You can’t shit sparkles over everything

Are you a people pleaser?

Despite my best attempts to be seen, and see myself as a bad ass, carefree, lone ranger, HMFIC, I’ve been dragging around my people pleaser placard for most of my adult life.

In fact, nothing comes more naturally to me than pleasing other humans.

Has it served me well? Oh look, no doubt it’s saved a certain amount of conflict, it sure as hell assisted me in customer facing roles and I’d guess it’s worked to make me a generally likable human.

But… you cannot keep everyone happy all of the time

You simply can’t keep everyone happy all of the time. That’s hard enough proposition when you live a simple life. But add kids, a management position, community, friendships, family, a burning desire to make the world a better place to the mix and you’ll be presented with an ongoing series of choices:

1. Bite your tongue, stuff your feelings down deep and turn the other way when you don’t agree with something and hope the universe sorts it out or
2. Get your big girl panties on and freakin’ SPEAK UP

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

Becoming a manager highlighted the futility of my people pleasing

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