This week sees me finishing up my Amsterdam adventure, and rather than a big finish with an orchestral flourish and jazz hands I’m limping to the finish line, weary and battered.

CFS has been kicking my ass, and I’ve had to take some time out sick and be incredibly careful to pace myself.  There have been moments where I haven’t been able to move because it hurt too much, the room was spinning and my legs didn’t work, but I’m back on my (wobbly) feet and aiming for the finish line.

I’ve been asked to extend  my contract here, which was expected and something I’d traditionally say yes to.  But this is one man called Steve who’s putting his health first this time, so while I won’t see the projects through to the end I will be making a good choice.

Regardless of the manner in which I cross the finish line, what strikes me as most important is that I’ll miss Amsterdam.  As chaotic as the office is, I’ll miss my new colleagues.  I’ll miss having a 15 minute commute to work.  I’ll miss living in a laid-back city with a wide choice of things to do and places to go.  As sick as I am right now and as much as I’m looking forward to being home, I’ll miss living in Amsterdam.

And I think that counts for a lot.  It’s much better to leave something and miss it than to leave something and hate or resent it, right?  That feels like an important distinction, but with the fog seeping into my brain I can’t quite figure out why.

I’m writing these words at around 10pm having just been for a stroll along the canal by my apartment before I hit the sack.  It was warm, peaceful and beautiful out there.  Almost enough to stay for.  But I know that all the time I’m ill I won’t be able to enjoy this city as I would want to.  I can’t make the most of this place all the time I have to manage this illness.  I can’t make the most of any place while I’m ill.

I’ve been a good coach and accepted this illness, but I’ve realised that I’ve been a little too good at accepting this.  I’ve normalised it just a little too much, but it’s not normal.  As a coach I’m trained to believe that nobody’s broken and nobody needs fixing, but my body’s broken and it needs fixing.  So I’m packing up and heading home, and I’m already lining up medical appointments for when I get back .

I’ll be taking a little break from writing for a couple of weeks, but in the meantime, let me know what I can do to help you out and if you have a story about taking a leap of faith be sure to let me know.

Other articles you might like:

• My Social Life Sucks
• Where I’m Revealed as a Big Fat Fraud
• 7 Ways to Win in 2009 #1: Name Your Game

Ever feel like you’re a bit rubbish at networking or meeting new people?  Do nerves get in the way and stop you from being as open as you’d like to be?  Do you feel like you just scrape through it, but don’t really get to be yourself or make the most of the opportunity to connect?

Well, it’s not just you.  I had a conversation on Twitter recently with a guy who asked me about this exact problem, which really surprised me because I know him as an open, friendly and incredibly generous guy.  But I guess “real life” is different from Twitter (or so I’ve heard).

So in thinking about what makes this such a blind spot for people I thought of Guy Kawasaki’s networking skills, a guy who (according to the latest figures) meets around twelvety million people every year.  He networks *a lot* with apparent ease and enthusiasm, so I wondered what might separate someone like Guy Kawasaki from someone who finds it difficult, and here’s what I came up with.

The nerves are not the problem

This nervousness doesn’t just belong to the “shy” – it’s universal.  We all become self-conscious when we think other people might be judging us, and it’s especially scary when you want or need to be at your best.  But the moment you start thinking that being nervous is a problem or something you need to fix is the moment you breathe new life into those nerves.  Your thoughts become fixed on the fact that you’re nervous and you go round in circles as you try to not be nervous.

What if you were supposed to be feeling nervous?  What if the nerves you’re feeling is the perfect response to the situation?

I love meeting new people and find it a heck of a lot of fun, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel nervous too.

Those nerves are just part of that whole fight or flight mechanic we have; a relic of the days when we’d drag home a platypus for dinner only to be jumped by a sabre-toothed tiger looking for a little duck-billed dinner.

It’s there to alert you of danger, but you have to recognize that the chances of being jumped by a sabre-toothed tiger are pretty remote.

The nerves are not a problem, your thinking that they’re a problem is the problem.

There is no spoon

There’s a bit in the movie The Matrix where Keanu Reeves tries to bend a spoon with his mind.  He holds the spoon and fixes his concentration on it, but nothing happens.  Then a kid who understands the nature of things tells him “There is no spoon”.  Nothing to bend.  He tries again, and the spoon bends.

That’s a little on the existential side, but the same thing goes for meeting new people.  Forget about the rules you think are in operation, because those rules will define your reality and you won’t be able to bend your spoon.

Think that you can’t go up to someone out of the blue and introduce yourself, and that rule will shape your behaviour.  Think that you always have to have the perfect thing to say and your mind will be racing to try to figure out what that perfect thing is.  Think that you have to fill a quiet space with something (anything) and you’ll appear nervous and twitchy.

The rules you impose create your experience of reality.  There is no spoon.

What if it didn’t matter?

Now there’s a question.  Forget for a minute about wanting to come across well, make a good impression or make the most of the opportunity.  What if it just didn’t matter?

I’m willing to bet that when you’re hanging out with your partner or best friend that you’re not thinking about how you’re coming across or what kind of impression you’re making.  You’re just there, talking naturally, being yourself.

The reason for that is that there’s no jeopardy.  There’s nothing at stake, nothing at risk, nothing that you stand to lose.

I’m a strong believer in adopting the same approach to meeting new people, regardless of how important the meeting might be.  That sense of jeopardy keeps you trapped in your own head, but remove your attachment to it and you can be fully in the moment.

It’s by being hootless that you can be at your best.

Be Generous

While giving out $20 bills to everyone  you meet will certainly get you a lot of friends, it’s not a great long term strategy.

What is a great, long term strategy is to be generous.  Generous with your time, skills, experience or spirit in whatever amount you can afford – being of service to someone else is what counts.  Don’t become a bottomless pit or a people pleaser, but I’m willing to bet the most awesome people you’ve met are the ones who gave something.

As I was wondering about all this I emailed Guy Kawasaki to ask him what was the single-most important part of meeting people for him.  He replied the next day – here’s what he said:

“Figuring out how I can help them”

Other articles you might like:

• My Christmas Could be a Car Wreck
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• 30 Reasons Confidence is Critical in Business

I’ve heard that I’m more likely to have a satellite fall from space and land on my house than I am to win the lottery.  That’s why I don’t but a ticket, because if I was to win the lottery at those extreme odds then a satellite would be sure to fall from space and land on my house.

That’s not the kind of luck I need, thank you very much.

But aside from the lottery, luck has a larger role to play in our lives than we might think.  Luck is traditionally seen as some kind of magical force that operates for good or ill in a person’s life, shaping circumstances and events and smiling favourably on those “lucky enough”.

Some people carry around a rabbit’s foot for good luck.  Other people have little rituals they follow in the pursuit of being lucky, while others perform rituals to avoid being unlucky (when a black cat crosses your path, when you spill salt, break a mirror, see a lone magpie or when you forget to call it “The Scottish Play” for example).

We’ve all known people who “got lucky”, and we’ve all known people who were down on their luck.  I’ve had my own fair share of good and bad luck.  I flew around the world first class in my old career.  I’ve met and stayed in touch with some amazing people who I met at random.  When debt threatened to bankrupt me I somehow found myself in the position of being a sought-after freelance producer in leading ad agencies.  I have an incurable debilitating illness.  I suffered from depression when I was made redundant in 2001.  I was rejected by a woman I loved.

Some good luck, some bad luck.

That’s how it goes, and these traditions and memes are woven into our lives without us ever really thinking about what it means.  But the word has come up a few times in my life recently, so I opened it up to see what was inside.

They say that luck is about being in the right place at the right time, and if that’s true then surely the trick is to spot where the right place might be and to get there in good time.  Makes sense, right?

The trick to luck then, is opportunity.

So it follows that you’ll never be lucky if you sidestep the right place or the right time; you’ll never be lucky if you second guess yourself, dilly-dally, get diverted or change your mind on the way.  Luck is about being mindful enough to notice opportunity when it comes along and then being willing to step into it.

This could be a deliberate choice or it could be a subtle nudge from your intuition – but regardless of whether it’s conscious or sub-conscious, it requires trust.  Being lucky requires that you trust yourself to take a step forwards, to trust your gut and to trust yourself to deal with whatever might happen.

Moving to Amsterdam this summer could have been one of those right times and right places.  Turns out that it probably isn’t, but I had to go and see for myself, and I know it will lead to something else that just might be extraordinary.

Luck is trusting yourself to step into what just might be the right place and the right time.

Those people who always seem to land on their feet and always seem to get lucky?  Those are the people who have developed a way of thinking that encourages self-trust.  Those are the people who have wired luck into their brains.

You can do that too.  You can be the luckiest person alive.  It just takes confidence.

Other articles you might like:

• Confidence Interview – Penelope Trunk
• Do You Want or Need a Relationship?
• What do Insecure People Fear the Most?

What are you good at?  Singing?  Cooking?  Leading a team?  Empathy?  Maths?  Design?  Running?

How about confidence?  You good at confidence?

See, the real truth about confidence is that it’s a skill, and just like any other skill you can learn it.

Learn

By the time you turn three years old and you’re feeding your toys into household appliances, your brain has around 100 billion neurons – these are the doing cells in the brain.  Each of these neurons is connected to around 15 thousand other neurons, and it’s this network that allows you to think.

These synapses connect together to form circuits of wiring, patterns of thought that your brain uses to “do stuff” (that’s the technical term for it).  This is your grey matter, and new connections are formed in your grey matter whenever you learn something new, see something in a new way or acknowledge or understand something.

This is all learning is – building new connections that allow your brain to process things in new ways.

Just like any other skill, self-confidence is a pattern of thought wired into your brain; a circuit that gets triggered when it’s needed.  If your self-confidence pattern isn’t used much or isn’t efficient at getting a result, learning is what enables a new, more effective self-confidence circuit to be built.

And like any learning process it feels awkward and deliberate at first, simply because your brain doesn’t have an efficient circuit yet.  It’s like learning to juggle – tough at first, but you get better.

Which brings us onto what gets you to Carnegie Hall…

Practice

It’s been shown that through practice the density of grey matter in the brain increases.  Taxi drivers in London, for example, are required to learn and pass a test called “The Knowledge”, a notoriously difficult test that demands learning every street in London (although somehow my cab driver always seems to be the one who skipped lessons).  The posterior hippocampus (I’m pointing to the lower central bit of my head now, see?) in London cabbies is bigger and denser than in you or me, simply because their brain has adapted and grown in response to the need.

So practice builds grey matter in the parts of the brain where it’s needed, but new research shows that white matter increases with practice too.  A fat called myelin is produced in your brain when you practice something deeply, as author and thoroughly nice guy Daniel Coyle describes in detail in the brilliant “The Talent Code”.

Myelin insulates these circuits from signal loss, supporting the ability of these circuits to fire at maximum speed and ensuring that whatever skills you’re practicing work as efficiently and effectively as they possibly can

Your circuits, self-confidence included, are just like muscles – the more you use them in the right ways the bigger and more effective they get.  The less you use them, the smaller and less effective they get.  Practice is what makes the difference.

Confidence Gets in the Way

Okay, so that’s the science bit.  The reason I’m telling you all this is because I’ve seen that even though someone can be really bloody good at something, their lack of confidence stops them from using a skill or from practicing.  An insufficiently developed self-confidence circuit means 3 things:

1. It’s harder to practice the skill of confidence because you’re not confident enough to practice.
2. A poorly developed or inefficient self-confidence circuit makes it harder to practice other skills that require self-confidence to pursue.
3. Circuits that aren’t fired due to a lack of self-confidence will not get used as frequently and will fall into disrepair.

So I began to see confidence as something that gets in the way of firing other circuits – it can stop the circuit of another skill firing, and it can even default to a different, tried and trusted circuit to fire in its place.

If you lack confidence that you can build a business, for example, then you might not entertain the idea of becoming self-employed.  You might fire a pattern of thinking that says it’s best for you to stay in a job you don’t like because there’s more security and it doesn’t require you to have a more developed confidence circuit.

If you’re not feeling confident enough to go on that date you might turn someone down unnecessarily or you won’t ask out that guy or girl you’ve met.  Even though you’re normally sociable, you might even “choose” to avoid certain social situations or to retreat into yourself.

This is all your brain selecting circuits based on what it knows to work, and I think that that self-confidence acts like a meta-circuit – if it isn’t fired then it short-circuits any subsequent firing mechanism.

You end up not feeling confident and not following through.

I wanted to bounce this off someone, so I emailed Daniel Coyle and asked him.

What Daniel Coyle said

“I think you’re right to think of it as a meta-circuit — and also one that gets built from the earliest ages — and thus would be immune to quick fixes.  So while it grows exactly like a skill, it’s also pretty well wired in so that it’s easy to fall into old patterns.  One neurologist I spoke with compared existing behavioral patterns like sled tracks on a snowy hill — the more you behave in a certain way, the more likely your sled is to fall into those tracks.  So that “backsliding” moment you’re speaking of — when someone seems to have it, but still falls into old patterns of non-confidence — would be expected. Even if they’ve worked with you for a year, they’ve still got decades of “non-confidence” circuitry that’s fast, fluent, and ready to fire.

So the question becomes, how do you stop that from happening?  How do you demarcate old and new?

The places that seem to have the most success in these areas (that I visited) are good at demarcating the old and the new (places like KIPP and the Shyness Clinic), they use a cohesive suite of cues and signals to help create a new persona — and by your website, you’re doing some of the same things.  Also, it seems that playing up the difficulty and arduousness of this can have a good effect — it cures people of thinking there’s a quick fix and allows them to see the truth — this does take time. It’s exactly like a gym workout — and you’re training people to run a marathon, not giving them a one-minute makeover.”

I don’t believe that it’s necessary to create a “new persona” – it’s a case of creating a new way of thinking – and so the separation of old and new is something that’s very central to how I work. (This pleases me, because I hadn’t thought about it before Daniel mentioned it.)

Daniel’s also right in saying that it’s hard.  It’s hard to leave behind years of efficient (if ill-serving) wiring and risk going into the unknown, just like it’s harder to run a marathon than it is to stroll down the street.

The real truth about confidence is that it requires you to make a choice based on your potential to learn and practice rather than your existing boundaries.

Other articles you might like:

• How to Be More Confident
• Why Do You Lose Confidence in Yourself?
• 7 Ways to Win in 2009 #3: Use What You’ve Got

I need your help.

I’m looking for examples of taking leaps of faith. Examples of those throat tightening moments when you say “What the Hell” to life and jump in with both feet.

What was it that you made a leap towards?  What was going through your head (both urging you to go for it and warning you not to)?  What was it that made it okay for you to take that leap?  What happened after you leapt and how do you look back on it now?

I wanna get as many stories as possible so let me know your story in the comments or via email, retweet this if you’re on Twitter and if you have a friend with a great story be sure to send them on over.

Thanks!

Other articles you might like:

• You Can’t Bounce a Doughnut Off Your Confidence
• The Confidence Catch-22
• The White Envelope Project

I had an email recently from a woman – let’s call her Carla – who explained how she felt like she couldn’t get behind the life she’d chosen for herself because she wasn’t confident in the choices she’d made.  She’d given up the corporate lifestyle for a new, more creative way of living but was constantly looking at other people and judging her choices as the wrong ones.

Having left her familiar world behind her and embarked on what she hoped would be a more fulfilling life, she felt trapped by her choices and had forgotten how to trust herself.

Like everyone who emails me, I wrote back to her with a few ideas.

She replied to tell me that one thing I said to her made the biggest difference and stood out above everything else, and on the off-chance it could make a difference to you too, here it is.

“You’re always able to make a new choice – you’re life isn’t constrained by the choices you’ve made in the past, it’s constrained by the choices you’re not making right now.”

Other articles you might like:

• Don’t Let Them Put You Down
• Down, but Not Out
• I Was Bold, She Was Beautiful

To paraphrase Dr “Bones” McCoy from Star Trek, “Damn it man I’m a coach not a psychology Professor“.

That’s probably why I often use the terms “self-esteem” and “self-confidence” interchangeably.  I don’t know any better.

Some folks come to me and talk about building their self-confidence, others come to me wanting to build self-esteem.  To me, the end result is the same.  And the dictionary kinda, sorta agrees with me.

self-es·teem
–noun
1. a realistic respect for or favorable impression of oneself;

self-con·fi·dence
–noun
1. realistic confidence in one’s own judgment, ability, power,etc.

See how close they are?  They’re really close.  If being close were people, they’d be China.

Building self-esteem is a process of valuing yourself; it’s building enough belief in your own worth that it enables rather than disables.  Building confidence is a process of recognizing, applying and trusting capability; it’s building enough belief in your ability that it enables rather than disables.

One is about respecting who you are, the other is about trusting who you are.  For me, that’s an incredibly powerful combination and it’s at the heart of what I do.

Respecting yourself starts on the inside.  You have to honestly open up your beliefs and face the truth of how you think about yourself.  You have to put aside the self-doubts and the self-criticism to look for the truth of who you are and see the golden threads that are woven through you; the foundations, cornerstones and building blocks that make you utterly unique and whole.  A lot of people get stuck here because they’re not used to a. being so honest about themselves and b. diving into their own worth.

A lot of people feel icky doing this and it’s here where it gets scary, because things start changing.  And it’s here that trust becomes an important part of the process.

Trusting yourself starts with a leap of faith.  Trust demands that you allow yourself to be scared and take a conscious step into the unknown.  That leap of faith becomes easier if you’re stepping towards something that matters, and it becomes more graceful if you do it with a dose of self-respect.

See how this all starts weaving together?  Self-esteem, self-confidence, respect and trust – all growing and all working together.

A current client of mine is a great example of this.  She came to me with zilch self-respect and no self-trust.  So we made a start.  Step by step and bit by bit we worked on her views about herself and her ability to trust her decisions.  We saw the fear when it appeared and we dealt with the compelling urge to back away from change.  With each step forwards she saw that she could make change happen and she could feel differently about what she was doing.  In turn, that provided momentum that opened up another layer of insight and took us another important step forwards.

We’re half way through and still have a lot to do, but I know she’s building something that will last.

To be honest, I’ve never really thought about the difference between self-esteem and self-confidence until I started writing this post.  To me, it doesn’t really matter, which is why I don’t worry about whether I call it self-esteem one day and self-confidence the next.  Psychologist’s would probably laugh and point at my naivety, but for me it’s all part of the same process.

Just forget about the words you or I use.  Forget about labelling it or defining it.  Focus on what it means to you, how you experience it and how it feels.  Then make a start.

Other articles you might like:

• Are You Saying “No” to These 3 Questions?
• Your Greatness is Determined by Your Belief
• QA: How do you talk yourself down, exactly?

What do you think insecure people fear the most?  Spiders?  Heights?  Scary clowns?  A scary clown on a ladder with a bag of spiders?

Nope.

Your success.

That’s what insecure people fear the most, because if you find success it means they’re left behind.  If you find success it means they haven’t been able to do what you’ve done.  It means they’re less successful (to them, at least).

And that hurts.  Often their insecurities will tell them it was a fluke, that you got lucky, that you don’t deserve it, trying to find ways to rationalise your success so they don’t come out feeling worse, or to make where they are right even if it can’t be happy.

That’s part of what insecure peple do, because they’re insecure.  Their insecurities don’t give them the solid footing others have, they don’t have a stable base to see that your success is a positive for you, not a negative for them.

That “solid base” comes from being able to trust themselves to live their lives fully.  It’s a self-trust that  allows them to make decisions and follow through; a trust that makes it okay for them to go beyond what they know in order to gain something they don’t have.  They don’t have that trust, and they don’t have that base.  This makes me sad.  And a glum Steve is no fun.

But that’s enough about them.  What about you?

See, while it’s interesting to know why insecure people fear your success, my real point here is to demonstrate how your own insecurities fear your success.

That’s right, I’ve done the old switcharoo on ya.

Your own insecurities fear your success because suddenly they’re left behind in their old way of doing things, and that’s a safe and warm and comfortable place for them to flourish.  Your insecurites will be panicking because now – holy crap – you have to deliver on that success.  You have to keep on being successful or you could lose the success you’ve just gained.  Run!  Hide!

Your insecurities will try to tell you that you’re not ready.  They’ll play tricks on you to make you feel like you shouldn’t try.  You might even hear them call out to you as you go through your day.

Have something go a little pear-shaped at work and your insecurities will use that as an example of why it’s too risky to go after personal success.  “See what I mean, it’s not time to risk everything yet. You’re not ready.”

Burn dinner and your insecurities are ready to use that against you.  Have a little spat with your partner and your insecurities will use that as fuel.  Arrive late for an important meeting and your insecurities will see it as yet another fuck-up.  See someone come up with a great idea and you’ll use it as proof for why you’re a bit rubbish.

We’re all insecure in some ways, at some times.  The difference is whether you do what those insecurities suggest you do, i.e. nothing.

Confident people recognise that voice for what it is – something that wants you to be safe but isn’t useful.  Confident people learn to hear that voice in context and make a deliberate decision as to what to do with it.

Success comes and goes; you could have some of it tomorrow and then not so much the next day.  You could have a year when everything comes together, and the next year not so much.  Success is an event, not a person, and so the key is to keep on making decisions towards what matters, and just ride the waves of success and failure along the way.

So what *should* you fear the most?  Let me know what you think in the comments, and I’ll tell you my answer later.

Other articles you might like:

• Being More Confident Means Being More Scared
• Confident People Never Ignore the Truth
• Can You Take a Compliment?

Watched the news recently?  Holy cow are we ever in trouble.

War.  Financial ruin.  Unemployment.  Volcano’s.  Strikes.  Violence.  Oil spills. Intolerance. Rogue nations.

The news seems determined to drive home what a negative, futile world we live in, and it’s hard to believe that we make it through a day what with all of the horrible things reported to us.

I’d be willing to bet that if you were to watch the TV news every day, it would change you.  It would shift your perception so you see all the problems in the world, and notice all the problems in your life.  It would draw your attention to the bad that people do and point out everything negative in your world.

The culture of the 24 hour news media is one of negativity, cynicism and drama.  It’s a monster fed by some of the worst traits that we humans share, and its power to shift perception shouldn’t be ignored or underestimated.

Focusing on the negative, distressing, shocking and scandalous in life will only destroy your spirit.  Focusing on what’s wrong reduces your ability to see what’s right.  You see the dysfunction rather than the function, and over time this rubs off on your own choices and your own behaviour.

Garbage in, garbage out.

You make decisions based on what you don’t want, not what you do want.  You move away from what you hate rather than towards what you love.  Your life becomes a matter of survival and safety rather than an enterprise of meaning and possibility.

Your ability to make positive, meaningful change is buried under the weight of the world, and the cost is your spirit and your self-confidence.

But the news is not the world.  The news is not your life.

Amazing things happen every single day.  People make huge leaps of faith.  People create wonderful things and have remarkable ideas.  People connect to each other in ways that make us feel alive.

We are not isolated, scared and vulnerable; we are giants.

Other articles you might like:

• Does Gen-Y Have the Balls to Change the World?
• What I Learned from 9/11
• Sloppy Work, Sloppy Confidence, Sloppy You

Sometimes in life people walk all over you.

For no apparent rhyme or reason and despite youre good intentions, they just run rough-shod over you, doing whatever they want in the way they want, as long as they get what they want.

If you’re sick and tired of being a doormat, here’s how to stop.

Value Yourself

When someone else devalues you there’s a fair chance that you’re not valuing yourself.  If you’re giving away stuff for free, whether it’s cookies, favours or love, it’s easy to perceive it as having no value.  It’s easy to throw something away that didn’t cost you anything, no matter the true value.

So it starts with you placing appropriate value on who you are and what you do.  You have to invest in yourself; even if that investment is made purely on faith.

Find the traces of gold that are woven through you.  Locate the rich wells that you can tap into.  Start to recognise the things you have at your core that are immeasurably valuable, use those things if you haven’t been using them, and inch by inch your investment will blossom.

So, do you think you deserve to be treated badly?  Or do you feel worthy enough to be treated with respect and consideration?

Teach Them What’s Acceptable

A long time ago I heard Dr Phil say “You teach people how to treat you.”  In other words, by your response to someone else’s behaviour you teach them what is and isn’t acceptable; by your communication you let other people know what manner of communication you expect in return.

If the person treating you like a doormat has learned previously that it’s acceptable to do what they’re doing, they’ll keep on doing it.  People are dumb like that, they’ll do what works until they have evidence that it doesn’t work.

If your response to their behaviour is to smooth things over, try to ignore it or accept it, you’re teaching them that their behaviour is acceptable.  All the time you’re rolling over and taking it you’re making it easy for them to believe their behaviour is okay.  If it’s damaging your self-esteem and self-confidence their behaviour is not okay – you need to teach them that through your responses.

Reset their expectations clearly and unambiguously to let them know that you expect to be treated with respect.

Stop Pleasing Everyone

Are you a people-pleaser?  Do you find yourself always on the go, doing things for other people in an effort to see a smile on their face or hear a “thank you”?

Stop it.

There’s nothing wrong with doing things for others, except when the price for doing so is your own self-esteem.  People pleasing is not a selfless act, it’s a selfish one.  It’s about trying to make yourself feel good by receiving positive attention from others.  It’s about trying to be validated.

You can’t be a bottomless pit for people.  You only have so much energy to give and once it’s gone it’s starts costing you in self-esteem.

Stop pleasing everyone else, and start doing what pleases you.

Stand Up for Yourself

Being a doormat means you’re not used to standing up for yourself – you’re used to maintaining the equilibrium and trying your darndest to not rock the boat.  So I get that the prospoect of standing up for yourself can be a scary one.  It feels difficult, and sometimes it feels terrifying.

But despite how difficult and scary it might feel you have the right to be treated with respect and consideration, and you have the ability to assert yourself.  The moment you think you need to forgo those rights to maintain the status-quo is the moment you decide to continue damaging your self-confidence.

Being assertive simply means calmly and confidently knowing what matters to you and asking other people to respect that.

Standing up for yourself means that you’re likely to be operating right at the edge or past the edge of your comfort zone, so it will feel uncomfortable.  You haven’t been here before, but just because it’s uncomfortable doesn’t mean you can’t do it, and it doesn’t mean you’re not confident.  You still have confidence and you can still apply confidence.  You still have some amazing things to help you that are hard-wired in your brain and you have the ability to connect with what allows you to push yourself.

Trust those things, and assertion follows.

Don’t Do it Alone

Always remember that you don’t have to do this by yourself.  Sometimes, before you tackle the situation it’s helpful to get input from outside.

This could be a family member, a mutual friend, your partner, your best friend, a friend at work, a respected colleague, an approachable manager or even (if necessary) someone in HR.

The whole point of getting help is to allow you to step back and see another perspective.  It’s a way of getting fresh input to see just how much your story is colouring your experience and judgement, or if your thinking is right on target.  Talking to someone else can help you to define the problem as well as the solution, and you may find new ways of tackling this by talking with someone outside of your direct situation.

What’s important is to find someone who’ll listen.  People might be shocked to hear about what’s been happening and might want to leap into action to help (which is to be admired), but sometimes it’s just about being heard.  You don’t need them to fix things and you don’t need them to do anything.  What’s valuable is to state your experience and possibly to explore what the options are.

Don’t Lower Your Expectations

Turning this around is hard, I understand that, and there might be times when you feel like it’s easier to just keep quiet and get on with things as they have been.

Before you go down that road however, be crystal clear on the true cost of keeping things as they are.  How will you feel in 6 months time?  How about a year?  3 years?

I like a stress-free life as much as the next guy, but don’t fool yourself that continuing to be treated as a doormat is a way of minimizing stress or difficulty.  In fact, lowering your expectations to the point where it becomes okay for you to be treated badly is immeasurably more stressful and damaging than the bad treatment itself.

The cost of lowering your expectations and deciding to put up with being treated badly is too high for anyone.  You need to be completely honest about your motivations and acutely aware of the cost of your decisions.

How to Stop Being Put-Down

If you want more detail on these tips and strategies take a look at my new e-book, “Staying Up When You’re Put Down”, 45 pages that step you through how to turn situations like this around and give you step by step strategies for getting back in the driver’s seat.

Go take a look.

Other articles you might like:

• How to Deal with People Who Put You Down
• QA: Dealing with people who put you down
• Building Self-Esteem