Performance and People Pleasing

Performance is about intentionally developing any part of yourself; it is the ongoing process of expansion leading to the full expression of who you are.

This expression is developed through your craft, your passions, your calling, your business, your family- performance is actively choosing growth instead of quiet decay.

If you've been following along with us, you know:

• what you're passionate about developing
• the arena of performance you're going to develop this in
• and a new a new character design to boost that performance

There is a little warning that comes with this work: all growth and development efforts are met with resistance. It's a worthy process but it is not an easy process. It's not for the faint of heart. But like Bob Dylan said, if you're not putting the effort into being born, you're busy dying. So let's meet this top trap for performance head-on.

This trap is so prevalent that it pervades every arena of our daily lives. It's kept alive, often unchecked, in our families, businesses, and even our spiritual communities.

People pleasing is the cunning nemesis of great performance. This socially acceptable compulsion keeps us from being our true selves. It will always stifle expansion. It will never be compatible with your full potential. It's the drug of choice for all who want to kill their craft, their passion, and their calling with quiet passivity.

Let's Be Painfully Honest with Ourselves

People Pleasing is about putting others' perceived needs and preferences above your own out of fear of rejection or failure.

People pleasing is often cloaked in a shallow-virtuousness. It can get easily confused with love, service, being responsible, being a 'good' person, or even 'doing the right' action.

It's none of those things. And you are none of those things by people pleasing. Take away those cheap attempts at obtaining the real thing and it'll set you free to actually be loving, in service to others, and to take 'right' action.

People Pleasing becomes the Nemesis of Performance (you being at your best) because it is the exact opposite process required for your unique maturation.

I'll give you three examples.

People Pleasing Focuses on Other People

People pleasing hyper-attunes to other people's business. A performance focus means you are attuned to exactly who you need to be at any given moment.

Let's get something straight: 'people pleasing' aka 'assuming people need you to ditch your own needs and preferences over what you perceive there's to be' is actually none of your business.

Your business is you. You are 100% responsible for your entire performance in the very short life you've been given. You are 100% responsible for your gifts, for your potential, for your passions, and for the ambitions that were given to you. If you are committed to any kind of growth, healing, or anything even remotely spectacular- then you have no business in the people-pleasing game.

The impulse to automatically change your character's path to what you perceive other people need or want is a tricky way to abandon your own work under the guise of being 'nice' or 'polite'. You get duped into this because you're not intentionally deciding who you want to be.

(That's why you developed your new character, so you can intentionally decide how you intend to look, act, and respond).

When we are not attuned to our own needs, we will easily be bombarded with other people's needs. This is not virtuous, it's irresponsible. If we are not busy taking control of who we want to be and developing ourselves in that direction, then we will abandon ourselves quickly to the people-pleasing loop.

People Pleasing is Motivated by Fear, Rejection and Failure

People pleasing is fueled by subconscious fear and programming. Performance is fueled by conscious awareness and intentional choices.

Fear is a liar. A lie is the engine behind people-pleasing behavior.

The lie is that if you play the game by abandoning your unique character, you'll be safe. You'll be liked. You'll be able to say you're a good person. It's not true.

People pleasing will not keep you safe, it'll keep you undeveloped. People pleasing will not guarantee you will be liked; it'll just ensure that people never really get to know the real you. You might be able to say you're a good person, but you won't be able to claim that you took responsibility to be the best you could be.

To be your best, to have a chance at your potential- just even to live freely enjoying your gifts, you cannot be controlled by the fear and lies of people pleasing. They are not compatible.

To intentionally develop your character means experimentation. It involves risk. It needs room to breathe and all growth comes with failure. More than that, it's supposed to be playful. You cannot be playful or experiment if you're in a mindset motivated by avoiding fear, failure, or rejection.

You can be the best people pleaser and you will still fail, be rejected, and be full of fear. I can guarantee that either way you will have these painful experiences. So pick the better deal; be rejected, fearful, and fail in the direction that develops the character you want to be.

People Pleasing Down Grades the Environment

People Pleasing reinforces unhealthy interactions that downgrade your character; this is infectious. Performance holds yourself and the people around you to a higher level of consciousness and responsibility; this is also contagious.

The irony of people pleasing we're hooked in by the thought that we're helping people. In actuality, people-pleasing is the culprit of confusion, lack of productivity, slow decision-making, watered-down efforts, missed opportunities, and lack of intimacy, to name a few.

If you want to be helpful to others, do the opposite of people-pleasing. For example:

• people-pleasing your own automatic responses can help people
• Conversing honestly about what needs to happen instead of autopilot reactions can help people
• Staying true to the character you choose to be and taking responsibility for your performance in life can help people

The hard truth is that people don't need you to help them via people pleasing. This is the classic 'put your air mask on first'. People are tough. They are resilient. They don't need you to cut off your character development to save them from perceived discomfort. They don't need you to save them from anything. People need to live in a world where other people like you are busy developing their character to its fullest. Get busy doing that and people will be just fine without your micro-pleasing behaviors.

Protect Your Character

Ditching the drug of people pleasing is a big step on the path of radical responsibility. Radical responsibility is designing the character you want to be next.

It's the opposite of being a victim of life.

It's the opposite of people-pleasing.

It's the opposite of subconsciously dying.

Radical Responsibility is being born again each day, with a commitment to take control of who you are instead of giving it away as you go through your life afraid, and on autopilot.

These little awakenings away from something as insidious and acceptable as people-pleasing make a big difference in our trajectory. As the world gets more intense, this same skill set can save your sanity and your life. It can and will alter the direction of your future.

This process is about doing the work to decide who you want to be before the outer world starts telling you how to act, think, and respond. Take responsibility for the next version of 'you'.

Get to know the character you most want to be; that's your soul talking to you. It will show you how it wants to look and talk and act and feel. Give yourself the right attention and time to develop this. Stay true to it when you're out in the world.

Never give up on developing yourself. Protect the gift that is you and don't cheat the world of your unique contribution.

We need more people developing their truest selves, their gifts, and their highest potential at this incredible moment in history. I daresay this difficult but noble work is key to moving us all into the best story, together.

If you're on this path, know you're not alone. Keep moving. We're all going to wake up tomorrow and face the onslaught of resistance, noise, and the pressure of people-pleasing. Hold tight to your performance, cherish the new character you're becoming, and let's get it done.

Now, I know this one was a little heavy so I have a special message for all of you who made it to the end:

PS- Don't forget to read a book this week