John Glanvill • Anxiety Specialist & Researcher • Anxiety • OCD • Bipolar • ADHD • Energy • Online Treatment Course • Sensible Spirituality

Is it sensible to be too nice?

In this 49-minute video, we explore how being a people-pleaser or an overly nice person may leave you feeling exhausted, disappointed and occasionally resentful to those you are trying to help. 

In addition, these (unconscious) avoidance behaviours may have additional negative (for your well-being) effects by programming others to continue treating you in ways that are not conducive to your emotional calmness and integrity.

Video information

I’ve called this video “Is it sensible to be too nice?”

And I suppose I need to add the caveat “if calmness and durable mental health are important to you.”

Why? Because, in my experience, the majority of people with anxiety and OCD are nice people, often too nice, perhaps?

They put the needs of others above their own, are often people-pleasers, typically worry about what others will think, and stress about doing the wrong thing, breaking a rule, or letting other people down.

And I know this, as this was me twenty years ago, so I’d like to share with you what happened to me as I awoke to this trait within myself and what I did about it.

The first realisation I’d like to share with you came early in my process of escaping my OCD – from one of my first mentors who said to me, “John, all your suffering is caused by you! But, you are blaming everything (and everyone) else and not taking responsibility for your life experience!”

To which I replied (something like), “of course, it’s not! I’m not making my employer mistreat me or making my anxiety hijack me, I’m not causing my intrusive thoughts, or price rises, traffic jams or people dying!”

And he just smiled at my ignorance and said, “Can you not see that you have been programmed into the perspective that you feel like a victim to what your brain and body do – and what life throws at you?

He went on to say, “It can be very different! However, you will need to see all that content from a new context, and you’ll need a new perspective to live your life from.”

I said, “Can you give me an example?”

And he said, “Yes, let’s talk about fairness and being nice. You keep telling me that life isn’t fair, it’s not fair that you have to work so hard and be nice all the time, and that you have depression – and nobody knows the inner pain you are going through. And it’s not fair how much sadness and pain there is in the world.”

“But John – why does life have to be fair? And why is being nice so important to you?”

“What if fairness was just a concept programmed into you – and what if I were to tell you that the world isn’t fair, never will be fair, and that is absolutely fine, why should it be fair, that is just your expectation?”

“What if you are wrong? Therefore, your suffering is caused by you wanting everything to be fair!” He said, “How might your life be different if your need to be nice, have fairness, justice, righteousness, decency, politeness, appropriateness, and other similar expressions we no longer quite so important to you?”

“What if you didn’t have an opinion about those things?”

I replied, “Well, you can’t just be horrible to a work colleague even if they are incompetent.”

And he said, “Why do you use the word horrible? Surely, it is only being honest and truthful if you were to say this work is not of an acceptable level, and it took you far too long to complete, let’s explore how you might become more proficient, therefore of more value to the organisation and me!”

“And, what if how that person reacted no longer bothered you? Because if you think about it – you are responsible for what you do and say, but you shouldn’t take responsibility (or take personally) how they might respond – as that is their responsibility!”

What he said did make sense, though (at the time) I couldn’t see how this would be possible for me!

He went on to say, “your problem is you feel you need to be nice, you think you need to be fair, you feel you need to be liked, you think you need to avoid conflict or hurting other people’s feelings – and these are

just your programming rather than the truth of who you really are (or could be)!”

I asked him, “What do you mean, rather than the truth of who I really am?”

And he asked, “Sometimes, when you are being nice and polite, would you rather be telling them bluntly that you are unhappy with their behaviours, you don’t agree with them, and you wish they would just bugger off?”

I said, “Yes, sometimes, but surely everybody feels that way, and they just put up with it? Surely, it’s wrong to go into conflict with, or judge, criticise or belittle others.”

He said, “I don’t dislike conflict. I don’t even call it conflict. I call it asking for what I want, or standing my ground, or being honest! And what is wrong with any of those behaviours?”

And he was right – what is wrong with being honest, standing my ground, speaking up for myself or putting my needs first? They were the perspectives and behaviours of a person with high self-esteem.

Looking back on that conversation in my mid-thirties – it was almost as if that was a different lifetime. My naivety and degree of programming to be nice, follow the rules, fit in and avoid upsetting others was almost unbelievable (compared to today).

You might say my self-esteem was very low, causing me to please others in a vain attempt to be liked – as I didn’t really like myself.

Up until that point in my life, nobody had ever taught me that it was OK to be nice to myself, that it was my duty to love myself and that it was OK to put my needs first – and silly me, if I didn’t!

Upon reflection, I see now that those behaviours generated the repressed levels of anger, frustration and exhaustion – which underpinned my anxiety and depression at that time.

My concept of self-esteem was driven by how others valued me rather than how much I valued myself.

I unknowingly needed external validation to justify my worth – measured against an internal and ridiculously moral programmed story of who I thought I ought to be!

But as I keep repeating – self-esteem is an attitude – it is the learned ability to respect yourself and not let others be disrespectful to you…