How To Put Yourself First Without Feeling Guilty - Nick Pollard

Why is people-pleasing such a trap for so many of us?

(sighs) I ... Uh, it's a ... There's a, a long answer and a short answer. I think the, the short answer to that is that we have created an environment through social media, really, you know, predominantly that everybody's now seeking to measure up to somebody else, rather than, you know, focused on this internal locus of control where you can y- you can really be vibrant on your own. Um, but the way that we function now as a society is, has changed that, um, and everybody's comparing themselves to people that, uh, you know, are, are insurmountable. And I find myself doing this too, so you know, I worship at the altars of, you know, Alex Hormozi and, you know, James Smith, and all these guys that I see have, you know, millions of followers and make millions of dollars, and they're exciting, and they're fun, and I'm like, "How do I get to that?" Right? Rather than recognizing in myself, like, I can just be happy with where I am. It doesn't ... It's ... Uh, I have a really great friend, um, who said this to me that really resonated with people-pleasing, which, "You don't have to hate where you are to wanna be better." And when I heard that I was like, "That makes so much sense." And I think we've kind of taught people that you have to, like, almost hate the way that you show up in the world in order to wanna better that. And I just... And I think that causes this idea of, "How do I measure up?" And then, "How do I make everyone else around me happy?" Because that's, that's really what the world is, you know, kinda built on these days.

Yeah. Draw the line for me between that sense that we, that we measure up, but, you know, people-pleasing isn't about us. It's about optic management. It's about how other people see us. It's about prioritizing their needs over ours.

Sure.

What ... Y- why is that important? What, what's that got to do with it?

So I think it's, um ... For me, when it was a, you know, when it was more of a problem, and I, I, I would say that I'm a recovering people-pleaser. It's funny, those things... It's one of those things that I don't think ever really goes away. Um, I think you just kinda battle it. But, um, mostly it's the, an overwhelming sense that you're not enough. And when you're functioning from that place, there's no way you can ever really measure up, and i- and there's ways that you can tune that to make it better, right? So if you have something like that, so if you s- you know, have that kind of inferiority complex plus a superiority complex plus, you know, uh, impulse control is a great example, you can do great things, but ... (laughs) But if you just have this idea that, "I'm not enough," and that's sort of the main track in the background, then you're always trying to measure up to something that doesn't actually exist. So, and, and so often this comes from, you know ... It's kind of a pivot point where you have, like, one parent that was super involved in your life and then one parent that wasn't. Maybe they were abusive. Very similar to the, kind of the nice guy narrative, where you, you show up trying to gain acceptance and love, because, uh, the only, and the only way you know how to do that is to either not show up, like to be completely invisible, um, or to make everyone else happy, right, or to keep everyone else calm, or to constantly be in a peace- peacekeeping, you know, frame of mind, and I think that's where people get really hung up.