constantly, unbidden from a source within themselves. Nobody wants to believe that there is something wrong inside of them. People pleasers organize their life around various strategies for relieving their anxiety, hoping to some day get the love that they deeply crave. These strategies are based on the idea that there is something, and especially someone that can give them what they need, but the pain originates from the inside, not outside. They have difficulty turning down unreasonable requests and demands and will choose to do something they will later resent rather than risk conflict. Because of their intolerance of separateness, they will stay too long in relationships that are bad for them. People please, they have to demonstrate their value and goodness over and over again. Even though they may be quite competent in social and professional circles, they continue to feel shaky about themselves, their sense of well being is fleeting. They do not know how to feel at home in the world. They do not know their own opinion. It's not relevant. What they care about is the way in which others esteem them. Despite all their efforts, they cannot seem to figure out how to feel secure. They do not have a very clear idea of who they are. Their sense of self is indistinct at best. 27. The Origins of People pleasing: Our parents have a responsibility to help us function in the world, interact with other children and humans, and set us up to succeed. They want you to be a good, healthy child. They don't want you to be aggressive, impolite, selfish, or mean. Parents typically do the best they can with what they have, but there will always be blind spots. They can't give you what they didn't get themselves from the time you were a kid. You are likely to have been taught that being considerate of others is always more admirable than putting yourself first. You were praised for being generous enough to share that pack of cookies with your sibling or to give that other kid a chance to play on the swing after you have had some time on it. On the other hand, you were admonished every time you refused to share or stand aside for the sake of others. While there are certainly important values ingrained in such teachings and experiences, for example, those of generosity and compassion, they are typically taught with such one sided vigor that you are likely to have developed a distorted belief that you are never allowed to put yourself first. You have grown to believe that you should always serve and put others first instead. To the point that doing things for yourself brings about intense feelings of guilt. The rules of our parents societies won't apply today in the way they did for them. It was their way, not the way we can use this awareness to do things differently. Now we need to sift out the relevant information from our parents beliefs and let go of what is no longer useful. 28. People Pleasing and Childhood: When parents use love as a conditional reward, they set the stage for their children to become people pleasers. When their child's behavior or appearance is pleasing to them, these parents label the child as good and presumably worthy of love. But when the child does not please them, love is withdrawn. The child perceives that love must be earned, and that it depends on being good and on pleasing the parents. If she or he fails to please the parents, love will be no longer given. This can bring on a fear of abandonment. In the mind of a child, there is no meaningful distinction between who he is as a person and what he does in the form of behavior. The child's sense of worthiness as a person becomes enmeshed with the way she behaves. When you are unworthy of love, people leave you alone. You are abandoned, unsafe, and miserable. When children are loved unconditionally, they come to understand the distinction between their value as people and the correctness or incorrectness of their behavior. In an environment of unconditional love, when a child misbehaves the parents, words and actions say, we love you, but we don't like what you did. The implicit contract in unconditional love is that parents promise to love their child simply because he is theirs. Praise and approval are meted out in order to influence the child's behavior. Approval for behavior is separated from the child's worthiness and being deserving of love. Disapproval or criticism does not set off mental alarms, warning of impending abandonment. Making our parents happy with us is a survival instinct. Centuries of evolution have cemented this impulse in us. If we feel disapproved over and over throughout our childhood, we internalize that disapproval as you are not enough and you are inadequate. After all, if the main figures in your life said you were a duck, you would probably believe you were a duck. 29. What Causes People-Pleasing? Secure Attachment: Secure attachment is the emotional foundation for a calm and confident psyche in the growing child. In order for secure attachment to develop, a baby must believe that his or her mother will be there when she is wanted or needed. She will be able to provide what the child needs, offer love enthusiastically and consistently without rejection or withdrawal. She will stay in tune with the child and not be intrusive or demanding. No mother, of course, can do these things perfectly at all times. Even a woman who is ideally suited for motherhood will have her good days and bad days. But research has shown that babies are resilient and will internally compensate for mistakes, lapses, and disappointments. Minor failures in parenting, while frustrating for the child, are essential to his or her development. A securely attached child takes mother's love for granted. He will experiment with being y, demanding and fussy, but does not worry about mother's love. The good enough mother must be able to handle and contain the baby's normal aggression and rejection without withdrawing or retaliating herself. If she cannot reliably do these things, the child becomes anxious and insecure. The driving force behind chronic niceness is anxious attachment. Anxious attachment is caused by the disruption of the bond between parents and their children. The anxiously attached child believes that mother's love is a fragile thing that perpetually hangs in the balance. The People Les, concludes early on that love is going to be a difficult cries to capture. It becomes imperative to figure out how to be lovable. 30. Attaching Emotionally to Others: If we feel secure in attaching emotionally to others, we trust that we will receive love, even if we make a mistake, fail at something, are in a bad mood, or otherwise mess up. However, if our attachment is insecure, we fear that others will leave us at any time. If we say something wrong or do something wrong, they are gone. We deal with this fear by either trying to please and be perfect, so no one will leave us. Or by being aloof and distant. This attachment makes us see relationships as a tight rope. We must move slowly, carefully, methodically. We must plan our every step to keep our balance lest we fall. If you can see that there is no threat in the disapproval of others, you will relax. Being in healthy relationships with others is not at all like walking on a tight rope. You can veer left, right, and all over the place and still stay connected. You are comfortable with being alone and with experiencing your own separateness. The people please simultaneously believes a great love will cure my anxiety and make life worth living. Sooner or later, I will be mistreated, rejected, and abandoned. People pleasers don't know how to reconcile these two beliefs and yet they find it impossible to expunge either of them. If they lean into the dream of a magical romance, they are quickly pierced by the conviction that they are dream guy or girl will eventually be dismissive and punishing. They will habitually sacrifice their time, energy, and self esteem to ensure that they are not alone. If they give and give, they believe there is less of a chance that they will be abandoned. They never really find the security that they seek. But the other person is not the answer to our need, no matter how loving and helpful they might be. 31. Still Pleasing Your Parents?: We all want to please our parents when we are little. It's natural and for a time we enjoy the praise it earns us and the feeling of belonging it affords. Who are not designed to keep pleasing them forever though. Who are designed to outgrow our parents. To separate and start our own families with our own goals and priorities. Some children never grow out of pleasing their parents. As adults, they still seek the approval of their parents or feel resentful when they don't agree with their life choices. They may create the same dynamic with other authority figures throughout their adult lives, always looking to get it right and please the parent figure. In any given situation, the adult child seeks to please the parent by making significant life choices in accordance with the parents explicit or implicit wishes. Your parents may have had perfectionist standards and been demanding, withholding, and sparing in their doling out of approval. This parental style can create the sense that you are never quite good enough or that what you do is not quite up to their standards. You can get hooked on trying to get what has always been and will continue to be just out of reach your parents. Consistent love, living up to others expectations, even those of your parents, alienates you from your own desires and capacity for self fulfillment. Using the criterion of what will make your parents happy as the compass point for directing your life choices is a misguided strategy. Remember, you are living your own life, not theirs. Your parents approval will not overcome your own dissatisfaction. If you are not happy with the school you selected or the career path you are following or the partner you have, red, it's up to you to change it. It's not mandatory that you have your parents approval in order to feel good about yourself and be a happy, fulfilled person. You are not alive to fulfill your parents expectations and needs. You are here to live your own life. Your own children have their own lives to live and are not here to fulfill your expectations or needs. Part of becoming an adult is learning that our parents are not perfect. You will be if you accept your parents as they are, other than try to change them. If your parents don't approve of your life, you don't need to become upset or unhappy. It's more important that you respect and approve of yourself. If your parents didn't give you approval or unconditional love, the healthiest way to heal the wound is to love your own children the way you wish your parents had loved you. You can stop pleasing your parents in the blind hope that one day you will have done enough to hear the words you crave. 32. Over Responsibility (part 1) : Over responsibility makes us feel completely responsible for everyone else's feelings. If refusing to grant a favor causes a friend to feel bad or neglected, you feel that that's on you. You feel answerable for every disheartened expression or disappointed. Look because you believe you had the power to avert that if only you succumbed to what they wanted. Healthy relationships involve a certain degree of give and take. A balance between considering others needs and seeing to it that you don't neglect your own serving others. And wanting happiness for the people in your life are reasonably worthy desires, but not at the expense of your own health and happiness. Intellectually, you may agree that you are not responsible, but emotionally you feel responsible for the feelings of others. You may think this is part of being a good, kind, thoughtful person. There is some truth to that. To have the awareness that your friend is self conscious about the 15 pounds he has gained. And not say you have really let yourself go. You look like a tired, bloated, older man is probably a good thing. Some containment of our immediate thoughts and reactions is valuable in relationships. Sometimes if you are seizing with rage or resentment, it's best to just be quiet for a few minutes in order to calm down. Do not send that text or e mail or storm into the room and start renting at another person. But we can take this too far. We can start to assume that anything that might lead to a negative reaction or uncomfortable emotion in someone else is inherently wrong and a bad thing to do, like disagreeing with someone telling someone we don't like something or are upset, changing the subject during a conversation or speaking up for ourselves and challenging someone in a meeting who are treating others as if they are young children. We cannot manage their own feelings. We start to view others as fragile creatures who couldn't possibly handle any discomfort or upset. We start to view ourselves as extremely powerful demi gods. We can crush the hearts of others with a few simple words. We think to ourselves, I couldn't possibly do that to her. That would break his heart. He would be crushed. She couldn't handle that. 33. Feeling Overly Responsible for Others' Feelings (part 2): When you treat others as fragile as if they can't handle the truth about what you want, how you feel or think you are, perceiving them as victims. Are you responsible for other people's choices such as to drink? Are you responsible for their happiness? Are you responsible for them having a sense of purpose in life and pursuing their goals and dreams? That's a heavy burden to bear in any relationship. People are not victims that require you to take care of them and do it all for them. The best thing you can do for others is to respect their dignity by seeing them as a powerful creator. No matter how they see themselves. They are not small children. They do not need you to handle everything for them and protect them from all pain. As they learn to navigate their feelings, they will grow along their path. You can actually be more supportive and compassionate when you don't buy into their stories and internalize their issues. Giving up responsibility for others feelings doesn't eliminate compassion or empathy for the people around us. We can still be strongly moved by the joys and sorrows of the people in our lives. It just helps distinguish between being moved by another's suffering and taking that suffering on as your own. Seeing the pain and desiring to help alleviate it is compassion. Feeling the pain and becoming angry, sad, or upset yourself is a sign of taking on something that's not yours. The key to shifting out of over responsibility is catching the habitual pattern in the moment and changing it. Notice when you are uncomfortable with someone having unpleasant feelings, pay attention to your feelings. When you see your colleague is upset, there is something going on with her and those are her feelings to deal with, not yours. You are not responsible for your boss's feelings, your client's feelings, your friend's feelings, your mom or dad's feelings, anyone's feelings. They can work through disappointment, hurt, anger, and upset. In fact, doing so will make them stronger and healthier In the long run, you cannot stop others from feeling all discomfort or all pain. It is an impossible task. When who are trying to be nice and be a good person who everyone likes, we end up becoming way more self absorbed. We don't approach the person who is struggling in an effective or helpful way. We either avoid them because we are scared or we try to hastily fix their feelings because we can't tolerate they are upset. But when we let all this go, we end up being way more attentive, focused on others, loving and helpful. We end up being better people by letting go of trying to be better people. 34. Avoiding Conflicts: While conflict and disagreement don't feel good, they are part of having direct contact with humans. Direct contact means you show up fully, are present with others, look them in, die, listen to them, share what you think and feel and have a real connection. It's the opposite of avoidance, and displaying just a small fraction of yourself that you hope will receive their approval. If you want to experience a rich, fulfilling, and meaningful life, direct contact is required. You must step up and claim your right to be here. You must be willing to feel the full spectrum of human emotion and contact. It also involves disagreement, having hard conversations, navigating conflict, and hurt feelings. Close relationships inevitably include discomfort. It's impossible to not have moments of disappointment, hurt, and conflict. When we believe a relationship should only involve happy loving feelings, we avoid all topics and conversations that are uncomfortable. This keeps relationships superficial. We keep everyone at a safe distance. While this might avoid the discomfort of going into messy feelings and conversations, we also miss out on the deep joy, happiness and fulfilment that can come from fully connecting with other people. We end up feeling deeply alone inside. In spite of loving people all around us, it's not that smiling, laughing, choosing not to share your opinion or apologizing are weak things that only a timid loser would do. Each of these is an important part of connecting with others and necessary at times. The difference is when and how we do them. If they become habitual, excessive, and compulsive from a fear of conflict or a need for approval, then they backfire as social connectors. They reduce our confidence and push others away. 35. Facing Conflict and Confrontation: When you force yourself to stay in the conflict situation and fully experience the range of emotions you feel in that moment, be it discomfort, anxiety, or fear. You will come to find those difficult emotions easier and easier to tolerate and accept. You can only manage conflict successfully if you have reached a point where you are comfortable enough to stay with the difficult emotions it may elicit. When you stop evading conflicts, you will find that things are not as bad as you thought they were. Fears and anxieties slowly die down through the realization that negative consequences won't follow. Taking a long time to remember the pass code for your credit card as the line of customers waiting to pay lengthens will cause you to feel anxious, embarrassed, and tense. But as you continue to stay with those feelings and refuse to buckle to the pressure of moving along already, you soon discover that no matter how many pairs of eyes keep piercing at you, the world will not end and you will not die. By virtue of that, the most that can happen is that someone will tell you to hurry up, and that's about it. You can say no, express disagreement, and speak up against wrongful treatment without it being the end of life. As you know it from such experiences, you learn that you can stay in a conflict situation and survive it as you gradually expose yourself to more and more challenging scenarios. You also build a higher tolerance for the discomfort that comes with facing conflict and confrontation. Consciously piece your breathing to be deeper and slower. Taking five counts for inhaling through your nose, and another five counts for exhaling through your pursed mouth. Deliberately relaxing your breathing will clash with the anxiety symptoms. Conflict and confrontation aren't as bad as you have. Let yourself believe them to be saying no to a friend's invitation to a party. Want to lead to the catastrophic demise of your relationship? Or diminish your friend's goodwill for you. Telling a salesperson you don't want to subscribe to what they are offering won't kill you. You can confront people or even create conflict, yet you can still get through the situation unscathed. You will likely never be free of that feeling of uncomfortable tension you will experience directly after telling someone no. But it becomes easier and easier. With more practice, you must accept and grow more comfortable with confrontation. 36. Dealing with Anger and Sadness: Are you easily intimidated by another person's display of anger or hostility? Are you quick to apologize to another person just to end a fight, whether you are to blame or not. Do you believe that it's best just to smile and cover up angry feelings than to express them and risk getting into a fight? You believe that by being compliant, nice, and submissive to others, you could effectively deter conflict, deflect others anger, suppress your own anger, and avert confrontation. You have never given yourself a chance to learn effective ways to handle these difficult emotions. You will never learn to fight fairly and effectively if you run at the slightest hint of conflict. Anger is a negative emotion for many people because it feels unpleasant and is often difficult to express appropriately. But anger is a natural normal and under appropriate circumstances, even a useful emotion. Chronic suppression of anger may be as damaging to health as explosive rage. People pleasers can't bear to feel sadness in themselves, but sadness is also inevitable. We will lose and we will be let down. And we will grief because nothing lasts forever. Wherever we start will end when someone we love dies or something we love, Ends are designed to feel the impact. It's the impact that tells us it mattered. It's the feeling that motivates us to look for new meaning in life and shows us what to seek going forwards. If you are sad, forcing yourself not to feel it doesn't make it go away. We need to learn that it's okay to be sad and that the feeling will pass if we let it. If we don't, the sadness can't pass and can force us down. Unhealthy ways of distraction and deflection. Sad is a natural healing process for coming to terms with the chaos of the world and the highs and lows of life and loss. People pleasing parents may want their children to only feel happy, but children will grow up happier overall if we teach them, they can also survive feeling sad if their friend leaves them out of a game. It's appropriate for them to feel sad if they cry when their birthday party ends, that makes sense. If they fail an exam or get dumped or a beloved pet dies, we need to make space for their tears. Seeing our children sad can be agonizing. And we will need to make space for our own tears too, because it hurts to watch them struggle. We might need someone else's shoulder to cry on at these times, so that we can be there for our children when they need to cry on ours. We need to let our children see us cry too, because feeling sad is a normal part of life. 37. Fear of Hurting Others: People, please tend to withhold the truth. In fact, you may have concluded that being honest is bad, it hurts others, and it's better to keep that inside and be nice. If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. The truth is, people are not fragile. They are strong, powerful, and resilient. Most of us can endure so much more than we realize. People are not porcelain dolls that will shatter if you speak the truth. People are strong and can handle life when you treat them that way. You are treating them with the respect and dignity they deserve. It's also important to remember that upset is temporary. When you bring up a challenging topic, ask a difficult question or share something directly, the other person is going to have feelings. That's okay, that's normal. We need to stop seeing feelings as bad, scary things that shouldn't occur. The person you are speaking with is only upset. Now in this moment, time passes and feelings shift. Nothing is permanent. The upset is in service of creating a richer relationship, a deeper connection. Maybe someone does get upset and then withdraws and turns it into a permanent grudge or hatred of you. That person has a strong need to feel certain and significant by making others bad and wrong. That is not someone you want in your life. Truth is not bad. Honesty is what connects us with others and creates deep, healthy relationships in our personal and professional lives. If there is a consistent pattern of withholding the truth, people begin to drift apart. They may stay in the situation because they feel obligated to, but they don't feel connected, engaged, and fully alive. They won't thrive. People crave real connection and authentic communication. 38. Speaking Up: When you speak up about something, you can get a sense of closure. If you don't, your mind has an unresolved, unexpressed energy that drives you nuts. It can create pent up feelings, resentment, and endless rumination about the situation. But speaking up in the moment or soon afterwards can dissipate all of that, even if you don't reach a perfect resolution and solve everything immediately. Speaking up is about self expression. The more you express yourself, the less bothered you will be afterwards. People pleasing makes you keep quiet and hold back. You can be pleasing in the moment, but you will ruminate about conversations for days feeling more and more wound up. If you are really bothered after an interaction and it lasts for more than a few minutes, that's a sign of suppression. It means you held yourself back, played nice and didn't speak your mind. Sometimes we don't speak up because we silently hope that people will know what we want and give it to us. We have internal hopes and silent agreements such as, if I'm nice enough to you, then you will give me what I want without me having to ask for it. If I give you attention when you want it, then you will give me the same when I want it. I won't say I want attention, I will just imply it and you will pick up on the hint and give it to me. Instead of mentally grinding away for hours on how to say something or the best way to say it, you simply share more in the moment you put your perspective out there. Disagree with others and offer your opinions because you know that if they get upset, it's temporary. They are not fragile and they are not a victim. Speaking the truth as you see it is healthy for the relationship and brings energy and vitality. Speaking up in itself is good regardless of the outcome. 39. Are You an Approval Seeker?: If you are addicted to approval, you often wait for the right thing to say. Thus speak way less than you normally Do You have difficulty ending things from conversations to friendships, to romantic relationships. You feel pressure to have something great to share, such as a funny or highly engaging story about an adventure you have had. During an interaction, you experience self consciousness and doubt about how you are coming across. Afterwards, you replay the interaction in your mind and find all the things you did wrong, ways you may have upset the other person and things you should have said. You demonstrate submissive body language, such as looking away frequently or keeping your eyes down. You often question your desires and think they might be either too much or not worth asking for you. Try to fit into groups by pretending to be interested in things you are not or exaggerating about your experiences, wealth, or achievements. All submission to pure pressure is approval seeking. For most people, this pattern is not fully conscious. They aren't walking into a meeting thinking, I sure hope everyone in there approves of me. I will make sure I hesitate. Only say witty and intelligent things and agree with everything. I avoid their disapproval. Instead, you just might feel anxious before the meeting. You hope it goes well, and you get whatever outcome it is you want to be hired to get the sale. You want people in that meeting to like you and to accept your ideas. That's what creates the nervousness. This is what an approval seeker wants. No one has a negative thought or judgment about me. This includes my appearance, my attire, my job and income, the way I speak or move, my actions or choices. No one furrows their brow, curls their lip, or has any other physical sign of judging or disliking me. Only positive or neutral facial expressions must come my way. These are perfectly reasonable goals until our next interaction with a human being. 40. The Need for Approval: Everyone has internal approval seeker. This is the part of us that wants people to like us, hates conflict. Wants everything to be smooth and for everyone to get along. If you are with a group of people you don't know that well, you will do things to avoid disapproval first. This might include speaking when spoken to smiling and nodding. Being polite and agreeable. You have this strong need to avoid all negative thoughts and feelings from others. It becomes even worse if the person you are talking to is beautiful, powerful, or successful. Their disapproval is even more important to avoid because their perception means more to you than yours does. After all, they are a better person because they are skinny, or muscular, or rich, et cetera. You try to appear very intelligent or highly knowledgeable about a particular subject. Maybe you play up experiences you have had, exaggerating a bit. Others see you as exciting or cool. Maybe you name drop, or tell a certain story again and again because it makes you look important. It may appear in certain situations at work when you have to deal with people you find intimidating or powerful. It might show up in your dating life when you meet someone beautiful or handsome. These behaviors make you a self conscious, neurotic mess, pull you away from your authentic self and drain you of social power. They create a chronic unease. You can't relax, let go, enjoy your relationships, and be in the moment. Being overly agreeable, feeling anxious about entertaining others can create limited tense experiences. They can make people want to talk to you less. And even determine the difference between being hired or being passed over during a job interview. People pleasers never challenge other people's viewpoints and just go with their flow to avoid disruption. After all, any disagreement is an opportunity for rejection. Things we need or want become insignificant to whatever everybody else wants. We believe that love is conditional, only given to us if we meet all of someone's demands and behave as they want. If we please someone over and over again, we figure they would love and accept us for all that we do for them. It is an understandable impulse, but it's also imbalanced. And stressful criticism is very upsetting because of the inflated significance you attach to it to approval addicts criticism is always highly personal. People cannot clearly distinguish who they are from what they do. They are essence as a person and they are behavior. When your actions or work products are criticized, you respond emotionally as though your verse as a human being has been entirely invalidated and devalued. It is no wonder that you become defensive in response to any critical remarks directed your way. It's not that you should completely eliminate this desire for approval from your life. That's an extreme demand and probably impossible to do. Instead, notice where the urge for approval is strongest. For example, when you interact with someone whom you admire, who is highly successful or famous, and do so with curiosity. You need to become aware if this habit of approval seeking is unconscious and you aren't aware of when you are doing it, then it will be difficult to break free. 41. How Do We Get Hooked on Approval?: You may not be worthy of love as you are. But maybe there is a way for you to win that love by always trying to be more to give, more to serve more. You have never believed that people can like you, for you. And you end up feeling the need to stretch yourself by serving others in order to gain approval. Nobody gets approval all of the time. That is precisely what makes it so addictive. Your addiction to approval is fed by the fix you receive from periodic expressions of appreciation, gratitude, or affection from others. The reality of life is that a great deal of the things you do for others goes unacknowledged or unappreciated. Because approval is handed out only some of the time. You will want to broaden the base of people whom you seek to please. It is as if you have decided to play four slot machines simultaneously. It seems that by doing nice things for more and more people, your chances of getting more appreciation are increased. But as the circle widens, the pressure to please increases until we remain mired in a quick sand of other people's needs depleted, exhausted, and even resentful. It is impossible to get everyone's approval all of the time. You might as well just stop knocking yourself out trying to do the impossible. You cannot make someone else love you or want to spend time with you, no matter what you do or offer. Trying to make everyone like you will only deepen your sense of inadequacy. Some people may never like or approve of you simply because of their own problems, not because of who you are or what you do. Having others approval may make you feel good, especially if the others are people you like and respect. But you don't need the approval of others to validate your worth as a human being. The most important source of approval is the acceptance you give to yourself. Develop a clear sense of your own judgments and values and govern yourself accordingly. Exercise choice in the place of compulsive habits. Be intentional about what you do and why you are doing it. 42. Putting Others First: Are these statements true for you? I am likely to take the perspective of other people than to consider my own. It is much better to give than to receive. It is extremely difficult for me to ask others for help. At times, I feel taken for granted and disappointed that others aren't there for me when I need help. If you seek to solve every problem you are presented with, problems will inevitably land on your lab. That's the value you believe you bring and what people will come to you looking for. The more you demonstrate that you can do, the more others expect you to do. But just because you are good at it doesn't mean you should do it. Some equate pleasing people with kindness and being good. Conversely, they equate saying no and self assertion with harshness and being bad. So when you do upset or displease someone by prioritizing yourself, you feel immense guilt, and you take it as a sign that you have violated some significant moral code. When you constantly give of yourself to friends and family and do not permit others to give back to you in return, you actually are being manipulative and rejecting, whether you intend to be or not. Making yourself a martyr is no way to make friends. In fact, it is difficult to like the self appointed holier than thou St.. By maintaining a stubborn posture as a giver who refuses to receive anything in return. You deny others the pleasure and good feelings to which they are also entitled by giving back to you. When you give too extravagantly and remain unwilling to receive anything in return, Your motives become suspect. Your intention may be read as an outright attempt to buy the friendship of another. People pleasers who give to the point of utter selflessness can make others feel embarrassed and uncomfortable. When you do favors and kind acts for other people, but refuse to allow others to give back to you in return, you create the ill effects of making others indebted or obligated to you. While you may be operating out of the best of intentions, others may feel resentful and angry because you have manipulated them into a position with which they are uncomfortable. Most people pleasers think in highly polarized terms about taking care of themselves. The two alternatives appear to be either that you can be utterly selfless, always putting other people's needs before your own, or you can be completely selfish, always putting your needs first. There is a third alternative that will best serve everyone, and that is for you to operate in a state of enlightened self interest. This means you will take good care of yourself, even putting your needs first at times while simultaneously considering the needs and welfare of others. It is entirely possible to care about others and to look after yourself. You may choose to be a martyr and sacrifice your own needs on the altar of those of your family and friends. But in doing so, you are not demonstrating that you are unselfish, but merely self destructive. Your desires and ideas are just as important as anyone else's. To you, they can be even more important. 43. Feeling Discomfort When Prioritizing Yourself: Being nice, pleasing and polite is comfortable. Speaking up, being direct, having conflict, expressing what you really want, saying, no, all of these can be quite uncomfortable. We shouldn't want so much, and other people's needs are more important than our own. Even if we do master the will to ask and the other person says, yes, we feel uneasy, wondering if they secretly resent us. We have a hard time accepting what they are giving us. This can lead to apologizing or overthaning, neither of which makes anyone feel good. In general, giving more than we take in life, is a pattern that creates wealth, great relationships, and happiness. But giving does not mean only giving and never receiving. That turns an ideal into an extreme. If we only give and never get our needs met, we will soon feel burned out and resentful. The most effective way to meet our needs is to ask directly for what we want. When we hold back, we feel less alive and less engaged. Life loses its color, excitement and promise. It becomes repetitive, boring and confining. Whenever you leave an interaction of any sort, be it in business or your personal life. Notice how you feel. If you feel drained down, fed up, frustrated, or otherwise upset, most likely you held back. You didn't say what you wanted to say, ask what you wanted to ask and act how you wanted to act. Someone being upset with us is just a trigger for a series of uncomfortable feelings in our body. If you can manage those uncomfortable feelings, you are fine. You may feel discomfort in two forms. First, expressing the real and dealing with the uncomfortable feelings that arise as you do so, or stuffing the real and dealing with different kinds of uncomfortable feelings. The first kind of discomfort is temporary, and when you do it consistently, leads to greater and greater levels of power, ease and freedom. The second kind of discomfort on the other hand, only compounds. The feelings don't discharge, and suffering continues to mount. There is no end to this kind of pain unless you choose to switch over to the first kind of discomfort. 44. Handling Upset in Others: There are two elements to disarming someone who is upset, empathy and agreeing with them. It actually allows you to connect with them without taking responsibility for their feelings. Saying things you don't mean or letting them walk all over you, just to make the problem go away. When someone is upset, they want to be heard. They want to be seen, acknowledged, and validated. They don't want to be ignored, argued with, told they are stupid or wrong. Unfortunately, out of fear of conflict, this is often exactly what we do. Disarming involves finding the grain of truth in what they are saying. We acknowledge that they are feeling that way. Just a simple reflection of what they must be feeling like, described with empathy and love. If you feel guilt and pain every time you act in your own healthy self interest, it will be impossible to not defend yourself. Because on some level, you feel shame as if you have done something wrong. The most powerful way to handle any upset or criticism is simply to accept a piece of it as true. Find something to agree with in what they are saying. This is often the last thing we want to do because when someone is upset, they might be stating that we are hurtful or selfish. And yet, if we can agree with some aspect of the criticism without agreeing that we are a bad person, we neutralize the conflict. We acknowledge that we are human and let go of the need to be perfect. As humans, sometimes we say the wrong thing are insensitive. Focus too much on ourselves, Harbor angry or resentful thoughts, and so much more. It's a huge relief when we can stop pretending that none of that is happening. For example, you hear a criticism. You don't really care about helping people. You are greedy and just want to take their money. You can say. It's true. Sometimes I don't care about helping people. Sometimes I'm focused on myself and don't really think about all the people in the world who are suffering in different ways and need help. Your impulse is to defend yourself, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. But if we can embrace the acceptance paradox and not need to clarify, justify or make ourselves look better immediately, we gain a tremendous freedom. Criticism only gets in when your inner critic has already paved the way. You can argue with and defend yourself against your critic all day. But if you simply accept the grain of truth without taking on the implication that you are bad, you can feel a deep sense of freedom and relief. 45. Is Putting Yourself First Selfish?: Wanting to be a good person is not a dishonorable desire, but the idea that you can't assert yourself and at the same time, be a good person is a skewed notion. The idea that being selfless all the time necessarily makes you a good person is also a distorted view. Selflessness noble as it may appear can become a vice if you use it not out of genuine concern for others, but out of a need to project an image people can admire. A good kind of selfishness is centering upon yourself in order to maintain your health and replenish your energy before you give to others. As a child, you may have been guilty into giving up your favorite toy for someone else by being told how sad you are making the other kid feel or being labeled a bad child. From this, you learn that putting yourself first should make you feel guilty. Being selfish is about being attuned to your own needs, valuing yourself enough to honor them. Instead of being quick to wave them aside in the name of pleasing others. It's all right to want to serve others and to nurture the relationships in your life by being there for people when they need you. But in everything, moderation is key. Being selfish is necessary because you are the only one can truly take care of you. Others may be able to remind you to eat well or even serve you food or urge you to exercise or take you to the doctor when you are not feeling well. But these are all external actions. It's only you who can consume that healthy plate of food for your body. Gather up the self discipline to consistently exercise and pick up on your bodily signals that say when you need to go see a doctor. No one will care like you because they simply aren't you and affected in a tangible way. We would like to think that our parents or siblings will come through for us when we need it and they might, but they still won't be able to devote all of their time and effort to you. Only you can do those for yourself. Being selfish does not equate to disregarding everyone else. Just because you missed your friend's party doesn't mean you have turned your back on her forever. Rejecting the invite is not the same as rejecting your friend. The people who truly love and accept you will not reject you or withdraw their affection just because you refuse their request or asserted yourself. Give yourself permission to refuse others, and a few social commitments here and there. If that's what you need to recharge your personal batteries. The world doesn't operate in black and white, and you consequently can't view selfishness as 100% negative. The wrong way to be selfish means being driven by egotism and looking only to use others for personal gain. We just want to take care of ourselves and without necessarily inflicting harm on others. 46. Being People-pleased: Have you ever been on the opposite side of the pleasing dynamic? Perhaps you meet someone socially or at work, and you can instantly tell they like you and are impressed by you. They want you to like them. They are engaged, energetic, and a little too much? They laugh too hard at what you say. They agree too quickly and they smile too much. How does this feel when it's happening? Usually, it's unpleasant. While there is an appreciation or admiration present, there is also a lack of authenticity. It's hard to really trust that person because they are not showing who they really are, and there is the palpable sense that they want something from you. People pleasers need their recipient to react positively to get the sense of acceptance and reassurance they crave. This creates an imbalance that is not conductive to an adult relationship. The recipient of the people pleasing may not want to hold all the power, but he or she is landed with the responsibility for it regardless. People pleasing can be irritating. At first, it's disrespectful and duplicitous. If we use it to maneuver the other person into a position we feel comfortable with. Your boss doesn't want you to please her. She wants you to add something of value that benefits her, the customers, and the company. The executive team doesn't want you to agree with everything and smile. They want you to share your expertise to help them make the best decisions possible. When we serve someone, we ask questions, share our input and try to do whatever is best to help the situation. We can disagree if we think that serves the person. We say what needs to be said, even if it's uncomfortable. 47. Being More Selfish: As a people pleaser, you have a problem with your priorities. When our needs and wants are habitually placed as last priority, you are going to suffer. If we give too much and feel like we do not have a choice about the giving, we will feel resentment. It may start small at first with a hint of disappointment when someone seems to take the meal you prepared for granted. It's the minor irritation you feel with your children as they take forever to get ready in the morning. It's the slight sense of emptiness and dissatisfaction you feel as you fall asleep at the end of a long workday. All of these pressures to be nice and do the right thing. Eliminate a sense of autonomy, freedom, and choice. You have given up your sovereignty. If you own your anger and speak up for yourself, then you can speak about this challenge directly and work through it quickly in your relationships. If you do not, then it will manifest as passive aggressive behaviors, distancing or withdrawing from the other person, secretly judging them, being irritable, internally blaming them, or annoyed by minor things, such as how they breathe pro danos. Healthy self interest means you are frequently looking inwards to discover what you want first. You are considering that before you factor in others needs and wants. This allows you to get clear on what will help you strive. You can say no, even if someone is upset about it. You are responsible for meeting your own needs. This means being able to uncover what you want and need in a situation. If you want attention, you decide how you can skillfully ask for it and receive it. It's time to stop secretly hoping that if we are nice enough and good enough, our needs will magically be met that others will be perceptive and check in with us. You don't have to do everything that someone wants you to do. If you say no, then it's their responsibility to find a different way. Okay. 48. Hurting Someone’s Feelings : Isn't it bad to hurt people? When you tell your boyfriend, you don't want to be with him anymore. That's hurting him. Or if you change the subject when someone's talking, that's hurting their feelings. They will feel dismissed and ignored. They will think you are not interested, which you are not, and that they are not an interesting enough person. The reality is that life is full of pain. Physical and emotional pain cannot be avoided, no matter how hard you try. No matter what you do, people around you are going to feel hurt, and much of the time, it has nothing to do with what you did or didn't do. It's all about the other person's ideas, beliefs, rules, and past wounds. If someone says, I am a terrible cook. Is that your responsibility? Are you somehow to fix that person's distorted beliefs? Should you ask for seconds at every meal served to you from now on, just to be safe? If you break up with your girlfriend, she will feel great pain, but that is not your job to prevent. You can't prevent all pain in her or even in yourself. Your job is to get clear on what you truly want and to communicate this with directness, compassion and love. In fact, the more direct, the better if you dilute your message and imply that you are unhappy, but maybe you can work it out. She now has false hope that drags out the pain even longer. People will feel disappointment and pain around you. Your beloved spouse and innocent children will feel hurt too. It's just the way of things on this planet. This kind of pain, however, is very different from intentional harm. Harm is when someone is feeling pain or anger themselves and decides to act on an impulse to intentionally cause pain in another. Obvious examples of this are physical violence, verbally attacking someone's character or abuse. These are forms of harm and are signals for you to leave the situation. Every day examples of harming others include saying that a biding and critical comment, even though you know it's not true, but you just want to get back at someone. It's losing it and yelling at your kid for doing something small that you know isn't a big deal. These are things that we all might do from time to time and are indications that we are still growing, healing, and evolving ourselves. They are reminders to continue developing patients, non reactivity, and our capacity to love more unconditionally. In short, if you harm someone, do more inner work. If someone around you feels hurt when you clarify what you want and speak your truth, that is a sign for them to do their inner work. 49. Responsibility for Other People’s Feelings: When you become more selfish, it can be messy. There will be feelings. People around may feel upset, angry, or hurt. You may feel guilty and bad about yourself. Human relationships are inherently messy. People have all kinds of feelings. These are not signs that you are doing something wrong. You are doing exactly what you need to do. And other people will have feelings about it. You are not responsible to feel all their feelings for them. You are responsible for you and your feelings. People are not fragile, broken creatures. They are strong and powerful, and they can handle it. Just because the other person feels pain or you feel discomfort, does not mean something has gone wrong. It does not even mean you should change your mind and do whatever you need to in order to smooth things over. Stay the course. Set your sides for healthy self interest. Dismiss a guilty thought or impulse to take responsibility for others. You might think that trying to make other people happy somehow makes you a better person, but it doesn't. Sacrificing your happiness and health to make other people happy is not noble. When you give attention to someone who is constantly feeling sorry for themselves, you are training them to feel sorry for themselves. You are also training them to need you. You get your sense of self from helping those who don't need your help. You have no idea who you are, but you know that other people need you. That's what you tell yourself at least. Stop taking responsibility for other people's emotions and happiness. Everyone is responsible for their own feelings. You do not need to be someone's emotional guardian, especially if it is harmful to you. 50. Feeling Guilty?: What if someone wants to talk with you and you don't want to talk with them. What if someone is prattling on with their tenth story about their car engine upgrade, and you aren't in the least bit interested. What if someone asks you to go out with you and you don't want to? What if someone bothers, annoys irritates, or ****** you off. You stuff these impulses way down into your belly and force yourself to be patient, to be flexible, to just go with the flow? So you talk to that person who is annoying. You even pretend to be really excited to see them. You endure conversations that don't interest you and you end up dating someone weeks months or years longer than you should. Guilt and fear make you do all these things. To be kind, compassionate and aware of others is good. If someone is able to harm others without feeling discomfort or remorse, that's part of the diagnostic criteria for being a sociopath. Healthy guilt is a feeling of regret for doing something that you would rather have not done. When you are tired or hungry or self absorbed, we may say or do something that we don't really mean. Healthy guilt comes from your true values and keeps you on track. Destructive guilt comes from faulty rules that you don't really agree with, but accept it when you were young. Healthy guilt is a feeling that arises when you have broken a rule that you actually do value and aspire to live by. This guilt is guiding you to get on track and be the kind of person you want to be in the world. It's a positive force for change. Unhealthy guilt is a form of punishment and self attack. We believe we must be punished for our sins. If we punish ourselves enough and suffer sufficiently for our badness, then we will have atoned for our transgression. This is a distorted form of logic and does not positively influence behavior. Even unhealthy guilt can go wrong. If you break a rule that you actually aspire to, and you treat yourself with anger, harsh judgment, or self hate, then you will miss the true message. You will miss the gift in the guilt. The truth is, you cannot beat yourself into being a better person. Attacking, judging, punishing and criticizing yourself will not lead to improvement. There is a difference between being accountable for your actions and wallowing in excessive self blame. While taking responsibility is a mature and commendable act. Un Duly blaming yourself for every bad thing that happens is simply counterproductive. When you refuse your sister's request to babysit for her, you may start to feel guilty when she begins to talk about how much trouble it would be for her to find a babysitter. You think that it's definitely your fault. She would have to go through all that trouble if you decline. We can acknowledge that our choice is disappointing to someone else, but it's not up to us what they do with that disappointment. What matters is your agenda. Families can't be held together by a perfect Christmas Day. Any more than a marriage can be built on Valentine's cards to demand that you spend time with someone in the way they deem right for their reasons or according to their traditions, isn't love, and it's not deserving of your energy. 51. Empathy vs. People-pleasing: Empathy is defined as the ability to experience the emotions and perceptions of others. To understand others' perspectives, you are stepping away from your own point of view for the purpose of being more fully attuned to the thoughts and feelings of others. Just as you learn to feel understood, so does the other person. But being caught up in what others feel and basing your decisions on that is not empathy. This is how your dependent state of mind keeps you from moving forward. Just because you are highly affected by emotionally charged circumstances, doesn't mean you are being empathetic. For example, overlooking character flaws as you befriend someone. Playing risk your role when that person really needs to be independently responsible. When someone tells you about a day's difficult schedule, you respond with this must have been one of those days when everything went haywire. I'll bet you had your share of aggravations. In this scene, you show concern for that person's stress, but you are not required to somehow make all those aggravations go away. When a co worker is unusually upbeat after hanging up the phone, you might comment. Looks like that problem you were worried about is going to be handled after all. What a load off your shoulders that must be. Once you express your delight, you can move on without having to appear as a cheerleader for that person. If a friend becomes said as she tells you about a very disappointing experience, you are ready to listen, but you are not signing up to become the chairman of that person's fixed committee. When your child gripes because he can't keep the weekend plans he wants, you say, I know you are frustrated when things don't go as you hoped. It's a big disappointment. Even as you express an understanding of the child's disappointment, you can still hold calmly to the stipulations that are part of the family's discipline. Empathy is shown when you can communicate that you are aware of what others are experiencing. Empathy does not mean that you necessarily agree with what the other person feels, nor does it require a softness in you that becomes an invitation to be overwhelmed. It simply means that you have a discernment about the other person's state of mind. 52. Being Less Nice: Shedding niceness is not about making you a self centered jerk who just takes whatever you can get from others. This is the common misconception about recovering from people pleasing, that you will automatically just flip to being some sort of terrible sociopath who hurts others. Sdding your excessive niceness and being more authentic creates clearer communications. You may feel an intense discomfort after being less nice in a situation. This can arise as guilt for what you said or did. What did they think of me for speaking up like that? He thinks I'm an idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about. This can lead to endless rumination and replaying of scenes again and again in your mind. Most people think this backlash is the voice of their conscience, the voice of reason. Is it really good to speak my mind like that? Is it really okay to ask what I want? Look at how much I am hurting her when I tell her what's bothering me. Look at how crushed he is. After I told him, I didn't want to date him anymore. You are no longer certain that it's okay to not be nice. Your nice person programming sneakily regains control, and you fall back into the cage. More unsure of yourself than ever. But if you can stick with it and work through the discomfort or the backlash, this is the way out. This is your path to reclaim yourself, the real you who has been lost the layers of niceness, fear, and messages about who you should be. You have the right to say no to anything you don't want to do without needing to justify it or give an excuse. You have the right to ask what you want. You have the right to offer anything to anyone, any number of times and they have the right to say no. You have the right to change your mind. You do not always need to be logical and consistent. You have the right to ask questions whenever you would like to know something. You have the right to disagree with others, even if they know more about the subject than you do. You have the right to share your perspective, even if someone might disagree or be uncomfortable. You have the right to make mistakes, mess up, or otherwise not be perfect. You do not have to anticipate others' needs and wishes. If they have them, they can express them. You have the right to feel angry at those you love and to express it in a responsible manner. The opposite of nice is not to be mean, cruel, or careless. The opposite of nice is power, boldness and authenticity. Othenticity is your ability to be you to look inward and know who you are, what you perceive, what you think and feel. It is all about speaking up for yourself and prioritizing yourself instead of always putting others first. Without people pleasing habits, you support others when possible, while knowing that each person is fully responsible for their own feelings. You honestly express your true self, even though it sometimes leads to painful feelings. You freely speak your mind without the need to convince others or make them wrong. You vulnerably express your wishes and desires. You know yourself better than others, and easily brush off negative comments. 53. The Opposite of People Pleasing Behavior: The opposite of ice is not insulting others, saying a bigoted or highly antagonizing things, bullying or attacking people's characters. It's not telling others to shut up, intimidating them, or pushing your little old grandma over in the kitchen. The opposite of being a people pleaser is being real, being direct and honest. It's saying what you really think, expressing how you really feel and sharing what's true for you in that moment. This authenticity allows others to see and know the real you. Not being nice means speaking up and asserting yourself, your opinions, ideas, and desires. It's challenging others when you disagree. Standing behind your convictions and being willing to have difficult conversations. You do this because you want full contact with life and other humans, instead of hiding who you are behind a polite wall of fear. When you do have conflict or disagreement, and you inevitably will, if you are being not nice, then you are as vulnerable, skillful and compassionate as you can be in your communications. The opposite of nice is knowing who you are, what you believe in, and what you value. It's you going after what you want because you are not held back by the fear of what others will think of you. You are still kind, caring, attentive, generous, and loving. You still do things for other people. Stretch yourself to give, even if it's hard, but you are not doing that to please others. You can choose to say yes, and you can choose to say no. You can hold back and keep quiet, or you can ask a tough question that challenges someone. If someone close to you is doing something that annoys you, you can bring it up and talk about it. When you really want something and the first response you get is a no, you ask questions and see if the other person is open to changing their mind. You are completely free to choose exactly how you want to be in this moment, based on what feels right to you. You no longer avoid walk on eggshells, tiptoe around or do the dance. You are you, the real you, and it feels good. This is the opposite of being a nice person. Okay. 54. The Alternative to People Pleasing: The alternative to people pleasing is not caring less. It is caring more genuinely, more fairly, more appropriately for yourself and for others. Caring enough to acknowledge that we cannot truly say yes unless we can also say no. Saying yes is meaningless if no was never really an option. You need to get better at being disliked. It will equip you to recover instead of fearing failure. It will teach you how to accept judgment instead of avoiding it. Being less likable is survivable. Any relationship that couldn't withstand a conversation about your needs and feelings wasn't stable to begin with. People's reactions to us are more of a reflection of the relationship they have with themselves than a legitimate judgment of us. We can tune into our feelings and notice that if we feel resentful, that's our cue to set a boundary with the person who resent. Prepare yourself for loss. There will be those who don't want you to stop pleasing. But when they tell you that you have changed, you will know that what they are really saying is I don't like that you are no longer doing it my way. The approval seeker wants to be liked by everyone. The authentic doesn't need to control anyone's perception. You focus on showing up as 100% yourself, knowing that you only need to find your people, not everyone. The people pleaser sees others as better, and their opinions as mattering more. The authentic knows that your thoughts, feelings, and opinions are worth sharing, simply because they come from you. You know that looks, wealth or any other external marker does not increase someone's inherent worth as a human. The people please cannot tolerate being disliked. The authentic gives complete permission for others to think whatever they would like, and loves that diversity of human experience. You know that the only criticisms that bother you are the ones you agree with. The approval seeker worries constantly if it was good enough. The authentic gives whatever you have at this very moment. You focus on being curious, sharing, connecting and enjoying yourself. You know that the world is a friendly place. If someone is harsh, they are disconnected from their heart, deeply hurting and in need of compassion. The approval seeker avoids ruffling feathers and tries to keep everything smooth. The authentic knows that friction is inevitable in all healthy relationships and is a sign of two whole people coming together. The love and connection we deeply crave doesn't come from pleasing others and hiding all our perceived flaws. It actually comes from boldly being yourself, saying what you actually think and feel and sharing yourself with the world. 55. How to Build Authenticity?: If someone feels like they cannot be themselves, they suffer. It doesn't matter how many people love them or admire them. How famous they are or how much money they are making. If they aren't being themselves, stuffing instead of speaking freely, they will be pain. That pain manifests as apathy, negativity, dissatisfaction, or restlessness. All of these are evidence that you will not settle for anything less than authenticity and the freedom to express yourself in the ways you are meant to. While it is great to express your opinions, be aware of becoming opinionated. You can't defend your political views if you don't know what you are defending. You can't talk about how difficult the Chinese language is, if you have never tried to learn it. Never forget that while you have the right to your own opinion, others have a right to theirs as well. Not agreeing on something doesn't mean you won't have a long and fruitful friendship. Creating your own originality is also related to your appearance. How long have you spent wearing the clothes you thought were socially acceptable. Instead of going for the ripped jeans and boots you have dreamed of. Get the hair cut you want. Were the clothes you feel comfortable in. It's not important what others think about you. It's all about how you feel. You have every right to express yourself as you see fit. You aren't hurting anyone. Your ideas and opinions may surprise some people. You may feel uncomfortable if someone doesn't agree with you, but nothing worse will happen. If you want to be hurt, it's essential that you speak up. Don't let the moment to speak your mind pass and then feel resentful for not saying something. It's okay not to get it perfectly right every time. Plenty of people find themselves in a situation where they can't express themselves. Center your mind and refocus on exactly what you want to say or do. 56. Expression of Who You Are: Obviously, as we get older and more mature, we need to learn some measure of restraint. We don't say everything that comes to our minds, and we find more tactful and skillful ways to assert ourselves. However, we can spend way too much energy on saying things just right. We have so many ideas about whether it's okay to speak up at all. How we should say something if we do choose to speak up and how the other person should not have any negative reaction to us. We have that initial impulse to blurt something out and it travels through this complex mental algorithm of what's right. What's nice, either nothing comes out at all or it's some heavily manipulated communication designed to be polite and acceptable to all. What comes out is often not us and feeling like we cannot be ourselves is one of the greatest forms of human suffering. Instead of weighing variables, calculating all factors, and attempting to control the external world. You can surrender. Begin by tuning into your intuition. Listen to it, if you have a sense about something, like when you get the feeling, it's best to go here instead of there. If your gut tells you it's a bad move to work with a certain person, then act on it. If we can risk attracting people with who we really are without the facade, we might find that we get fewer knocks on the door, but the ones that knock will be the right ones. If we are only okay when we meet a set of conditions. We are not really okay at all. The only okaness worth having is unconditional. Being loved and accepted as we are with no strings attached. You can communicate as the real and tolerate the liking and the disliking this brings. You can cope with both, neither need drive. Let your behavior be a reflection of who you are and don't try to be perfect. By manifesting our own unique nature, will blossom into becoming who we truly are. We are able to think, feel and act in ways that are separate from those around us. True intimacy between family members, partners or friends can only happen when the people involved are differentiated. Okay. 57. Being Authentic in Communication: People pleasing isn't attractive because it's not authentic. We he saying the wrong thing, looking foolish or being judged. When we are looking to please, our focus is on how to say and do what we think the other person wants, regardless of what is true for us. This disconnect from our true selves immediately reduces our attractiveness. When your primary intent in all interactions is to be liked, you are monitoring how you come across and adjusting what you say or do to mold others' perceptions of you. If your goal is to get people to like you, you will avoid certain topics. Smile politely and agree with everything. But if your primary goal is simply to get to know the other person and let them know you, you can relax and enjoy communication. Knowing someone comes from sharing what is really happening inside transparently and vulnerably. It requires authentic expression of what we are experiencing in the moment. This includes what we are thinking, feeling, noticing and perceiving. What we want and don't want, L and dislike. Not some heavily filtered version of this, but what's actually happening inside of us? What's actually true? When two people are doing this, the conversation becomes engaging. Even if they don't agree on all topics, there is a strong connection because both people are fully present, fully d in the moment. In contrast, when we come from a place of wanting to be liked, we are not fully there. We are hiding parts of ourselves, and much of our attention is in our heads. Filtering what we will say next to get the person to see us in a certain way. This lack of presence is instantly felt subconsciously by others, and they become less engaged and less interested, even if we are being friendly and asking all the right questions. Energy trumps content every time. If your goal in being with others is not to be liked but to be known to share who you are and find out who they are. Then you can connect and have fun. When you stop trying to be liked and your intention is just to share who you are as you are. People like you way more. They are naturally drawn to you, and there is an ease and effortlessness about how you attract them. You can reveal yourself. You don't have to wait until you are better or have it all sorted out. You can be you Others will notice your authenticity and be drawn to you. You are there to share who you are, enjoy yourself and discover who this person in front of you is. You ask what you really want to ask. If you are worried that the other person will not like you, then you have two options. You can choose to hold back, play nice and try to be everything you think they want you to be. Or you can choose to step up and be real. The first option is safety and leads to pain and isolation. The second can feel like your risk because you might get rejected. In fact, you will get rejected at times along the way. But you will also be accepted and deeply loved by the people you are meant to connect with. You are not looking for every man or every woman to like you. You are looking for your people. Remember that you are not for everybody. 58. Discover Yourself: As time goes by. People pleasing becomes such a strong part of our personality that it is hard to identify. It's like people who constantly swear, but they don't realize it. The difference is because many people don't like a lot of foul language, it's easier for others to confront them on their bad habit. But people aren't going to highlight your people pleasing behavior. It is down to you to identify situations where you tend to people please. You need to be aware that you are about to say yes to something you don't want. Feelings tell you what's right or wrong about the situation. Acknowledging how you feel is just the beginning for recovery. Then it's about what you do with the information your feelings provide. Ask yourself what you are feeling. The moment somebody makes a suggestion, you have a split second emotion. It could be nervousness, sadness, dread, panic. You can't just skip over the emotion. Put your finger on it and call it what it is. Pay close attention in your interactions with others and notice when you disagree. As you listen to someone speaking, ask yourself. Do I agree with this? When you when you disagree, simply take note of it. You don't actually have to say anything. You are just building your awareness about what you actually think and feel. If you are talking with someone and not feeling satisfied with the conversation, ask yourself, what do I want here? Perhaps you discover that you want to end the conversation so you can talk with someone else. If you feel ready for it, simply tell the person at the next opportunity. It's been great talking with you. I am going to head over to the lounge area for a bit. I'll catch you later. Before you say yes to something, you need to take a little time to assess the situation and decide if you are saying yes, because you feel you have to or because you want to. The idea is not to become a person who never helps or is selfish with her needs. We want to find a balance. Relish the experience of embarrassment. Embarrassment inoculation is a method of eliminating your fear of what other people think of you by intentionally doing things that embarrass you. This might include lying down on a busy sidewalk, dancing on a street corner or trying to order a pizza at ice cream shop. You do things that will draw attention and will draw judgment on purpose. And by doing so, you discover that it's no big deal, and you can handle whatever happens. Discomfort is inevitable in life. No matter how safe, predictable and small we might try to keep our lives, we can't escape. Even if you avoid many things, play, extranie and avoid all risks, you will still get uncomfortable. You will become stagnant, stuck, and bored with your life. You will feel the pain of life passing you by and living on the sidelines. When you voluntarily confront discomfort, you become stronger and more resilient. Accept responsibility for your own life, regardless of who did what to bring you to this place in your life. It is now your job to take it from here. 59. Who Are You? What Do You Want?: When our boundaries are weak, we tend to have a very shaky hold of knowing what we think and believe. We automatically look to others to determine what our thoughts and opinions might be. We look to others to determine our reality for us. You may experience this as a lack of certainty in your perceptions and convictions. You may not have a strong opinion on much of anything. You also might feel quite a bit of self doubt about what you say, whether it's right or if others agree with you. You assume others opinions are more intelligent, better researched, and more valid than your own. Objection. Start with what you don't want. Then pay attention to what answers emerge without dismissing or filtering them. Let yourself explore, get curious and find out what's really going on inside. You are listening inwards for guidance, rather than simply focusing on what everyone else wants and what a nice guy or good girl would do. Over time, you will start to discover what you like and dislike. You will get to know yourself better and have more clarity in your life. Chronic indecisiveness is a result of being disconnected or alienated from your true self. You don't even know what's happening deep in there. There is too much noise about what they want. What a godly or spiritual person should think, feel, and want. You are scared of picking something and it looking bad or them not liking it, or of making a mistake and choosing the wrong thing. We let others decide for us because we have learned that discovering what we want and asking for it is somehow inconsiderate of others. Occasionally, not having clarity and letting others decide is natural and not problematic. But if it's your default setting, then it's a sign of too much niceness and low social power. Over time, it can irritate and repel others. This is because always letting others decide puts the responsibility on them. They now have to decide for themselves and for you. But they don't really know where you stand because you don't share. This creates frustration, annoyance, and a desire for less contact. A Chronic pattern of being unsure, never knowing what you want, letting others make the decisions will eventually create distance that erodes the relationship. Are you bad for wanting to travel somewhere to eat something for wanting less time with someone or more time with someone. There is no good or bad here. There is just what you want and what you don't want. You can choose whether you want to act on your desire and ask for it. In some instances, you may decide to override your want and let it go. But that comes from a place of self love and choice, not fear and shame. 60. Being More Confident: It's okay if you experience confusion about what you want, who are complex creatures and made up of many different parts. Part of you wants to spend time with that friend and part of you would prefer to be alone. It seems like no matter which one you choose, there will be some sadness or missing out by not having the other option. That's okay too. Let yourself miss the other option, even as you pick the first one. The sense of freedom, ease and confidence we want doesn't come from picking the right choice in all situations. It comes from looking inward, asking ourselves what we want and honoring what we discover, even if we don't choose it or we don't get what we want. The simple act of valuing your own desires creates positive feelings of power and freedom. Uncover what you think about a situation. Start looking inward in all settings at work, in meetings, while speaking with your boss, with your spouse, friends, and parents. Ask yourself, what do I think about this? What's my opinion? You don't have to even voice your opinion at first. You just have to assess where you stand internally. Not as if you agree or disagree with what someone is saying, If you disagree internally, don't immediately push that away with rationalizing and telling yourself to be more flexible and open minded. Instead, honor that difference. You might be automatically assuming that other perspectives are more valid because you deem them as smarter and better. Part of this might be due to their age, experience or status. It might also be a response to a level of certainty they have when they communicate. If they sound confident, it can automatically create a sense of uncertainty or doubt inside of you. But just because someone sounds certain, it does not mean that what they are saying is accurate. It also doesn't mean that it's researched or backed by anything at all. Sometimes people just say stuff. This is happening behind everyone's facade from doctors to TV experts to your seemingly confident boss. Hose people might have a lot of experience insight and factual knowledge on various topics. But they are prone to bias like the rest of us are uncertain about all kinds of things and often just fill in the gaps with as much certainty as they can muster. They package it in confidence and lean on their education, experience or status to make it sound like it's highly researched and valid. Start to pay attention to this phenomenon around you. Question the sources of people's knowledge and start to see through the illusion that others' opinions are more intelligent or important than your own. Start to look inward and find your own thoughts and feelings about the subjects you encounter in your daily life. 61. Overcoming Fear of Rejection: When a sales representative offers a new product and the client says no, he feels rejected. He has taken the word no as a personal attack. But in reality, the client only said no to the product. To overcome the fear of rejection, it is essential to understand that at some point in our lives, we will feel rejected. It could be the end of a job or relationship, a short term period, like when someone doesn't reply to a message or a no to an idea. It is perfectly normal and should in no way be taken personally. What you need to do is learn from your experience. If you have applied for a job and you didn't get it. The first thing that hits you is the wave of rejection. Allow yourself to process this, but for no more than a minute, then decide what you did right and what you could have done better. Ask for feedback. If someone has said no to you, don't dwell on it. You might be tempted to start with if only I had, but it really isn't worth it as you are turning the blame back onto yourself. Remember that at some point, everyone gets rejected. It's important not to take it personally. In most cases, people are rejecting an idea or a suggestion, and they are not rejecting you as a person. If you fear rejection from a loved one, it might be because you can't stand the idea of being lonely, so you can work on strengthening the other relationships in your life. This might not always be sufficient to overcome your fear, but it might be enough for you to take baby steps or at least make yourself more aware. Have faith in your ability to get back up again. If someone says no, you may feel horrible for a few minutes or hours. Maybe a day. But in one week from now, will it still have the same significance? Or will you have gained something better? Either way, you are strong enough to survive. 62. Enduring Disapproval : Think of someone you know and like and imagine them disapproving of you for something you did. For example, let's say you get terrified about being late for meetings with your boss. Whenever you are late, you have a mini panic attack and spend your commute freaking out about how bad it will be. In that case, imagine being late for a meeting and your boss disapproving of you for it. Imagine yourself going through with it and let yourself see in your mind's eye the disapproval. Then bring your attention to your body, right into the part that's most tense, tight or constricted. It might be your chest, throat, stomach or forehead. Maybe your shoulders hunch up and your jaw clenches. Wherever you feel tension, let your attention rest there. Then breathe, notice and feel. Stay out of your mind and in your body. You are simply increasing your capacity to tolerate this kind of discomfort. You don't need to make it go away or solve anything. You are just hanging out for several minutes with these sensations. It's uncomfortable. Yes, someone might get upset with you. You are not hurting anyone. It might annoy someone, but you can handle it and no one dies. 63. Building Autonomy: People pleasing takes your personal identity out of the picture. You dare not speak your opinions unless you know everyone else feels the same way you do. You cease to exist. There is simply no autonomy. All of us need validation from others. We thrive on a claim, compliments, praise and overall kindness. There is nothing wrong with that. But people pleasers rely entirely on the approval of outsiders. They are low self value, makes them dependent on other people's opinions. They are like a shadow as they are completely reactionary to other people. Even if you are being complimented for what you have done, that reflects an action, and not you. You are fueled by your need for approval, not by your own character, qualities, or abilities. Autonomy is the ability to think and act independently of others. An autonomous person knows what they truly believe and why they believe it. When an autonomous person does help someone else, it's because they feel real concern for someone or something based on their own emotions or principles, not those of outside world. It's a free choice, not born of a desire to avoid rejection or judgment. Field autonomy and become free from the opinions and thoughts of others. Okay. 64. Learning to Be Disliked: We all have a set of rules, the ones that tell us how we be, how we so be around others, what we should say and do and what we so never say and do. These are the rules about what will make others like us or reject. I should be charming and witty and always know what to say. I should never allow an awkward moment of silence in the conversation. I should never disagree with others. I shouldn't change the subject abruptly. If you ask why you should follow that rule, your mind says because you to disobey would be bad and wrong. There is not sufficient reason to keep a rule. It has to fit with who you are and come from your values, not some old programming, unconsciously passed down from your parents. How much control do you really have over what makes people like you? We don't like the idea that some people can dislike us. We intellectually understand that this is inevitable, but we hate it emotionally. Each person has their own history, perspective, and world view. Some people will dislike you simply based on your appearance, your physical features, or the clothes you wear. Some people may dislike you because you remind them of their critical mother or they are. Others might feel intimidated or envious, and to deal with feeling inferior, they will judge and criticize you in their heads to bring you down a notch to their level. Still, others are just feeling dissatisfied in their own lives, fist off at their spouse or boss and looking for an outlet to release their pent up frustration. The reasons could go on and on, and they are mostly mysterious and remain unexamined in people. We won't get curious as to why we have a negative reaction to someone. We won't look inward. We will think that person sucks, and that's that. We don't have control of whether people like us or not. The only thing we have control over is how fully we show up, how much we put ourselves out there. How freely we can be ourselves around others. Trying to control everyone else's responses is futile. So focus on what you can control. How fully you allow yourself to show up. 65. Being OK With Being Disliked: When you notice yourself feeling all twisted up about some negative feedback or someone not liking you or something you did, stop what you are doing. Slow down and take a few minutes to find the place in your body that is hurting. You mind might be speeding out 1,000 thoughts per minute about how they are wrong, how dare they and how bad you are. Let this keep spinning and drop your attention out of your mind into your body. Notice the squeezing in your chest or the tightness in your throat or the hollow feeling in the pit of your stomach. Bring your attention right there to the center of that uncomfortable feeling and hold it with compassion, patience and love. Nothing to change, solve, figure out or fix. Just feeling and breathing. After doing this for several minutes, you might be amazed at how much better you feel without changing anyone's opinion of you at all. You don't need to convince every person that you are good and worthy. Some people will love what you are doing, and some will not. That's okay. You are not for everybody. One person dislikes people who make more money than they do and another person dislikes and it looks down on people who make less. One person likes someone who tells long detailed stories and another person hates it when people tell stories because they get restless and bored. No matter what you do, some people are inherently going to dislike it and dislike you. This can sound terrifying at first until you realize that you are not for everybody. Increased self criticism and self hatred leads to shame, which actually leads to more behavior that is negative. Getting pissed at yourself doesn't actually help you learn or grow any faster. Because when you feel terrible inside, how loving are you with others? Your behavior should not be driven by others external expectations, but by your own internal principles. Okay. 66. Stop Seeking Approval: Your desire for approval reduces your authenticity and sense of freedom. It also leads to feeling uncomfortable in your own skin and generally being dissatisfied with social interactions. Poorly defined boundaries make us very susceptible to the perceptions of others. You think my shoes look stupid. Now I think my shoes look stupid. I have funny looking teeth, and my ears are too big. Now, I imagine you are looking at my teeth and ears and judging them as funny looking and too big. To live in your reality means you own who you are, what you like, what you believe in, what you stand for, and what you think and feel in the moment. These things matter to you more than the perceptions, likes and beliefs of those around you. Overcoming people pleasing requires us first to look at who we truly are on the inside? If you can't remember what you love and what you hate, you need to get to the bottom of these questions. When you are able to see your needs and passions, you can set the foundations for a change. Ask yourself the following questions. Is it really necessary for me to justify my behavior as much as I do. Can I give myself permission to be unique, knowing that difference can actually be good. Just because someone questions my reasoning, does that automatically require me to alter my thinking? As you relate with those closest to you, sameness is not the goal. Blending and harmonizing in the midst of difference is the goal. Determine that you can be a team player even in those moments when there is no sameness of thought. The more desirable alternative to being a people pleaser is to be a person who makes a very intentional choice to care. A choice of when, how and to whom you give your limited time and resources. Giving up people pleasing does not mean that you must sacrifice your giving nature. It means giving up the compulsion to be nice to everyone all the time. 67. Give Yourself Approval: Letting go of the past means giving up claim to receiving what was wanted in childhood. Except that our time for fulfilling these needs from our family is now past, and we must take the mantle of responsibility for our own life. If our family does not love us for who we really are, there is nothing we can do. If you cannot make them love you, then you also cannot lose their love by being yourself by being true to yourself and by acting in accordance with your own perceptions and integrity. You are presenting the only you that you have. The members of the family will either accept you or they want. As we come to understand what our family is capable of giving us, we can decide how much or how little to invest in those relationships. The feeling of belonging that we sought from our family is becoming relocated to a more secure place within ourselves. You want people to because of your values and because you treat others with kindness and respect and not because of how hard you work to please others. It is actually manipulative to give of yourself to others as a way to buy their approval and affection. Better motives for giving of yourself are love, liking and valuing the other person's company and friendship. You also have to give up the heat of praise that you get when you please people. Having the approval of others may be desirable or preferable, but it isn't absolutely necessary in order to validate your self worth. Some people may dislike or disapprove of you because of their own biases, prejudices or emotional issues. That's not your problem. It isn't possible for everyone to like or approve of you. Don't try. The most important source of approval is your own. 68. Pleasing in Friendships: Unlike family, friends don't have to be forever. The beauty of friendship is its flexibility. It's not family. It's not for life. So we shouldn't feel the same pressures. If we find that our overlap reduces in time or our contexts change, or if our friendship is no longer appreciated, we can move on and make new friends. We can end friendships when they don't work for us in order to make space for others, that will Sometimes we do have to give up on people, not because we don't care, but because they don't. When friends treat you like they don't care, you should believe them. It takes courage to end a friendship, if it's run its course or brings irreconcilable conflict. It's okay to allow yourself to outgrow a friendship. If friends want more from us than we want from them, that isn't wrong. You are entitled to want whatever you want from friendships and be wherever friend you want to be. You don't have to do things their way, but they don't have to do things your way either. If a friendship doesn't let us be ourselves or doesn't help us grow, then it was never really a friendship to begin with. Your idea of a friend might be a partner in crime on wild nights out or a constant stream of what's up chatter. Whereas their idea of friendship might be a wave and a smile in the school playground or a coffee once a month. Maybe you don't want to commit to being someone's trusted confidant and life coach. Maybe a good friend is one who wants what we want from the friendship. If they don't, it doesn't make them a bad friend, but it might mean they are not the right friend for you. Equally, don't let people compare you to the friend they want. You can't have a healthy friendship with someone who is forever judging it against the idea of a better friendship. It's not your responsibility to meet all their friendship needs. Be yourself in friendships and be the friend you want to be. After all, you might as well be criticized for who you are rather than who you are not. Maybe your friends need less from friendship. That's not a reflection on you and you can re audition for someone who better fits the bill. The vacancies in our cast will evolve as will our availability. If we can accept the fluidity of friendships, we can free ourselves from taking it personally when things inevitably change. Maybe there is an overlap in your lifestyles for a time, or maybe your kids get on for now, but it doesn't have to last forever. An evening of connection needn't translate into yet another active friendship for you to dutifully maintain. If you don't have the need or the capacity for another friend right now, it's okay to smile and say goodbye at the end of the evening. You can be friendly without becoming friends. The best thing about having honest friendships is that you don't have to hide how you feel about something or your views. Nobody should feel that they have to compromise who they are for a friendship. It's perfectly okay for people to have their own opinions. You don't need to like the same things rather than agreeing with everything. It's better that you and your friend simply agree to disagree on certain things. Not every friendship will be built to last the duration, and you don't want to force the matter because then the relationship isn't genuine. 69. Being a People Pleaser at Work: The traditional work culture can cast us back to being children. Some people pleasers talk about work as if it were school. Grown adults are suddenly reduced to the patterns of supplicant children by the overbearing culture of an institution with stuffy dress codes and inflexible hours. Eager to please, they are forced to comply with their bosses. That's not to say we shouldn't follow rules at work. They need to be practices and expectations that are professional and protect workers rights to do their jobs. These aren't rules for rules sake or for the purpose of having power over others and creating parent child relationships where they don't belong. Many companies have become more progressive in their approach and understand that flexible working isn't a reward for good behavior. It's a healthy ingredient of a mutually respectful and collaborative environment. Presentism doesn't equate to delivery. A zero absence record isn't proof of superhuman stamina or dedication to the job. However, rules that less enlightened employers force to police employees and make them compliant can crush the morale of a team and tank their productivity. Showing up as a strict authority figure will guarantee you a workforce of naughty children or teachers pets. Expectations not founded in logic create a power imbalance that isn't be fiting of an adult workspace and drives employees into insecurity. In this childlike fight or flight space, we can't be problem solving, collaborative, or effective. Aiming for the gratitude of your boss by being agreeable and pleasing erodes your sense of competency and diminishes your credibility. You can end up avoiding criticism and retribution by never deviating from the norm or thinking outside the box. Conversely, a willingness to be disagreeable and assertive can actually make you more valued and respected. There is a big difference between being indifferent and being comfortable with being different. Being more consistently yourself, imperfect, but engaged will help you feel more relaxed and better able to function. Start to show up as you are authentic and self governing according to your own adult moral compass, so that you can act neither over compliant nor defiant. 70. Feeling Inferior to Your Superiors : In any given social situation, we are assessing where we fall in the PEC hierarchy and behaving accordingly. Based upon appearance, wealth, position in an organization, clothing, and many other criteria, we are determining if we are above or below this person. This happens mostly unconsciously, what is happening nonetheless. We consciously know that our superiors in business just have a higher rank or status than us. But we subconsciously think that they have a higher quality than us. As a result, we often approach people who are of a superior standing in the company as if we are inferior human beings. This can amplify approval seeking, people pleasing, or hesitation. It also generates fear, avoidance, worry about meetings and presentations. Changing your stance towards others requires awareness. As soon as you stop buying into a given metric of status, you have broken free. For example, if you truly did not care about how much money someone had, you would walk into a room full of billionaires and interact freely and confidently. You could start conversations, make jokes, and just be yourself. If on the other hand, you were locked into the cultural mindset that your net worth equals your human worth, then it would be a different story. You would be nervous about entering that room. You would be hesitant to approach people, join into groups, and engage others for fear of them looking down upon you. The key to being less nice around your bus, senior management, and anyone else is to see through the company's strata and look right at the person in front of you. The human being, the soft, fleshy pile of bones, organs, and skin. The one who has hopes, dreams, and fears just like you. Everyone you work with no matter how high up in the company, how successful, how experienced, or how rich, is still just some person. They sleep in a bed, poop in the morning, and sometimes get terrible gas that they try to hide from others. They sometimes feel happy, excited, and confident and sometimes they feel confused, insecure or inferior. Even if you have never seen them act that way. They have challenges in their relationships, and sometimes struggle with their spouse or kids. They will get old. They will get sick. They will feel afraid at times and eventually they will die. Remind yourself that they are just a person. Think of them using their first name, not their title. The more you see through the suits and the I got it altogether facade, the more relaxed and confident you will become. 71. Admitting Personal Limits : Pridful people find it difficult to say, I am limited. I am not able to be ideal. We are human and we have limits. In humility, people can expose their weaknesses or hurts, not because they are shaming themselves, but because they do not want to erect any false pretense about who they are. You need to admit that you have weak moments. Sometimes you will miss a few things in your parenting, and that's not necessarily disastrous. Admit your limitations as opposed to trying to make people think you will correct all your deficiencies. Live within yourself. Knowing full well, some people may never endorse your choices. It's a relief to think that you can declare yourself to be limited. Then you could give up the impossible task of satisfying your critics. The judgments of others can cause us to lose confidence or to stray from the path of healthy choices. You have become so conscious of others pronouncements that you take them too seriously. Be willing to hear what others say about your decisions. But remember that these people do not have the prerogative to declare if you are a good or bad person because of those decisions. 72. Not Being Shocked at Others’ Rudeness: Many people pleasers can't accept that people can be rude or demanding or finicky. A woman prides herself in being a loyal friend, but feels disillusioned as it becomes evident that others don't reciprocate the same loyalty. A member of a civic organization is disinganted? Because other members do not carry their share of the group's efforts as he does. An employee is disillusioned about her job because no one seems to recognize the many out of the way things she does to make things run smoothly. We have legitimate hopes for some measure of appreciation or admiration, and we'll start thinking, what's wrong with these people? Or why can't they show a little respect? When you act kindly toward others, you believe they should at least have some measure of thankfulness in return. You have this hidden demand, which leads to tension, but others can and will act in unappreciative ways. The ugly truth about human nature is that people are often so absorbed by their own desires that they cannot make room for others perspectives. You may feel grief about this sad state of affairs, but don't be shocked. Don't build your hopes upon something elusive. You can consider yourself fortunate when you receive gratitude from others, but it is not something you can hinge your happiness on. Friends may be inconsistent. Children may be ungrateful. Employers may be unappreciative, or relatives may be judgmental. It is necessary to adjust your emotions and behaviors when ideals are not met. But many people p will push themselves to be super responsible, so they might somehow rewrite those painful truth. People will disappoint us. Ideals will never be fully realized. It is your responsibility to be the best you can be while it is not your responsibility to make others appreciate your efforts, nor it is your responsibility to ensure that others do their best. Don't kid yourself that you have to pick up everyone else's slack when they choose not to be responsible. You do have the ability to make someone happy or sad. But they also have the choice to control how they feel. 73. Being Aware of Your Habits : The habit of self awareness begins with questioning the motives for your actions. Why exactly am I going out of my way for this person? Do I genuinely care for them? Or am I just afraid of what might happen without them? Would I be doing this out of free will? Self awareness will help you understand why you are working so hard to gratify other people. If you are doing because you really want to or because you think you have to? When you are about to do something that you are not sure you want to do. Take note of the moment you are starting to feel internal resistance. When that happens, stop everything and question why you are doing it. Keep asking why until you hit the truth about yourself. Are you doing it out of free will and generosity? Awareness practice is sustained attention to thoughts, feelings, body, and behavior. You are being aware of the present moment. This is a willingness to become more awake. No. For some people, feelings precede thoughts. Before a people pleasing thought arises. They feel anxious, uncomfortable or nervous. Or you may notice your body's reaction first. Tightness in the neck, a hunching of the shoulders, a knot in the stomach, or a clenching of the jaw. Once you pin down the feeling, you can set up a kind of alarm system in your head. I am feeling anxious. Got a watch out for the people pleasing thoughts. Or my stomach is tense. I wonder if I'm doing people pleasing stuff. Now, you have the ability to make a decision to act differently than you did before. This simple act of noticing can change the course of the cycle. Practice watching your thoughts, feelings, emotions, and body sensations without labeling them as good or bad. When we pass judgment on a thought or feeling, we are trying to scare it away so that we can pretend it never existed or punish ourselves for having thought or felt it in the first place. It is only by accepting and examining thoughts and feelings that we can discover their source and thus change them. As a thought or feeling rises up, be it mean or angry or stful, we can lightly brush it with the feather of awareness. Simply notice the thought or feeling. That's interesting. I feel angry. There is no judging here. Just noticing. Acknowledging emotions and thoughts diminishes their power. 74. Getting Rid of Toxic People-pleasing: Nice people often act from an impersonal ethic, expressing the values of a religion, special interest group, teacher, or the culture at large. There is nothing wrong with having the same values as others, but we require a personal ethic. That means that the values have been tested against the body, heart, and mind and found compatible. Your actions are not driven by anxious thoughts and neediness anymore. They are driven by a personal ethic. Form your own opinion before asking anyone else for theirs. There is nothing wrong with asking for input from friends and partners, but make sure you are in charge of the process. A nice person in any given situation will likely go along with someone else's wishes, not because they think it's the right thing to do, but because they have anxiety about causing conflict or losing friendship, love, or status. We must become familiar with our own shadow. We must stop the denial and the pretense that we are just the sweet, not the sour, the peaceful and never the peace. We are not perfect. When we deny and hide the truth from others, we feel like an impostor, a fraud, and have a deep fear of being discovered for who we really are. Acknowledge and accept the unsightly, undesirable and unacceptable parts of yourself. Don't deny it, or try to convince anyone that you are a good guy with no negative feelings. It makes us less afraid of what others will think and much less susceptible to their judgments. The things we are most afraid others will judge us for pettiness, anger, jealousy, insensitivity, greed, sexual desires, and all the rest, we accept. We won't have to vehmently deny or defend the reality that part of us is sometimes selfish or angry or greedy. It stops being such a big deal. We become more at peace with all aspects of ourselves. We start to become okay with who we are. Ask for what we want. Speak our truth and say what needs to be said, even if it's uncomfortable. 75. Fixing the People Pleaser: We think that a polished polite image is what's going to win the hearts of those who desire. This comes from a deep fear that if you were to simply reveal who you really are, others would be repelled. You do this to avoid rejection and stay safe. Safe and alone because niceness blocks true connection and attraction. It's your true shape, rough edges, and unrefined energy that is going to attract your beloved. The way you just say what you think, Express what you feel and laugh at what's funny to you. The way you scrunch your nose up in disgust at oysters and other things you don't like. Your ability to be right there with the other person, making real contact with each other. That is what creates the charge. When we live our lives, according to the opinions of our parents or anyone else, we give up our identity as individuals. The more of the real, other see, and the more of the real them they show you, the greater the potential for genuine connection. We can build more rewarding and authentic relationships. If someone communicates displeasure with your perceptions. It is not necessary for you to immediately alter what you think. First, carefully assess what is said, and then respond as you deem best. If a person becomes argumentative with you, you are not required to enter into the argument, nor do you have to retreat in fear. State your beliefs, but don't feel like you must make that person agree with you, or that you must continue to engage in the argument after both sides have stated their position. You have different perspectives, and that differentness can be cause for celebration, not degradation. Do not panic if you slip. Do not engage in perfectionist self defeating thinking. You don't need to be perfect in order to be recovered. If you sleep, you simply need to notice recommit to recovery and make good choices. The next time, a people pleasing challenge comes your way. A mistake only becomes an error when it is overlooked and repeated. You may very well sleep now and then into some people pleasing behavior. Notice your sleep. Learn from your mistake and commit yourself again to changing your behavior. 76. Final thoughts: Our feelings are our greatest gift. They tell us what we need in any given moment. We must learn to recognize our feelings and understand what they signal so that we can take the right steps. Everyone takes a walk down memory lane and ponders on the mistakes they have made, simply because there isn't a single human being that hasn't made some kind of mistake in their life. Looking at these mistakes can be a great opportunity to learn more about yourself, except that certain things will happen and that you can't be too hard on yourself. If you can't put your needs ahead of others, you run the risk of burning out and having nothing left to give. Self care is not selfish. When you get on a plane, the flight attendants tell you, in the case of emergency to put on your own oxygen mask first before helping others. That's a practical example of self care, which is clearly aimed at a wide or good. You are not to automatically shut down your initiatives just because they are questioned. Others are allowed to have erratic reactions to you, but those reactions may be less about you and more about the persons having them. You can interpret your own differences from others as being just that different. This does not mean you are better or worse, but unique. Stay out of debates, not because you are afraid to debate, but because you know that you don't always have to prove that you are okay. If you expect yourself to be the perfect parent child, sibling, friend, neighbor, and colleague all rolled into one, never upsetting anybody or messing up any of those relationships, then you are setting yourself up for failure. You will be bound to feel like you are never enough because the reality is that no single person can be everything to everyone. Remember that you are allowed to mess up, that you are not responsible for others happiness, and you are allowed to put yourself first. You may believe that you are only worth something for so long as you are of use to others. Our mistaken belief that happiness comes from outside of us is what's truly messing it up. In this modern age, when social media has made it so much easier to flaunt status symbols and compare your life with others, it is very easy to believe that everything worth having is outside of you, awards and recognition, financial success and material possessions. But everything good is inside, and true happiness can be found only within oneself. Stop seeking others' approval in an attempt to feel worthy. Take time to rediscover who you were before you allowed yourself to be pressured by society to turn into someone you are not just to please the world. The truth is that you are good enough. You always were. So for everyone's sake, please yourself.