arcade_fireee
Member
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2020
- Goal
- Higher quality girls
- Age
- 31
- Location
- Los Angeles
My problem I'm trying to solve is that I'm a major people-pleaser. That is, when talking to people, I say what I think they wanna hear. When in public, I never do anything that I think someone would find weird, offensive, annoying, etc. If someone seems like they're in a bad mood, I basically walk on eggshells around them, trying not to upset them even more. If I'm around my liberal friends, I never speak up about my slightly conservative beliefs. Etc. I could give a lot of specific examples. Basically, my personality is really suppressed and I can never be my real self around people, since that would risk conflict and upsetting people.
I'm trying to use Andy's kickass slight edge article to reverse these behaviors, and I'm finding it tricky to break this down into discreet, measurable goals. Here are some ideas I have for discreet sub-goals:
A lot of these goals are about getting "comfortable" doing something, but how do I track when I've achieved that? Merely being able to do something once doesn't mean I'm comfortable with it or that it will then make me more expressive and confident in everyday life. I need to get comfortable with this stuff, but I'm not sure how you measure that, so that I know when to move on to focusing on the next thing.
Additionally, some of these are logistically hard to practice. That is, for some of them I'm at the mercy of a specific event arising (e.g., someone asking if I want to do something I don't want to do), and then I basically get one shot at successfully acting how I'm trying to act in that scenario. I miss the days when my main goal was hitting on one girl a day, because there were basically an infinite stream of opportunities, so if I chickened out, I could just immediately try again. But with something like learning to say "no" to people, that opportunity arises maybe...once a week? So if I chicken out in the moment (which is likely), I gotta wait another week to try again, and when the opportunity arises again, it'll probably catch me off guard and I won't be likely to take advantage of it.
Also, has anyone dealt with and successfully overcome this kind of "nice guy" stuff before? I've been reading a lot of "theory" about it (lots of books and stuff), but I want to actually start translating this into discreet action steps.
For anyone else trying to improve in this area, I highly recommend the book Not Nice: https://www.amazon.com/Not-Nice-Ple...9Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=
I'm trying to use Andy's kickass slight edge article to reverse these behaviors, and I'm finding it tricky to break this down into discreet, measurable goals. Here are some ideas I have for discreet sub-goals:
- Be very emotionally expressive while playing video games while my roommate is around. This means get excited, yell at the TV, celebrate, get mad, etc. I currently suppress all of this so as not to "annoy" my roommate.
- Whistle/sing at full volume when my roommate is home, with no sense of "holding myself back" at all
- When someone asks if I want to do something that I don't really want to do (e.g., my roommate asking if I want to watch a movie), say no, confidently and not apologetically
- My brother gave me a Trump hat. I don't necessarily like Trump (I don't want this to turn into a political discussion), but my roommate is very liberal, so I want to get comfortable wearing the hat around him. A baby-step toward this would be watching conservative YouTube videos around him (e.g., Jordan Peterson). I'm very afraid that he'd get actively angry and/or not want to be friends anymore if he thought I was a Trump supporter.
- Get comfortable saying "fuck" around my parents. I was raised Christian, so this would be pretty hard, since I would expect a not-so-great reaction from them. But I'm an adult so they shouldn't get to control what language I'm allowed to use anymore.
- Say politically incorrect things around my politically-correct friends (e.g., "gay", "retard")
A lot of these goals are about getting "comfortable" doing something, but how do I track when I've achieved that? Merely being able to do something once doesn't mean I'm comfortable with it or that it will then make me more expressive and confident in everyday life. I need to get comfortable with this stuff, but I'm not sure how you measure that, so that I know when to move on to focusing on the next thing.
Additionally, some of these are logistically hard to practice. That is, for some of them I'm at the mercy of a specific event arising (e.g., someone asking if I want to do something I don't want to do), and then I basically get one shot at successfully acting how I'm trying to act in that scenario. I miss the days when my main goal was hitting on one girl a day, because there were basically an infinite stream of opportunities, so if I chickened out, I could just immediately try again. But with something like learning to say "no" to people, that opportunity arises maybe...once a week? So if I chicken out in the moment (which is likely), I gotta wait another week to try again, and when the opportunity arises again, it'll probably catch me off guard and I won't be likely to take advantage of it.
Also, has anyone dealt with and successfully overcome this kind of "nice guy" stuff before? I've been reading a lot of "theory" about it (lots of books and stuff), but I want to actually start translating this into discreet action steps.
For anyone else trying to improve in this area, I highly recommend the book Not Nice: https://www.amazon.com/Not-Nice-Ple...9Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=