How to Stop Being a People Pleaser
Ok, I’ve got a bee in my bonnet about something else now.
I’ve got a good news story and a bad news story. And I just wanted to use these two stories, which have polar opposite outcomes to illustrate what happens when you don’t put yourself first.
Richard Cooper from Entrepreneurs in Cars and Rollo Tomasi from The Rational Male call it “Being your own mental point of origin”, and while I disagree with some of the things going on in the Red Pill community at the moment, this philosophy is something I couldn’t agree with more.
Now the first story I want to mention is actually a thread I that I found on Reddit, and before we get into this, I just want to say I hear the same type of story from clients and even friends on a weekly basis.
I’ll link to the thread in the description below so you can check it out for yourselves. The thread is titled “Men Who Regret Getting Married, What’s Your Reason”.
It’s full of guys complaining that they married the wrong person because they either didn’t bother to spend the time to vet their partner well enough, and now they’re trapped in a cave with a monster, or they were pushed into it by parents hounding them to “make an honest woman out of your girlfriend”.
Now I’ve done videos in the past on how to vet your partner correctly before jumping into marriage, so I’m not interested in running over old ground.
And this video isn’t going to be me banging on about being anti marriage. My personal belief is that marriage is a cultural machination required to preserve the current social and economic status quo, and I’ve been there, done that for 16 years, realised it wasn’t for me and currently I’m completely not interested in partaking in that exercise ever again.
However, if you want to try your luck and roll the dice because you feel like it’s a right of passage or a bucket list item to tick off or something, then go for it.
I’m not here to tell what you what’s bad and what’s good for you. All I’m here to do is try to give you a few more tools in your toolbelt that you can use to maybe make your life a little more drama free.
Whatever you do, do it with your eyes open. That’s all I’m saying.
And one way to make your life a bit more drama free is to make yourself the centre of your universe. You have a right to be selfish and to put your needs first.
And just to clarify, I’m not saying that you have the right to be a total selfish dick. If you have bought into responsibilities, such as you’ve chosen to have children or you’ve bought a dog or whatever, I’m not telling you that you have the right to just bail on them because you need to go ride your motorbike around the world for 18 months. A man takes responsibility for his actions
However, you are in charge and you get to decide what these actions are. If you allow someone else’s agenda to influence your decisions, like your mother nagging you to marry your girlfriend and you don’t have the balls to stand up and tell her to fuckin leave you alone, well then that’s when shits gonna start getting tough for you.
The Red Pill Community have a phrase “The Death or betatisation by 1000 Concessions”. It means if you keep giving in and getting pushed around by everyone, then people are gonna start losing respect for you, your partner included, who won’t view you as competent anymore and will probably start looking around for a replacement, because she doesn’t trust you to be able to take care of her anymore. And she’d be completely justified in doing so, because she’s just making herself her own mental point of origin.
There’re a million stories about guys who just give in and give in and give in endlessly to their spouse. And they think they’re doing the right thing by “maintaining the harmony” in the household, you know, the whole “happy wife happy life” thing, then surprise surprise, she’s cheating on him! I had a friend who used to try to offer me “relationship advice” if I was having a disagreement with my wife. He used to say “just smile and say yes dear”, and I’d be like What? Fuck that shit!
Now the other thing I wanted to share with you was this story that demonstrates perfectly what I’m talking about when I say to be your own mental point of origin, and I found it while I was browsing the Speedhunters website of all places, because I’m a bit of a car guy. And it’s ostensibly about a guy who gave up being a lawyer, a career that he’d been pushed into by his parents, and took a job as an apprentice at a panel shop, because he had a dream of restoring an old Alfa 1300. And I’ll leave a link to the article in the description below.
What I like about this story is when this guy decided to quit his day job as a lawyer, he outlines how his family chucked a massive shit at him for being so irresponsible. But he went and did it anyway. Because it’s what he wanted to do.
It illustrates completely what this philosophy entails. You’ve gotta stop trying to please everyone around you and do what you feel is right for you.
Our culture tends to shame guys who aren’t interested in stepping up and being responsible, and getting a respectable job, and committing to one woman for the rest of their life, and having kids, and being a good little plough horse, and they call these guys derogatory terms like man-children and “kidults”.
There’s massive societal pressure to settle down and start a family like a good little boy.
But if it doesn’t feel right, then don’t fucking do it. I’ve said this before, if it’s not a fuck yeah, then it should be a fuck no.
And I’m also going to posit that you are a far more effective human being, and therefore a potential long-term partner for the right person, if you choose to put yourself first and stand up for what you want. Because then you’ll be more aligned internally with your own values, and give you more inner peace, and cause you to interact more effectively with those around you.
References:
http://www.speedhunters.com/2018/12/from-battlebots-to-alfa-romeos/
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskMen/comments/8e2win/men_who_regret_getting_married_whats_your_reason/