Learn to please yourself more than others.

We often lose ourselves in our endeavor to please others,often to the point that we don’t know who we are anymore. We end up floating through life running with the advice and suggestion of others. Many of us become conscious of our people pleasing habits, but do not know how to change it.

To allow yourself to change we need to become aware of a few things.

Identify your need or reason to be liked by others or to please others all of the time. Where does your insecurity lie? What are the reasons you do this? Is it learned behavior that has been passed down or simply because you have insecurities or fears of being disliked.

Understand that it is okay not to be liked by everyone. In a world of a billion people, not everyone is going to be liked all of the time by others. As goes with you too, you may not like everyone you meet and know. No two individuals are alike, whether in a friendship, relationship or even the family you are born into. There are things we love about those close to us and there are things we don’t. In close relationships, it is normally, the traits or commonalities that we resonate with that outweigh the ones we don’t. This is what makes the relationship work. We make a choice to focus on the traits we love instead of focusing on the ones we don’t. Unless it is too glaring an issue that cannot be ignored. So it is okay to not be liked by everyone.

Learn to say no to what doesn’t serve you: Saying yes to doing something for someone should be a matter of choice and not an obligation.Ask yourself why otherswon’t take a no from you, but can say no to you in a heartbeat? A relationship is about give and take. Recognise the equations in your relationships and ask yourself if you are happy if the equation is not equal. If you are unhappy, ask yourself what you would like to change and how you can do it. Learn to value yourself more than to care about what they think of you.To quote Michelle Obama here “Walk away from friendships that make you feel small & insecure and seek out people who inspire and support you.”

Learn to stand up for yourself and speak up : You do not need to offer explanations and justifications to anyone. If something is not okay with you, it simply is not okay. “No is a complete sentence” you might have often heard. Use it. Learning to say no, is freeing and liberating. Initially it is tough, but it gets easier the more one uses it. A few years ago I attended a talk by His Holiness The Dalai Lama in Dharamshala, India. When asked about what his views were on the Chinese taking over his beloved country, His Holiness said, that what he learnt was that Tibet was a peace loving country, they lived without crime or fear within their country and never interfered with their neighbours. They thought that respect would be mutually awarded to them too. However when the Chinese invaded and took over.

Tibet, he realized that every country however peace loving they are, must have an army and protect it’s borders.

 No matter how we perceive the world, the world does not have to perceive us in the same way and so it is important that a country takes care of its safety.

Listening to this, I thought that was so true of not just countries, but of each of us as individuals. The world does not view us the same way that we view the world. Some may see a good kind person as an easy target to bully or victimize. So it is important for each of us as individuals to have boundaries in place of what is acceptable and what is not.