I Was A People Pleaser Until I Did This...

I used to make myself sick because I wanted to please everybody. And I want to make sure that nobody ever felt bad and no one was ever upset with me. If you relate to that or have any of that going on in your life, you have to watch this video to the end to discover exactly how to set yourself free. And trust me, there's one little thing that until I got it, I was stuck. Even though I knew it wasn't helpful, I knew it didn't make sense, I knew I shouldn't be doing it, but I felt emotionally compelled. And if you feel that way, I'm so excited that you're here and watching this video. I'm Dr. Aziz. I'm the founder of the center for social Confidence and my background is in clinical psychology. I've written six best selling books, one of which is called not nice, which is my most popular one. Maybe you've read it. And it's all about how to end people pleasing and become a more bold, authentic, just being really you, that version of you in the world, which is the opposite of nice. What's going on with people pleasing and what do we need to learn to shift it? Well, here's the thing with people pleasing. You want to make sure that everybody feels okay. That's the source of it. Now what's underneath that is if you're not okay, then I'm not okay and I am unlovable or unsafe if you are upset or if you're feeling anything other than happy and calm and liking me in the moment. And so now what happens is I feel responsible for your feelings. In the book Not Nice, I call this over responsibility. So now I'm responsible for your feelings, which is that a problem? Well, it depends on how many people you interact with. So I'm responsible for my wife's feelings, I'm responsible for my kids feelings, I'm responsible for my parents, I'm responsible for my colleagues. And then maybe you're responsible for you meet some people at a party, some strangers. I gotta make sure she likes me. I gotta make sure he doesn't feel left out. I gotta make sure that, oh, he looks quiet. Is he having a bad time? Right. And you're constantly tracking everything. Did you relate to this? Have you done this? This is the wor world of the people pleaser. Now I realized at some point in my life that this wasn't working for me and I had to do something different. And so I tried to say things like, you know what? I'm just not going to care so much. I Just, they're. They're grown adults. They can handle their own feelings. I don't need to take care of everybody. Sounds good, right? Maybe you've told yourself something similar. And then I'd walk into that next social situation or party or gathering or something, and then even if I tell myself that intellectually, emotionally, I'm anxious, I'm tight, I got this pit in my stomach. And so here's what I was doing. And until I shifted this, nothing changed. All the decisions, all the telling myself I should be different, I did work here is what I did. When you're people pleasing, you're constantly checking something, right? What are you checking? You're checking if everybody feels okay. You're checking if everybody's safe. Is everybody good? Is everybody good? When you're constantly checking something, what's that going to do to you, right? Anything. You're constantly. Maybe you've seen this in this era, man, we can constantly check our phones, you can constantly check a certain app, but you ever constantly check social media? What happens if you're at a day where you're just constantly pulling out your phone and you just feel totally out of control and you're always just rechecking something? Oh, what's happening with this? Right? What. How do you feel at the end of that day? Fantastic. Centered? Confident? No, you feel like a wreck, right? Because over checking anything makes us anxious and it makes us perceive like there's more of a problem or more of a danger. So, for example, let's take this out of niceness. Someone who's got some sort of PTSD thinking they went through a real traumatic situation, and then they feel really unsafe in their nervous system. And as part of the healing process for them, they need to go from a state of hypervigilance, which is like, am I safe? Am I safe? Am I. Is there something going to come through the window? Am I safe? Right. How is a person going to feel relaxed, present, centered, and able to connect in that state? So they have to learn that I'm actually safe until evidence proves otherwise. I'm not going to be totally oblivious to the world around me. But I'm going to walk into a cafe, I'm going to assume I'm safe unless I see something that looks really sketchy going on. That's how someone who doesn't have PTSD is operating in the world. That's why you can go to a cafe or a restaurant and not be freaked out when you go there, right? Because you're safe until proven otherwise. And that is What I needed to do to shift people, Please. I needed to change my perception that people were not upset with me, that I was okay unless proven otherwise. Otherwise, I would chronically assume you're angry with me, you don't like me, that person's upset with me. Why? Because I'm checking it all the time. Do you see that? So the person who thinks, am I safe? Am I safe? Am I safe? Guess how they feel. Not safe. Are you okay? Are you okay? Okay. Are people okay with me? People upset with me? You check that all day long. Just remember checking your phone all day long, you're gonna feel like crap at the end of the day. It's the same thing with this. You go to a social situation and you're keeping tabs on everyone, making sure that everyone feels okay and that no one's mad at you, you're going to leave that a wreck and instead we need to adopt a new stance. I decided this and I made the shift. I said, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to train myself to become surprised when someone's upset with me. So instead of expecting it, I'm going to be surprised by that. So what did that look like in practice? Well, at the time that I really made this decision, I started, I moved out of just one on one coaching. I started to run larger groups. In fact, I began the Mastermind program that I've been running for nine years now called the Unstoppable Confidence Mastermind. It's awesome. If you want to check it out, go to draziz.com as d r a z I z.com and you can apply, learn more about the program and apply if you'd like to. And I started having more clients. Like there's a group program, right? You're not talking to everybody individually. Each week you have more. You see people on the group calls. Someone might not speak up on a call, someone might not be there on a group call. I noticed I started to get more and more and more anxious, like, oh, they're upset with me. Every time I'd finish a call, I'd be like, oh, I let everybody down. And I knew it was irrational, but it's that old pattern going again. So I said, you know what? This is making me sick. I can't do this. How am I going to serve people if that's what I'm doing to myself? So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to decide that everyone in the group is cool until they tell me Otherwise, guys, I'll find out if someone is upset with me or feel like I didn't do something, right? They'll tell me, they'll email me, you know, if I start to interact with them, they might be standoffish or something. And I'd say, what's something up? You know, I could probe and ask the question at that time. And so of course, the next day after I make that decision, am I feeling totally relaxed? No. Right. But I'm saying I notice myself, feel nervous inside. Oh, someone upset with me. It actually doesn't even come as a question like that. It's just almost a certainty like they're upset with me, right? This suspicious, paranoid mind. And I would say, actually, I bet they're totally fine. And I would imagine that person just kind of living their life. They're going to the grocery store, maybe they're driving somewhere right now, we're cool, me and that person, we're cool. And then it would happen again maybe five minutes later, maybe an hour later. Oh, someone could be upset with me right now. Hey, you know what, Have I heard anything from them? No, they haven't sent me an angry email or anything. Okay, yeah, we're cool. And I just kept doing that again and again and again. And then on rare occasions, someone would send me an email. Hey, I want to do this thing. Or you said, you're going to do that and you didn't do it. Hey. And that's why another thing I trained myself to do, if someone demonstrated any upset with me or wanting something different or anything other than happy, then my response would be, oh, so even if I opened up an email, right, and I'm not talking to them, but I'd open up an email and I'd see something that was they didn't. They wanted something different or whatever I would say out loud. Oh, right. It's a surprise tone. Oh, someone's upset. That's unusual. And so over time, the whole thing shifted, and now it's all good until proven otherwise. So I'm assuming you're liking me. In fact, if you made it this far in this video, I'm sure we're cool. And if there's some other comment or otherwise, then you know, I can address it when it happens. But you know what? At the end of the day, I'm not friends, everybody, and neither are you. You don't need to please everybody. You don't need to make sure everyone's okay. You just get to be you. What a relief. So I hope this serves you share down in the comments below. What are you finding most valuable from this video? What are you going to apply and until we speak again, may have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.