Selfishness
/On your Live in Love journey, some people may give you feedback to imply that you, your boundaries, and/or decisions are selfish. Beware when this feedback is given after you haven’t given the feedback provider the response they want. We all know the people that come to us in expectation with the “You can cover me for XYZ right?” or the manipulative sob story approach “I don’t know what I’m going to do I have X problem and need YZ?” Whatever the approach, the goal is to get you to give them what they want. Remember these tips when you are faced with these types of situations.
1. You have the power to consciously choose.
You are not obligated to save others from the consequences of their poor decisions. I highly encourage all of my clients to evaluate who and in what cases they will provide assistance. There is a fine line between truly helping someone and enabling someone.
2. Trust your gut.
Don’t ignore that inner voice that might be alerting you to a manipulative situation or tuning you in to a true need. Learn to discern between the two. There is a resolve you feel when you have consciously chosen to help someone that is truly in need. That is contrasted by an unsettled feeling when you feel like you’ve been manipulated into helping someone. If you have fallen to the latter, it’s okay just call it a lesson learned. Remember that you can take your power back and choose differently next time.
3. Be resilient in the sea of judgmental opinion.
The sea of judgmental opinion is all the requestors or people that feel the need to chime in with their judgments and opinions about your decisions. Your “No” response could be interpreted as selfish based on their assumption about your means or ability to help them. Their interpretations or assumptions about your circumstances is not your responsibility or concern. Everyone will not like you for the decisions you make it’s that simple. You will drive yourself crazy trying to please everyone too.
There are many other examples of this that I’d be happy to work through with you. If you’d like to remove all that is keeping you from a life that you love, shoot me an email at lakenya@coachingendeavors.com or call (609) 416-1116 and we can set up a time to chat.
Live in Love my friends!
LaKenya
“It is not selfish to do what is best for you.”