A rant about putting YOU first
There I was, just casually sending out the latest installment of The Path to Purpose, Peace & Profit - when I happened upon this excellent rant!
Clearly must have had my soapbox under my desk when I was writing that day…
Anyway, it’s all about saying no to people-pleasing and taking back your personal power - so I thought it might be particularly beneficial at this hectic and notoriously demanding time of year.
Enjoy!
A x
Chapter 5 (section 2): Reject
….
Start to question everything. Become a walking fuel gauge. A Geiger counter for energy-draining, soul-sucking, time-leeching miserable sh*t.
Yes, even all the stuff you’ll feel guilt about abandoning or saying ‘no’ to - because we’re about to deal with that too. Remember - YOU get to build your experience and say how you spend your time. Nobody else.
You do not need to do anything to please anyone, to impress anyone, or satisfy anyone but yourself.
Oof. Selfish? Much?
No. Absolutely not.
Oh my goodness, we’ve got it so wrong.
We’re taught, aren’t we, how to be ‘nice’ (aka selfless, subservient and silent) from a very young age. Many of us are brought up with a narrative of sacrifice and suffering. And we learn that bending over backwards for everyone and everything and being ‘good’ and ‘kind’ is the way to win friends and be a beacon of loveliness in this ‘cruel’ world.
Ok, so there’s nothing wrong with kindness and being a respectful, considerate human - they’re absolutely traits we should all seek to embody.
On a slightly selfish and self-serving note (go on, just a little one) being kind has actually been shown to generate all sorts of fantastic effects on our mind and body - from improved immune function to lower blood pressure and improved emotional regulation. It’s fascinating stuff and if you’re interested to know more, Dr David Hamilton has written a whole book on the subject ‘The 5 Side Effects of Kindness’. But the suffering, silent, subservient bit?
It’s utter bullshit and - if I may have a soapbox moment - oppressive nonsense, drummed up by centuries of patriarchal and authoritarian societal systems that would rather people didn’t do too much independent thought or activity, thank you very much (especially women folk, non-cis people, people of colour and anyone else who doesn’t neatly fit in the prep-school attending, smoking jacket-wearing, ‘Don’t disrupt our happy little hierarchy’ old boys’ club).
Are you up for being oppressed? Didn’t think so.
What I see resulting from all that subservience isn’t the happiness, kindness, love and mutual respect we’re sold - but people struggling with terrible self-esteem, trapped in prisons of their own making, and forever terrified of saying ‘no’ or standing up for what they really want because they don’t want to be perceived as a bad person - or worse. A HUGE part of the work I do with my clients is rewriting all the ways they’ve learned they ‘should’ behave over the years and erasing the unhelpful ‘nice people do this’ narratives - so they can step away from constantly chasing round after everyone else, stop feeling like they have to be the one to run the family, the world AND their workplace, and actually start to live their own lives rather than being the doormat for everyone else’s.
Strong words - yes. But strong people sometimes need to hear them to realise the struggles they’re creating for themselves. The thing is, by starting to say no - and drawing away from the things you’re doing just because you feel you should - you start to reclaim:
Your time.
Your energy.
Your joy.
Your headspace.
Your freedom.
Your sanity
(for starters).
And when you stop overwhelming yourself mentally, emotionally and physically and stop giving away your time and joy to things you secretly resent (go on, it’s ok to admit it - this is a safe space) - suddenly you have so much more time, energy, joy and headspace to give to those things you DO enjoy and care about.
When you stop spreading yourself so thinly, you’ll find that you have way more of yourself to give than ever! And you get to CHOOSE how you give that fabulous self of yours to the world.
So it might be that pulling back from running the school bake sale and not forcing yourself to whip up every single costume school demands at the last minute from scratch - or ordering in a few times when you’ve got visitors rather than feeling the need to create 3 courses of perfection every night - actually gives you a bit more mental energy to enjoy the time you have with your family, rather than snapping at them because you’re constantly stressed.
It might be that not having coffee with that fellow freelancer who wants to pick your brain (and is really just looking for free business advice) frees up space in your diary to clear some of the backlog in your to do list - or to sit down and take a look at the bigger picture, rather than ploughing on relentlessly.
It might be that refusing to listen to the news just because ‘it’s the done thing’ makes you feel a thousand times more positive and helps light a fire under your life (in a good way), because suddenly you’re not dragged down and preoccupied by all those things you can do nothing about, that don’t really impact you day to day, leaving your brain firing in a much more positive way and free to come up with exciting new creative solutions.
Heck, you might even decide that rather than worrying about the things in the world that are totally out of your control, you can make your little corner of the world a nicer place to be by getting involved in a community scheme you genuinely do feel passionate about and don’t resent giving your time to.
Or maybe you can dedicate that mental energy to learning a new hobby or craft - something that actually feels (dare I say it) fulfilling.
I’m not saying don’t do the things you love. No. I’m saying do MORE of them! And leave the rest. Or outsource. Or recommend. And trust that the world will not stop turning if you politely say ‘no’. It really, really won’t.
In fact I challenge you right now to pick something you’re no longer willing to do - let it go - and just feel the weight lift of your shoulders. How does that feel?
Good?
Or… guilty?
Or even a bit of a mixture (because the two can totally coexist)?
If there is any hint of guilt, by the way, don’t worry - we’re going to look at that next. Because this is all about getting you feeling GOOD, remember?
…
.
.
