Cheryl Stein On Taking Time to Know Yourself
By Cheryl Stein
Monster personal coach
The habit
I have this annoying habit of saying yes to too much. It gets me into a lot of trouble because I end up feeling overwhelmed a lot of the time. When my kids ask me for something I usually say yes, when my family asks me for things I usually say yes, when friends ask me for favors I usually say yes.
I do this even though a lot of the time, I am really annoyed with myself for answering too quickly and not really thinking about whether or not it is something that is okay for me.
On a conscious level I am able to see that this behavior is ridiculous. I tell myself to just say no to the things that I don’t want to do but for some reason, this doesn’t work. I still say yes. I decided to try and figure out why I don’t just say no and what I found out about myself isn’t that surprising.
I say yes to everyone and everything because I want people to like me. I mean, who wouldn’t like a person that helps them out of every jam that they are in? I want to be that person that people say is always helpful and available so that they will think I am nice, and people generally want to hang around people who they think are nice to them.
In some ways, the behavior of always saying yes actually works well for me. I have lots of lovely people in my life who think I am great and want to be my friend. Where things have gone a little wrong for me is when I have used this attractive feature of mine a little too much and forgotten to factor myself into the picture.
I don’t blame myself for this one because we are all taught from a young age that being selfish is a bad quality. Although I will reserve my thoughts on the word selfish for another article, lets just say that thinking of yourself doesn’t always have to be bad.
Even though I get stretched a little too thinly, I find myself saying yes to too much because I want people to like me. If I examine this idea I have to ask myself a funny question. Do I really think that my friends and family will drop me like a hot potato if I can’t do something for them once in a while? I mean really?
To break the habit
So to break myself of my habit, I need to realize that people will still like me even if I can’t do everything for them all the time. Figuring out the “why” of our weird and wacky ways is the only way to figure out how to be different and better.
Until people look at the reasons behind their actions, they can’t really move forward. I challenge you to look at yourself and try and figure out what is underneath undesirable behavior. Are you too pushy, strong willed, emotional, soft, hard or easygoing? (These are only a few examples by the way- I am sure you each have your own unique way of bothering yourself or those around you).
Try and figure out why you behave that way. Are you too opinionated because you are worried that people won’t respect you if you don’t voice your ideas? Are you too hard on people because you are scared that they will fail if you don’t push enough? Are you too easygoing because you hate confrontation? After you have figured that out, ask yourself the “what if question”.
What if I wasn’t so opinionated, would I still get respect? What if I wasn’t so hard on people, would they drop the ball completely? Don’t be afraid to look at yourself. Chances are, you will still like what you see.