People-pleasing will hurt you with tiny cuts. Do this instead…
Alex Mathers
Coach, illustrator and author of 8 books. Helping you develop a resilient mind and a writing and publishing habit for impact. 205k readers. 150M+ views. Regular tips at my newsletter ⮕ alexmathers.co
It took me most of my 36 years to realise I was operating on outdated software.
I had downloaded a program into my mind as a boy.
As we all do.
It is the software that guides us in our early years. Most of us never see a system update before we hit the grave.
What’s its name?
‘People-Pleasing V 1.0.’
As children, we are programmed to please the giant, scary, all-powerful adults around us.
Most of them tell us to behave. They tell us to be good. They show us that good things happen when we do the right thing.
We learn, through years and years of pushing our boundaries and seeing the feedback:
We get what we want when we please.
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Later, as we emerge from the hormonal abyss into adulthood, we might find that people-pleasing doesn’t work all that well.
But many of us don’t see it and we people-please harder.
We hope that by being nicer, more impressive, and charming, more people will notice us.
It doesn’t work. People see through it, and it doesn’t connect.
People continue to ignore us, disrespect us, and fail to return our calls and messages.
What gives?
Here’s what’s happening:
We’re operating on old software.
People-pleasing doesn’t work if you want to make a difference and an impact.
As children, we learn how to behave as people-pleasers because it works. We’re relatively powerless at that age. Adults want us to behave and to fall in line.
But as adults, this way of thinking and behaving will only be met by resistance or quiet disrespect.
We are responsible adults. We are owners of our own spirits and our own actions.
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As I found through years of mistake-making, the world rewards those who acknowledge this power.
If we see ourselves in ownership of this energy, the only direction it can go is outwards.
This shows up as serving others.
That is where respect and difference-making are to be found.
We find it when we serve. Not when we try to impress, cajole, or persuade.
Serving is about being genuinely helpful, even if it doesn’t immediately please the recipient.
Serving is about realising our ability to help and finding ways to make a real difference.
It is about creating win/win deals that benefit everyone involved.
When we feel the need to impress and please and promote and sell, it reflects a powerlessness. It reflects our own inadequacy.
We need to see ourselves as the source of innate energy, happiness, joy and wisdom that we really are.
An endless well of the stuff.
When we rely on others to be happy, we walk this Earth with a meek and rather pathetic air.
That’s not for you.
It’s time to stand tall, acknowledge our power and our brilliance.
It’s time to act with a sense of pride, ownership and responsibility for who we really are and how we can impact others.
We do this by serving.
Over and over and over.
When we close the day having served another, we have lived a beautiful day.
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