Break Free From Nice Guy Syndrome

You know, I've been working with men for almost a decade now, and I have had the honor of working with Dr. Robert Glover on numerous occasions. I've had him on my show. He's become a good friend of mine, and we've talked about the evolution of nice guys over the years. And one of the things that I've really started to notice time and time again is that if you want to break free from being a nice guy, number one, you have to know that it's not going to be easy. But number two, there are some very specific, fundamental things that you can do in order to make that happen. And the first thing, the very first thing that I see most men failing at is that they are trying to use complaints, judgments, criticisms, passive aggressiveness in order to get what they want in order to get their needs met. And so the first thing that you have to be willing to do as a man to break free of the nice guy syndrome, to break out of this shell. That is, if you're just nice, if you're never offensive, if you're never abrasive, if you disconnect from your anger entirely, if you just give her whatever she wants, whenever she wants it, that somehow that'll come back in return, right? That you'll get your needs met by simply giving her everything that she wants. I remember working with a client, and he had been married for about 20 years, and in one of the sessions, I said, how do you think that you, as a man are supposed to get your needs met in your marriage? And he sat there for a moment and he thought about it, and he said, I think what I've been doing, I don't know if this is right or not, but I think what I've been doing is operating on the assumption that if I meet all of her needs all the time, right, if I buy her the flowers and make the dinner and cook up, you know, clean up after the kids and, like, make her life super easy, then she'll give me what I want in return. And I was like, oh, man.

And then I was like, okay, so your perspective is that you should give her everything that she needs, everything that she wants, and then she's going to give you that back in return? And he's like, yes. And I said, okay, and what happens when she doesn't do that? Then how do you get your needs met? Right? If she doesn't meet your needs after you've done all of those things, then how do you get what you want in the relationship? And he thought about it For a moment. And he's like, I complain about it and I criticize her and I judge her and I tell her what she's doing wrong, and I complain that she's not giving me what I want. And. And I was like, okay, so you. So you revert to acting like a child. You revert to acting like a teenager. And he was like, shit, yes. So the first step, the very first thing that you can do in your relationship, or even if you're not in a relationship, even if you're just dating, is to stop complaining, stop criticizing, stop judging, to get what you want in your relationship from women. Because the truth is, when women want to date, they want to be with, they want to sleep with, they want to hook up, they want to be around men that they respect. And the more that you complain, the more that you criticize them, right? The more that you tell them that they're not good enough or they're not meeting your needs or whatever it is, the less likely that they are to want to fulfill your desires, and the less they're going to respect you, you hard truth, the less they are going to respect you. And so you need to respect you. So the second thing that you can do in breaking free from the nice guy syndrome, after letting go of complaints, after letting go of the criticisms, is to not only ask directly for what you want, ask directly for what you need to be assertive to practice those things, but is to practice exposure therapy. Exposure therapy. So when. When people have anxiety, when they're anxious, when they have a lot of fear or they're nervous, you know, a lot of nice guys have a lot of anxiety and a lot of worrying that if they ask for what they need, they're going to be rejected. So they don't ask that. If they say what they want in the relationship, sexually or physically or what they want to have for dinner or whatever it is, that they're going to be rejected, the other person is going to leave them. And so the threat becomes very high. And what does a man do in that situation, what does a nice guy do? He retreats. He retreats. He falls in. He doesn't ask for what he wants or needs. And so part of what you are going to have to do, right, you're not going to want to do it. Just to be very clear, there's going to be a resistance. But one of the things that you have to be willing to do is to sharpen yourself against the relationship, against your partner by practicing exposure therapy, by engaging consciously, actively in asking for what you need. And that can be very simple, right? Your partner can say, hey, what do you want to have for dinner? And where you would normally say, I don't know, what do you want to have? Or I don't care. Say, you know what? Give me a second, let me think about that. And then come back around and say, you know what? I'd really just love to have chicken and asparagus for dinner. That's clearly what I had for dinner last night. So I'm kidding, giving you what I chose for dinner last night. But you come back and you say, I want to have this. Now, that doesn't mean when you say, this is what I want, this is what I want to do, this is how I want to do it. This is how I want it to look, you know, this is how I want to make out with you. This is how I want to have sex with you. This is the date that I want to go on, where I want to travel, what I want to do on Friday night, what I want to do. When your family's in town, when you speak your needs and wants, that doesn't mean that she has to acquiesce to it, or it doesn't mean that she has to say, okay, babe, no problem. She might give you pushback. It might not be what she wants. She, you know, you're going to get some resistance, and that's okay. The main point is that you. It's not about the outcome necessarily in the beginning, right? What it is about is about exposing yourself to the risk of. Of rejection, the risk of failure, the risk of getting it wrong, and staying grounded, centered, calm in the face of knowing that those things might happen, right? Most nice guys are so afraid of rejection. They're so afraid of failure. They're so afraid of hurting the other person, of getting it wrong with them, of causing their. Their. Their girlfriend or their wife or whoever pain that they don't say what they want. Those are all the excuses that a nice guy will use. And so you have to risk those things happening. You have to expose yourself to the possibility that she might reject what you want for dinner or, you know, how you want to, you know, have sex that night, or she might turn you down for the date that you want to go on or what you want to do when your family's in town that that might happen. She might be offended, right? She might not be happy. Here's the last thing that I really wish every single nice guy knew going into changing his behavior, okay? The last thing is that you have to be willing for people to not like you for a period of time. The real big challenge that most men face when they start to make these fundamental behavioral changes, right? Because you're overhauling your identity. You've been this nice guy for a long time. You've let you know you've given everybody what they wanted. You never caused any problems. You don't disagree. You're not combative. You're not. You don't engage in confrontation. That's a huge one for nice guys, right? They just don't engage in confrontation. And suddenly you start to practice some of these things, right? You stop complaining about the things that aren't happening, and you start saying directly what you want. You start to be assertive and bold and courageous. You start to expose yourself to some risk and some failure. And what that means is that inevitably, inevitably, you are going to engage and create a little bit of conflict and a little bit of confrontation. And that is okay. It's actually necessary. Confrontation is the prerequisite for potential to actualize itself. I'm going to say that again. Confrontation is the prerequisite for the actualization of potential. So if you want to be more assertive, right? If you've disconnected from being direct and assertive, and it's crushing your relationship, it's hindering you at work, you have to be willing to engage in a little bit of what feels like confrontation, right? Maybe just the act of you saying, I, I want to have pizza for dinner tonight feels confronting for you. Maybe the act of saying, you know, I want to. You know, I'm. I'm turned on, babe, I want to. I want to have sex or whatever it is. All of that might feel wildly confronting for you. Or maybe just the act of like, oh, I feel aroused and I'm going to. I'm going to make out with her. I'm going to go after, you know, I'm going to. I'm going to try and spark some intimacy and some sexy time right now. And maybe that's the confrontation. So you have to be willing to engage in confrontation. That is the final piece. You can't avoid it. You absolutely cannot avoid it. Every nice guy is trapped in the nice guy archetype because he's trying to change without confrontation. And it is the requirement. It is the requirement. It doesn't mean that you need to, you know, go in the opposite direction and become a class A. It doesn't mean that you have to be abrasive or offensive or a jerk and start calling people names or blowing up and none of that bullshit. It is about you being grounded and unapologetic and saying, I know that I'm changing. I know that I have been a certain way for a very long time, and this is probably uncomfortable for you because I haven't had needs in this relationship, because I haven't spoken my desires in this marriage, because I haven't taken up any goddamn space in our relationship. And now I'm starting to occupy some more territory, and that's uncomfortable for you. So the very last piece of this is know and understand unequivocally that you are probably going to face some pushback, especially from the people closest to you, especially from your partner, right? You know, you're going to start to speak your needs, speak your wants, be direct, be assertive, say what it is that you want. You're not complaining anymore. You're not acting like a petulant child. And all of a sudden she doesn't know what to expect from you, right? And she's getting this different version of you. She's used to getting her way, right? She's used to just saying, like, no, I don't want to do that. And you just rolling over and saying, okay, no worries, we'll just do whatever you want. And suddenly you're saying, actually, no, I'm really not okay with that. I really don't want to go there for dinner. I really don't want to hang out with those people on Friday night. You know, you can go, but I'm not interested in that. And that's going to cause a disruption, a disturbance in the relational dynamics. So you can expect pushback, resistance from your partner. And the key to all of this is to still be able to stay connected to some compassion for them because they have known you, they have interacted with you, they've built a relationship with. With that other version of you with that nice guy that was easy control, easy to get what they want and they knew what they expected. And all of a sudden you're changing that dynamic. So comment below and let me know which one you feel stands out the most. Right? Which one you think that every single nice guy needs to take action on, which one you are practicing right now in your life or have found to be the most effective. And let me know if I missed anything that you think that every single nice guy needs to know, because this information is just imperative. You know, I think for guys to break through, break free from the nice guy paradigm, it, you know, it just takes a village, right? So your information, your comments, your thoughts. Your experience is absolutely essential, so comment below. And don't forget to, like, subscribe. Feel free to share this video and hit the bell icon if you want to be notified of more videos just like this. See you next time.