There are times to be agreeable, and there are times where you need to do what's best for yourself.
In “Become Whole” and on this site regarding that book, I illustrate the difference being ‘nice’ and being a ‘jerk’ (and all the areas in between) using a barbell model. On the left end, you have a total ‘nicey-nice’ person. Afraid to make waves and wants to keep all things smooth, to the point of being dishonest and avoiding conflict, even in times when it’s absolutely necessary to deal with conflict. On the other side on the right, you have the absolute douchebags of the world. Complete assholes who would screw anyone in a minute, who do not care about anyone but themselves. Completely self-serving and wrapped up in themselves, yet miserable at the same time.
I encourage people to be in the middle of these two extremes as much as they reasonably can be.
To that end, I’m making this point to tell a lot of you out there reading this that you should stand up for yourself every time it is warranted. I’ll leave that to your best judgment around when to do this. As a general guideline, it’s when a personal boundary or standard is being violated by someone else.
Why it's so important to stand up for yourself.
Far, far too many times I see people tolerate utter crap from others and accept it as a matter of course. As if that’s a perfectly normal occurrence. This is problematic for many reasons. First off, you train people how to treat you. How you react to being disrespected is just one of the non-verbal tells that you can give off that signal to others that you aren’t worthy of respect. Other signals include your body language and your tone of voice. Secondly, ticking up for yourself is crucial to maintaining your personal integrity and self-respect, along with the respect of others. You’ll feel great about yourself in the process.
As with a lot of other things in life, balance is key.
There are times when it might be in your best interest to let things slide. Pick your battles. You don’t always have to be in high alert for people messing with you. As an example, let’s say you’re walking out and about town without a face mask on during the coronavirus pandemic. Someone takes it on his/herself to point out that you ought to be, in a way that could be downright rude. While this might not feel good at the time, you decide to ignore him/her and continue with your day as if nothing happened. In this case, you’re picking your battles – engaging with this person is pointless, so you ignore, and you carry on with your business. (I’m not taking a side on the whole face mask issue, just laying out an example to illustrate this concept.)
Contrast this with, say, getting chewed out by a co-worker over a misunderstanding. Your co-worker is having a reaction to a misinterpretation of something and is having an overblown reaction, even if it wasn’t misinterpreted. After clearing up the breakdown in events, you address the over-the-top reaction and address it right away. Standing up for yourself is crucial. To be agreeable, we end up going overboard with that end in mind and end up tolerating poor treatment to the point of being complete doormats.
Turning this around starts on an individual level.
I’ve thought to myself, “Dang, I could go around being a complete jerk to everyone around me. It’s not like anyone will actually do anything to me in response to that.” But I wouldn’t. That’s just not who I am. Decent, whole people don’t act that way, even when they really could get away with it. This is the sad state that our world is in. On the other hand, people get confrontational for things that really have no real purpose around them doing so. You can make of that last statement what you will.
Bottom Line: We tend to tolerate way too much poor treatment from others. It’s time for this to change.
That change begins and ends with you, even as just one person. Start standing up for yourself today. You’ll be doing yourself and the whole world a favor. I will talk about how to develop good boundaries in another post soon. Stay tuned!