Have you ever felt being taken for granted or taken advantage of in your intimate relationships, sex life, marriage, work or friendships? Do you ever find yourself giving and giving, and then when it’s your time to ask for a small favour those TAKERS disappear. Then, you can’t help but start feeling alone in spite of having friends, spouse, partner or coworkers. You are not alone trying to be a people pleaser.
When you keep attracting TAKERS into your life, you can’t help but feel LONELY in this world full of people. This stops now. The time has come for you to stop being a people pleaser.
It starts with loving and respecting yourself first. Can you do that? Self-love is a foundation for any relationship you will ever have in your life. Therefore, the step #1 to stop being a people pleaser and doormat is to TAKE RESPONSIBILITY.
Step 1. Take the Responsibility
I know you might be wondering how can you take the responsibility for people who take you for granted and use you. Even the way you word the question puts you in a position of powerlessness. You need to change it. You can waste years, months or days blaming people for the way your life turned out or for what you can’t do in your life, but it will not take you anywhere.
In fact, the only person you won’t be able to change would be them and the only person getting affected will be you. You will make your life totally miserable in this entire exercise. This pattern will force you to seek people’s approval even more and that is why you shall start practicing self-love by loving yourself more. It is a baby step process but goes a long way.
Once you have claimed responsibility over your life and choices you make in your life, it’s time to move on to the second step to stop being a people pleaser.
Step 2. What Are You Doing That Attracts Them into Your Life?
Its a cliche saying, but it doesn’t takes away a valuable lesson it has to offer. They say it takes two to tango. Isn’t it true in this case as well? Try to look at your love relationship from a distance. Observe yourself and note down your behaviour as if you were watching a movie. By removing emotions from a situation, you can see it for what it is and decipher patterns that you fall into, which sabotage healthy relationships.
You are teaching people how to interact with you.
It is because of this reason that the practice of self-love and loving yourself helps you stop being people pleasers. Love thyself, before you love someone else. If you don’t respect yourself and don’t take time off when you need it then you shouldn’t expect people to do that for you, towards you. Do you give yourself the time when your health calls for it, or when your energy levels are depleting down!
What are Your Signals to Invite Interaction?
I used to be the greatest GIVER of all
I remember myself giving and giving in my personal relationships, but when my time came to ask for a puny favour – my friends or collaborators disappeared. It felt lonely, to say the least. I was blaming people for being pathological takers and their sense of entitlement.
I Realized Everyone is Not that Bad
So, I stopped and started pondering what could be the reason behind such a behaviour. It took a lot of bravery to do an introspection and take responsibility for my contribution towards my own relationships.
An AHA Moment of My Life
One day, I realised that I was training people to take advantage of me, although not all of them, but still too many. I figured out that I would meet normal people who cared about me and then train them to become the real TAKERS.
Today, I am going to share these patterns with you. Don’t forget to ask yourself and see if they resonate with you.
Tip 1: Do Not Avoid Questions, Face Them
As a registered sex therapist, marriage counsellor and self-love coach, I am naturally gifted with the art of asking questions. It imparts me the guidelines to help people open new doors of opportunities for themselves, but I failed when tried to answer the same questions for myself. I thought my problems didn’t matter. May be, other people had their own problems, or no one cared about what I had to say. So, I was avoiding questions and directing the conversation to a speaker when a question was posed to me. I was very good at it.
Tip 2: Listen Quietly, Contribute to Conversation
What makes any conversation great and resourceful is the contribution made from all the participants. Have you ever had a conversation where it was so organic that both of you contributed equally to the conversation and the next thing you know – it has been 3 hours. Time flew by and you didn’t even realized.
When all you do is listen quietly, you turn a conversation into a monologue. Of course, there are deep issues behind adopting this behaviour. Maybe, you thought that your story was not worthy of being told, or you had nothing to offer to the conversation. Fear of not being good enough gets you even here. When you get afraid to say something, thinking that it may make you appear stupid or uneducated, and you let your fear dictate your choice of actions.
Tip 3: Don’t Always Say “I’m Good”, Express Your Feelings
Oh, boy! I was one of those people once. Whenever someone asked me how I was doing, the answer was always “GREAT!” What could naturally happen when you use “great” 365 days a year, even when it is just the opposite of what is actually happening into your life?
