Not Nice: Stop People Pleasing, Staying Silent, & Feeling Guilty... And Start Speaking Up, Saying No, Asking Boldly, And Unapologetically Being Yourself

by Aziz Gazipura

9. Pressure to Entertain You feel pressure to have something great to share, such as a funny or highly engaging story about an adventure you’ve had.

10. Second Guessing & Conversational Replays During an interaction, you experience self-consciousness and doubt about how you are coming across. You imagine you should be someone “better” than you are. 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.

11. Habitual Apologies You’re quick to apologize out of habit, even for minor transgressions, like starting to speak at the same time as someone else.

12. Submissive Body Language You demonstrate submissive body language, such as looking away frequently or keeping your eyes down.

13. Putting Others First You have a strong habit of putting others’ needs ahead of your own, thinking it is selfish to do otherwise.

14. Not Stating Desires You rarely state what you want directly. Instead, you may suggest or imply something and hope the other person detects it. You often question your desires and think they might be either too much or not worth asking for.

15. Attempting to Fit In & Impress You try to fit in to groups by pretending to be interested in things you are not, or exaggerating about your experiences, wealth, or achievements. All submission to peer pressure is approval seeking.

The more you try to avoid disapproval and earn approval, the more you suffer. This is because each of these behaviors is pulling you away from yourself, and draining you of social power.

You become limited to a box of your own making.

With a strong need for approval, it can feel like you’re walking through life like a student who is wandering the halls without a hall-pass. At any time, someone might jump out and chastise you for doing something wrong, and they’d be justified. This creates a chronic unease and fear that makes it very hard to relax, let go, enjoy your relationships, feel love, and be in the moment.

It undermines your self-esteem because you value others’ opinions more than your own;

While it was uncomfortable, I was excited to identify this behavior because now I knew what I needed to work on in order to grow my confidence.

I decided that one of my primary social goals was not to be intimidated by anyone, no matter how successful.

The goal here is not to completely eliminate this desire for appr...

Instead, notice where the urge for approval is strongest. And, as best as you can, do so with cur...

You’re not on a witch-hunt here. You’re not looking to find that wretched monster and slay it. In fact, this part of you that so desperately wants others’ love and approval need...

there is another part of you that is already whole, complete, secure, and capable. This is The Powerful You.

To distinguish between the two, here is a list of some of the differences between these two parts of you: • The Approval Seeker wants to be liked by everyone. • The Powerful You 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 Approval Seeker sees others as better and their opinions as mattering more. • The Powerful You knows that you matter. 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 Approval Seeker needs something from others in every interaction. • The Powerful You does not need anyone to do anything. You focus on being curious, sharing, connecting, and ...

• The Approval Seeker cannot tolerate being disliked. • The Powerful You gives complete permission for others to think whatever they’d like, and loves that diversity of human experience. You know that the only...

• The Approval Seeker worries constantly if it was “good enough.” • The Powerful You gives whatever you have at this very moment. You contribute your gifts fully, with an unfettered boldness and fierce determination. Your best is good enou...

• The Approval Seeker imagines others are quick to make harsh and permanent judgments. • The Powerful You knows the world is a friendly place. If someone is harsh, they are disconnected from th...

The Powerful You knows that how you feel about yourself determines how much love, success, and happiness you let in. You have a deep, unwavering commitment to be on your own side, no matter what.

• The Approval Seeker tries to get people’s respect and admiration. • The Powerful You serves people powerfully and expresses your heart fully, earning deep respect and admiration as a byproduct of your bold action.

• The Approval Seeker avoids ruffling feathers and tries to keep everything smooth. • The Powerful You speaks honestly and directly. You know that friction is inevitable in all healthy relationshi...

The Approval Seeker hates standing out and conforms to the status quo. • The Powerful You stands up for what you believe in and is a force for good who is willing to fight for ...

• The Approval Seeker says, “Oh no! What will they think?” and stops. • The Powerful You says, “E...

As you study your Approval Seeker, you may notice an urgency and desperation. You may experience a deep sense of “I am not OK” if someone doesn’t like you, or is upset with you. This can make you feel ungrounded, out of control, anxious, unsettled, or unsafe. High threat. Major alarm. Your mind can get frantic and you can have a compulsive and overpowering urge to do something to fix it. Fix it! Fix it now! Fix it, fix it, fix it, fix it, fix it!

The reason we get so anxious about losing approval is due to our primal experience of connecting with other humans. We all learned how to connect with others starting with our first relationships, which is usually a mother, father, and siblings. In these early relationships, we learn how to connect and attach emotionally to other humans, in the deepest ways possible. This has been studied extensively, and led to a branch of psychology called Attachment Theory.

We trust the other person will be there for us. We trust that if they leave to go to the store, or out with friends, that they will return to us. We feel worthy of love. We trust that we will receive that 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 feel anxious and unsafe. We fear that others will leave us at any time. If we say something wrong, do something wrong, or are in a bad mood, they’re 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. The old, “I don’t need anyone” Clint Eastwood cowboy routine. I am a rock. I am an island.

This kind of attachment makes us see relationships as a tightrope. There is a very narrow path—the width of a single rope—that we must walk across to stay in the relationship.

We must move slowly, carefully, methodically. We must plan our every step to keep our balance, lest we fall. And the fall from a tightrope is not a small misstep that we can easily recover from. No, if we fall from a tightrope, we fall long and hard–into a net if we’re lucky, onto the pavement if we’re not.

This is how the young, emotional part of our brain sees r...

Hence the strange phenomenon where you want to do something different, such as speak up, be more direct, or say no, and yet you find yourself doing the opposite: holding back, people-pleasing, and saying yes!

This frustrating pattern occurs because the emotional centers in your brain have more control of your behavior than your intellect.

In the face of perceived threat, they hit the override switch, and you end up doing something different. Just as if you decided one morning, “I’m going to walk out into the freeway today and see what happens.” Your self-preservation system would...

You’ll start to see that there is no threat in the disapproval of others, which allows you to relax in a deep and powerful way.

You’ll also see that being in healthy relationships with others is not at all like walking on a tightrope. It’s actually more like a five-lane freeway. You can veer left, right, and all over the place, and still stay connected. There is so much more space than you realized to be you and share who you are. In fact, people are secretly begging for it.

For a condensed and highly accessible review of how Attachment Theory works and impacts adult relationships, I recommend Amir Levine and Rachel Heller’s book, Attached: The New Science of Adult

Attachment and How It Can Help You Find – and Keep – Love. To go deeper, you can look up articles by John Bowlby, who is the psychologist who pioneered the field of Attachment Theory.

Niceness and guilt. These two go together like peanut butter and jelly.

if you told me about a friend of yours who is “extremely nice,” so nice they are “the nicest person you’ll ever meet,”

this person experiences the following...

Lots of guilt. They frequently feel guilty about letting people down, hurting people’s feelings, putting themselves first, and so forth.

Tons of resentment. They will be angry with others, their partner, their parents, their friends, their boss, their neighbors, and their colleagues. Of course, they would be unaware of most of this because to be angry and resentful is not nice; it’s not allowed. Hence, it’s stuffed down. Which brings me to the third prediction.

Physical Pain. This friend most likely has some recurring pain in the form of headaches, migraines, neck pain, back pain, knee pain, ankle pain, foot pain, or stomach pain. They may have several diagnoses, had surgeries, be on medications, go to chiropractors and physical therapists, yet never remain pain-free for long

there are certain fundamental patterns that all humans follow.

stifling feelings leads to resentment. This is like a math or physics formula; it happens every

time, predictably and r...