The Nice One
People pleasing isn't generosity. It's self-protection.
I was the nice one. In every room. Every relationship. Every situation.
“She’s so nice. She always makes it easy. She always shows up.”
And I did show up. Every time.
What I didn’t see was what I was doing while I was showing up.
Saying yes when I had nothing left. Staying quiet when I had something to say. Keeping everything smooth because the alternative meant sitting in the discomfort of someone else’s disappointment.
I told myself it was consideration for other people.
It wasn’t.
It was easier than saying the true thing.
The niceness was real. The reason for it was just harder to see.
I wasn’t alone in that.
People pleasing looks like care. It isn’t.
The goal isn’t their comfort. It’s yours.
Keep the environment pleasant. Keep everyone satisfied. Keep the tension from arriving. Because when tension arrives you have to feel it too.
That’s what you’re actually managing.
Nice keeps things easy. Says the comfortable thing. Lets you walk away from a conversation having said nothing true and feel like you did something good.
Kind is different.
Kind says the true thing because the relationship matters more than the moment’s comfort. Even when that means friction. Even when it means disappointing someone right now.
Nice protects the moment.
Kind protects the person.
We were taught nice.
At some point we learned to call it care.
But what the people closest to us actually need is kind.
The most common place nice shows up is the yes you didn’t mean. I said it for years. I thought that was just part of who I was...
Say the hard part first.
I used to build up to the no for so long that by the time I got there we were both exhausted. Everything except the actual thing.
What helped was saying the hard part before anything else.
“I have to tell you something and it’s not what you were hoping to hear.”
That’s it. The other person isn’t blindsided. You’re not standing there bracing for a reaction you’ve already imagined ten times.
Most of the time the reaction is smaller than what you built in your head. The cost of not saying it is bigger than you expected.
Get them on your side.
I used to try and just say no and brace for what came after. It never went the way I hoped. What I didn’t see was that people who care about you want what’s good for you. They just need the opening to say so.
“I know you care about what’s good for me and I just have to say this doesn’t work for me right now.”
Now they’re not across from you. They’re next to you. Most people will meet you there if you give them the chance.
Decide before you’re in it.
The decisions I made in the moment almost always cost more than the ones I made before the pressure arrived. Someone standing in front of you waiting for an answer is not the moment to figure out what you have to give.
You already know what you have. You already know what you don’t.
“I’m not taking on anything new right now.”
There’s nothing to negotiate. The decision already happened. You’re just honoring it.
Every yes that isn’t real takes you a little further from yourself.
It accumulates quietly. Nothing dramatic. Just a slow erosion of everything you were trying to protect.
You can care about people. You can show up for them. You can be someone they count on.
Just make sure you’re one of the people you show up for.
The yes that costs you everything isn’t care.
It’s just a slower way of disappearing.
I’d love to hear what this brought up for you.
If someone came to mind while you were reading this, this is for them too.
You bring what you’ve built.
The full STEADY series, nine books on building steadiness before you need it, is available on Amazon.
Thank you for being here. This is reader-supported work. I’m glad we found each other.
I loved this so much