No, you’re not “TOO NICE”
It often happens that a clinician I'm coaching who is feeling burnt out and resentful will talk about how they struggle to say no or set boundaries, and then they will say some version of...
"...the problem is that I'm just too nice."
And let me be clear, the clinicians I coach genuinely are kind and wonderful people (I think everyone is at their core).
But over-giving and people-pleasing behaviours don't happen because you're "too nice".
They happen because you're scared of what would happen if you don't.
You're scared of being seen as lazy if you don't work those extra hours or if you take a proper lunch break.
Scared of patients thinking you're selfish or not fulfilling your "duty" as a healthcare professional when they're in pain and you don't accommodate them into your schedule.
You're worried you'll be seen as greedy and "just after the money" when you say no to discounts or raise your prices.
Or that you'll lose patients if you speak up against something offensive they said or don't want to stay and talk when it's time to go home.
You're scared of people disliking you, rejecting you or being disappointed by you.
If you truly imagine yourself setting that boundary, what are you dreading? THAT is what you're protecting yourself from.
So it's reflexive and protective, rather than an intentional choice to be kind. And please hear me when I say that this protective behaviour makes sense. At some point in your life you learned that you were not allowed to or it wasn't safe to set boundaries, speak up for what you need and put yourself first.
Add to that the conditioning we have as people in "helping" professions, that other people's needs always come first.
And you might think I'm advocating for less kindness and compassion, but that's not true at all. In fact, I believe that when people start to let go of people-pleasing behaviours they actually have a far greater capacity for true kindness and compassion.
People-pleasing causes so much destruction - to ourselves and others. (Believe me, I was the QUEEN of people-pleasing. Now I'm just a princess 👑)
You would not think it was kind if someone was lying to you in order to avoid hurting your feelings. You would not think it kind if someone was pretending to enjoy something to avoid offending you when really they were miserable. And you would not think it was kind when someone was sacrificing themselves for you while harbouring resentment and anger towards you.
Yes, being generous and giving is kind. But kindness also includes honesty, trustworthiness and transparency. And true kindness has no agenda, no need for approval or reciprocity.
So here's the easiest way to tell whether you're being kind or people-pleasing: congruence. In other words, if your internal feelings match your external actions - that's kindness. If your internal feelings don't match your external actions, that's people-pleasing.
And people-pleasing is destructive to you too, not only because of the more "obvious" effects of exhaustion, negative emotions and the sacrificing of your own health & happiness for others. The very act of being incongruent and chronically suppressing ourselves is in itself extremely destructive physically and psychologically.
So what can we do when we realise that this is what we're doing?
I think the first step is simply to acknowledge - with so much love and understanding - that this behaviour is not intentional or noble. As long as you're believing that, you're not going to actually want to change (after all, no-one wants to work on being "less nice").
The second is to acknowledge why we do it in the first place, and what we're protecting ourselves from. Consider where you might have learned that you need to do this in order to be safe, or where you learned that your needs are not important.
And the third step is to slowly, in small steps, show ourselves that it's safe. Safe to be yourself, safe to ask for what you need. And it's safe NOT because you're always guaranteed a good outcome or that others will always approve and understand. It's safe because you've created that safety and support internally, so that you can - as Brené Brown puts it - have the courage to love yourself, even when you risk disappointing others.
So I'd love to know: what small next step can you take to align your outward actions more with your internal state?
If you'd like help with choosing something, let me know in the comments and we can brainstorm together.
