Another question I have

received from social media is,

how do I overcome

my semi dependency on people pleasing?

As long as you believe that other

opinions and other people's opinion of you

are more important than your

own, and you subordinate to them,

and you think that they

have something you don't,

and you're too humble to admit

what you see in others inside you,

you're going to minimize

you and exaggerate them.

And then fear of not pleasing them

and fear of rejection of them.

And so there's a number

of ways of doing it.

I teach in the My Breakthrough

Experience Program,

which I've been doing for over 35 years a

process called owning the traits of

the greats, whatever you see in others,

find out where you're displaying or

demonstrating it in your own life and find

out the drawbacks of them

displaying it to calm down your

infatuation with them,

or admiration in them,

and find out the benefits of you

displaying it so you can level the playing

field. When you level the playing field,

you're more likely to be able to

say thank you, but no thank you,

to things that they may want

that you don't want to do.

Because every time you give in and

repress what you're actually feeling and

thinking,

when you're doing something you really

don't want to do and trying to please

them all the time,

you diminish yourself until you

finally get angry enough just to,

out of the repression,

to eventually blurt out 'No,' or

you'll avoid them or you'll dodge them,

or you won't respond to

them, just to avoid it.

Wiser to sit down and write down what's

the benefit to them of you doing what's

priority to you and you doing what you

have on your plate that's more meaningful

and saying no to them. If you

can't write down the benefits,

if you can't see the benefits

of how they're going to

win out of it by not doing

it you're going to give in.

And if you don't have a very high priority

list of things to be doing for the

day and you don't have a full

agenda on your plate filled with

high priority things, it's easy to be

vulnerable to other people's expectations.

I find that when I have

a very busy schedule,

I keep an itinerary,

and when I get the itinerary

it's full throughout the day,

every hour, even if I'm

going to do you know,

research or writing or teaching or

traveling, whatever, it's on my agenda,

so I don't have idle time.

If you have idle time,

it's easy to be vulnerable to other

people's projections and expectations,

and you don't want to

upset them. And so you,

and particularly if they're important

people in your mind and you've exaggerated

them, you're going to have

a difficulty saying no.

But if you have a full agenda and they

just all of a sudden wanted you to do

something and your agenda's

full, it's easier to say no.

So fill your agenda with high priority

actions on a daily basis and have a full

day, even if it means

meditating or going to the spa,

but have an agenda and says,

right now that doesn't work,

my priorities of the day have been laid

out and you're asking me on a short

notice, and it just, I don't

have availability of that.

And it's easy to say no.

And then think of the benefits

to them of you saying no,

and the benefits to them of either

coming up with their own sources and

solutions,

coming up with alternative people

to do the things they want or maybe

they'll value you more if

you're not so easily accessible,

when you're valuing you, they value you,

and that gives you a little bit more

priority. And then if it's meaningful,

you'll reschedule and make it

happen for them. If it's not,

be honest and be able to say no. If you

can't say thank you, but no thank you,

and come up with alternative

ways of doing that,

you're going to be trying to

please people all the time.

And you don't please

everybody. By the way,

if you look very carefully in your life,

there are some people that you

devalue and overvalue yourself to,

and you look down on them, then

it's easy to say no to them.

And you're not worried about upsetting

them because they're not above you.

If they're equal, you try to

have sustainable fair exchange.

If they're above you, you'll

sacrifice. If they're below you,

you'll sacrifice them for you.

We tend to get narcissistic

when we look down on people,

we tend to get altruistic

when we look up at people.

Level the playing field where the seer,

the seeing and the seen are the same.

And you'll have the ability to say, right

now, that's not priority. Thank you.

Let's find somebody.

See if you can't find somebody that's

really 100% able to be able to be there

for you, to give you the best possible

win in your life at this moment,

right now, my agenda's full. Sometimes

my agenda's weeks in advance full.

And so if you let me know in

advance, I can maybe reschedule that.

But with a shorted notice, it's

not going to be able to be done.

And just say no, say thank you,

but no thank you. Do it tactfully.

If you have a series of

tactful communications to

be able to say no to people,

it's much easier. Thank you,

but no, thank you. Right now,

that's not the highest priority and

I try to live my life by priorities.

It's not that you're not important,

it's just right now with

other things on my plate,

that's not the highest priority.

And just be open about it.

They may create a reaction at

first, but they'll respect you,

because you're respecting you,

and you're giving yourself

permission to prioritize your life.

Anytime you're not doing high priority

things, you're devaluing yourself.

And when you devalue yourself,

you'll give in and sacrifice

yourself altruistically to others.

And that's also been shown to be

associated with various illnesses.

So it's wiser to be able to say

thank you, but no thank you,

that's not priority right now.

I appreciate the opportunity,

but I'll have to pass right now. It's

not priority, or I will think about it,

I'll look at my schedule. If

I don't get back with you,

it's because I don't have the

availability. If I get back with you,

I'll let you know either

way. But come up with

a series of strategic statements that

you feel that are tactful, respectful,

and say no. If you don't

learn how to say no to things,

you're going to be bombarded by

everybody's expectations on you,

projections onto you. And you're going

to have, if you say yes to everything,

you'll eventually say no to yourself.