Vesna: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Peak Revival podcast. My name is Vesna and today I'm going to talk about How “nice” girls burn out and the hidden cost of people pleasing now, I often joke and call myself a recovering nice girl.
[00:01:00] And I think I'll be saying that for years to come because I see how it shows up in all areas of my life in terms of my business, my work, my relationships, my friendships, right?
And The nice girl kind of syndrome is where we have been socialised from a very young age to be nice girls, to be polite, to be putting the needs of others before ourselves, to be very agreeable, to not be too much. Even when we speak, we use too many words because we want to soften our message and not be straight to the point.
And what ends up happening is that we. Don't meet our own needs. We leave ourselves last. We sabotage our way through our career and through our relationships.
So nice girl syndrome. So these habits that we're being programmed from a very young age, they served us well when we were younger, but they do not serve us anymore as adults in our day-to-day life in our work and in our families. So the way that it shows up within your career and within your work is that you're not asking for a promotion.
[00:02:00] You're not asking for a pay rise. You're not being heard because you're not speaking up. Maybe you're not speaking up first in meetings. You leave yourself last. You're avoiding difficult conversations. You're not. Negotiating, right? When I spoke to Dr. Lois Frankel many years ago, she wrote a series of books, and the main one that you may know is that nice girls don't get the corner office.
And she said, nice is necessary for success, but it's simply not sufficient. She said, you can be only nice and still not get needs met, or you can be mean and nasty, and still not have your needs met. So she said it's really not sufficient. And while it worked for us when we were younger, we really need to step into this role of empowerment.
And she said for a lot of women that she coached and that she spoke to about the pay gender gap, she realized that these women weren't even asking for the promotion. They weren't stepping up and negotiating for their pay rise. Whereas men do.
Now in business, this can show up for me. This is where it really was highlighted for me in business. You may be trying to please everyone.
[00:03:00] You're overdoing it. So your people pleasing your customers, your people pleasing your team. You're trying to go above and beyond and meet everybody's expectations, which.
We don't really know what people's expectations are. We have to be clear about our own and what we're going to deliver, but it's almost like coddling people, right? And what ends up happening is that we drop our boundaries and we're no longer leading. So for me in my business, I found this overdoing it led to, people wanting more and more and more, and it never felt like enough.
And actually I wasn't being the leader in that scenario. I was simply reacting. And what ends up happening is for me, I noticed, and you may notice this as well. I do it because I like to avoid rocking the boat and uncomfortable situations. And what ends up happening is that life will keep throwing those situations to you because it's, you're not addressing it and the boat will capsize or the boat will completely blow up.
Okay. And then you have to confront it. You have to confront that. You need to have your boundaries in place and you really need to lead in a different way.The other area is relationships.
[00:04:00] So for women, always being in this role of apologizing, doing everything for everybody else. partner, children, leaving their needs last and getting to a place where, you know, they're doing everything for everybody. And then if they don't, they feel guilty. If they say no, they feel selfish and they become exhausted, burnt out and even resentful at the end because they've just given so much and they don't get that in return.
I see it even in health. People pleasing habits when it comes to your health. Where you decide that you're doing a change in your health, whether it be diet or exercise routine, whatever it is, and then you go out for dinner, you catch up with friends, or you have people over, and you don't want to make a fuss, you don't want to be difficult, so you just eat whatever there is, even though that is not aligned with your goals and what you're trying to achieve.
So I kind of call that people pleasing eating. But there's also people pleasing drinking where you're going out, Well, you know, I have clients say, No, I'm not going to drink, but I'm catching up with these people.
[00:05:00] And sure enough, they find that when they're in that scenario, they can't say no. And so therefore they're not going to get to their goals until they stop that people pleasing behavior, even when it comes to their health goals.
So what I've learned about being a nice girl, a people pleaser, or even a rescuer. So rescuing people, like always feeling like you're the one that's going to save the day and that no one can do it as good as you is the things that I've learned is that you would never reach your potential When you're trying to be a people pleaser, when you're trying to keep everybody else happy because you're actually not moving along your path, okay, you're not meeting your needs.
You're not following your desires. And so therefore you're kind of sabotaging your success in the long term. And then what ends up happening is that we unconsciously hold ourselves back, but we blame other people, right? We blame the people around us. for being held back when it's really our unconscious nice girl holding us back.
Number two is that we don't allow others to step into their greatness this was a huge lesson for me.
[00:06:00] If I am trying to make it so easy for someone to do something with their health and lifestyle goals or whatever it is, even in relationships, then I'm not allowing that person to step up and use their inner resources to do it themselves.
I'm not, in my mind, I'm kind of staying back going thinking, I'll do it because I don't, I don't think that they can do it, right? That's why I'm stepping in to make it as easy as possible or trying to do it for them. Okay, you may see this in your mothering, right? And so I have a lot of women say that yes, that's exactly what I'm doing.
And so therefore that person cannot step up, cannot tap into their inner resources, cannot learn the lessons that they need to learn, and therefore cannot step into their greatness. And number three, it is completely not necessary to be this nice girl. Okay. Like I said, you know, maybe it served us at some point in our life, in our childhood, but it absolutely sabotages us in our adulthood.
So what are the solutions here? Well, number one, recognize that it's part of your socialization, right? It's not even the real you. It's not the authentic you. Okay.
[00:07:00]It's the you that's been programmed to behave in these kinds of ways that when you break out of that, It feels uncomfortable. Okay, but it's not the real you.
The authentic you wants you to be, you know, following your desires and following your passions and looking after yourself and meeting your own values just as much as you meet others. Okay. So really taking care of your health and wellbeing at the end of the day. Healthy body allows us to fulfill our purpose and our mission in this world.
Okay. It's not just about, you know, being healthy for the sake of being healthy. It's really about us, you know, doing what we're here to do. Okay.
get comfortable being uncomfortable when you start to say no, when you start to speak up, when you start to set boundaries and say, you know what, this is my business, I'm running it this way and that's okay. When you start to make those changes, you are going to feel uncomfortable. You're going to feel that it's wrong, that you feel guilty, that it's selfish, that it's whatever, right?
And that is because you're stepping into something new and it's a new feeling, right? So those feelings.
[00:08:00] The guilt, the whatever it is, is actually what's been holding you back from making these changes. Okay. And I can assure you, once you step into that place, you'll realize it actually has a better result for everybody.
So if you can overcome those uncomfortable feelings and they don't last long, and after you do it a few times, it becomes normal, but it really shows other people around you what your goals are, what your boundaries are, and it allows other people to step up as well.
Ask for what you want say no to what you want or say yes to what you do want, okay? And if you have somebody in your life that makes you feel guilty for those choices, or kind of pushes back on you for wanting to step up and do things for yourself and holding your boundaries, then you really have to question that relationship in your life because if they are not there to support you in honoring your values, then that's a relationship that needs to be looked at, right?
So, quite often, We don't make these changes because of what other people may think. And most of the times other people don't think anything. Okay. [00:09:00] It really is a silent inner barrier, or a story that we have told ourselves that it makes other people uncomfortable. It will put them out.
you know, it'd be inconvenient, whatever it is, or it'd be wrong. But that is a story that we tell ourselves that most often people will be completely fine and they won't even notice.
Okay, so if you recognize that you have this inner nice girl or this nice girl syndrome, then it really take a step back and look at how it's showing up in your life. Cause I can almost guarantee it is not showing up in just one area of your life, right? It will be showing up in your work, in your relationships, in your social setting, in your community in the things that you do and assess those feelings that feel so uncomfortable for you to step up and do what you want to do and then just try it anyway and see that it really isn't a big deal.
Okay. We have to deal with some uncomfortable feelings, but we become so empowered after we make these decisions. I'd love for you to leave me a comment below and let me know, do you recognize these symptoms in yourself?
[00:10:00]Are you a nice girl and are you looking to put some of these solutions in place?
