Have you ever felt like you’re being too nice to others? We often start feeling low when others start taking advantage of our kindness. That’s where we must stop and look if we’re being nice to the wrong people. In today’s article, we’ll see why you should stop being nice to others and 12 ways to avoid it.
What Does It Mean to Be Too Nice to Others?
Being too nice is when you put others before yourself, to the extent that you start neglecting your needs and sacrificing your happiness to make others happy. It’s when you want to help others and alleviate their sufferings, either of your love for them or the fear of facing a conflict.
It’s not wrong to be kind and compassionate towards others. But going beyond kindness and sacrificing your self-respect to help others is terrible. There’s a difference between being kind and being a people pleaser. You should always go the extra mile for people you love and who love you in return. There’s nothing wrong with putting our loved ones and people we care before ourselves. But you should know if they respect and value what you do for them.
Don’t Let Others Take Away Your Shine
Some people know how to take but never reciprocate the love and care they receive from us. But what they return is disrespect and unfair treatment. They are people who will never appreciate what you did for them; all they remember is that 1% we failed to do. They pretend like they never saw you doing the rest 99%. You should stop being too nice to such people who are complaining about what you did for them rather than appreciating.
It does not mean you should stop being kind to others just because some people can’t see the good inside you. We all know people in our life who are always there for us, in the good and bad times. Keep spreading love and kindness to everyone around you. If there are people who aren’t nice to you, then this shouldn’t stop you from being nice to others.
We want to see this world filled with peace, love, and kindness. And we have not many people like you; the loving and caring ones. Stop being too nice to others that they start exploiting you, but continue to light up every place you go; with love and kindness.
Why You Should Stop Being Too Nice
When you’re always ready to help whoever asks for it, you start compromising on the time you want for yourself. When people around you see that you’re always there for others, you’ll start attracting the wrong people. People might burden you with their responsibilities, and you might be overloading the burden.
People might expect you’ll help them even if they don’t ask it directly. They’ll get used to it, and if you don’t, they’ll start treating you like you’ve done something wrong to them. When people start treating you like this, it might lower your self-confidence. It will keep you questioning why you didn’t help them in the first place. You can’t force yourself to do something you don’t want. If we start helping every other person, our life will be affected.
Not just your life, but you might notice your productivity going down. How would you see significant results if you don’t invest hours in your work? We all have to focus on what matters in our life; you can’t ignore things that are important to you.
Stop being too nice because it might drain you emotionally and leave you exhausted. We need to help people around us, but sadly not all the time that it starts affecting our priorities.
You should always see who seriously needs your help because some people are just taking advantage of your kindness. We should be realistic and know what we can do and what is beyond our ability.
How do you stop being too nice to others?
Here are 13 ways to stop being too nice to others; let’s dive in.
1. Put yourself first
Before spreading kindness in the world, you must check if you’re full. You might have heard that you can’t pour from an empty cup. And that’s absolutely right. If someone comes to you and requests you a favor, go for it if you have time, and if it doesn’t, cause you loss. But if you’re trying to make others happy at the cost of your own happiness, then you need to stop being too nice.
2. Stop saying ‘sorry’ all the time
It’s good to apologize when you’re wrong, but not always. You should look around and see if you’re saying ‘sorry’ more often. Sometimes you’re holding yourself accountable even when you’ve done nothing. When we think we are wrong, people start treating us the same every time something goes wrong. They get to know that even if you’re not wrong, you’ll apologize. And some people feel happy putting you down and making you feel sorry.
They start making you feel like you’re not confident and that you are the one who messes up things. Some people will always blame you and mistreat you. Identify people in your life who want you to apologize every time, even when you’re not wrong.
3. Avoid people who take advantage of you
If you look around, you’ll easily know the people who are always there to take advantage of your friendly behavior. You must avoid these people and stop being too nice to them.
If people see you are always there for them, they might start taking you for granted. They’ll act like it’s your job to treat them respectfully and do what you order them to. And you’ll see if you stop doing it, they’ll reveal their true colors. Beware of such people and stop being too nice to every person you come across.
4. Learn to say no
To stop being too nice, learn to say no when you don’t feel like doing a particular thing. That’s fine; nobody has the right to be rude to you if you choose to say no. You always have a choice to decline an offer politely.
Saying no doesn’t mean you’re being rude to another person. You can excuse them and briefly describe why you cannot do a task. To stop being too nice doesn’t mean to turn into an impolite person. So, if for some reason you are unable to help a person, you can recommend him someone else who can do the same.
5. Do what brings you peace
When you can’t decide between two things, always go for the one that brings you peace. Sometimes we’re busy, and someone asks us to assist. And we’re not sure what to do. But if you feel that you should assist this person, maybe because you think helping him at the moment is more important than what you were doing, go for it.
You should know when to say no. If saying yes brings you peace, then you should definitely say yes. Listen to your intuition, and follow that which doesn’t disturb the peace of your heart.
6. Reset your priorities
To stop being too nice, you should reset your priorities. You should know where you need to invest your time. Keeping a balance in life is very important. You should always prioritize important tasks, and then you can look around to help others.
When we try to be kind to others, we often do it at our loss. You must stop being too nice when you have important things to do. You can say no politely and continue with your work. Or, if it’s something that you can do later, you can tell others that you’re busy, but you’ll love to do it later.
7. Set healthy boundaries
You can stop being too nice to others by setting healthy boundaries. Tell others when you’re busy and why they shouldn’t disturb you at this time. So, you don’t have to repeatedly tell others that you’re unavailable for a particular period. If you want to spread positivity and happiness, you can also spare a day or a few hours from your daily routine. So, it doesn’t affect your productivity.
8. Believe in your abilities
Believe in your abilities, and don’t be a people pleaser because of the fear that others might leave you. Don’t feed your mind that you’re weak and you need others. You are whole, and only you are responsible for making your life fulfilling. Stop being too nice to others because they might lower your self-esteem and make you doubt your abilities.
If you see some people aren’t reciprocating the love you have for them, then distance yourself from them. They might deprive you of goodness, making you believe there isn’t any good left in this world. There are good people in this world, don’t change your perspective just because you couldn’t find them. Plus, start spreading good, and you’ll see it return in unexpected ways.
9. Spend some time with yourself
When you see yourself being too nice to people and constantly feeling the need to be around others, spend some time with yourself. Look for your insecurities and why you fear others. Spending time alone can help you figure out who you are and what you need to work on in order to succeed.
We see ourselves getting overly critical when being too nice to others. We want things to go smoothly without conflicts, which makes us sensitive to how people would react if we turn down their requests.
There are many things you can do to spend time alone. If you want to enjoy your alone time productively, you can check out this article.
10. Regain self-respect
When a person becomes really nice to others, people start taking him for granted. We should be kind to others because it is a good deed, but we should avoid being too nice because then people might begin to disrespect us.
To regain self-respect, we need to judge who is loyal to us and who is using us. People think someone who is too kind is weak, but that’s wrong. Very few people are kind and compassionate, and these are the strong ones. We must respect ourselves and stop serving people who don’t value us.
11. Stop self-blaming
We should stop self-blaming because it can lead to low self-esteem. If we keep blaming ourselves, a point will come when we lose our self-confidence. You are not responsible if some people don’t like you. No matter what you do to make these people stay in your life, they will leave sooner or later. If someone keeps blaming you for every other thing and makes you question yourself, then they’re just finding excuses to leave you. If holding onto them comes with pain and self-blaming, it’s time to let them go.
Some people will stay by your side, and you don’t have to make sacrifices to make them stay. They’ll understand if you say no to something, as they sympathize with you. They will never make you blame yourself for saying no, as they won’t show anger or disrespect in return. If you have such precious people in your life, hold on to them.
12. Forgive yourself
It doesn’t feel good when you realize that people have been using you and you didn’t identify them earlier. It’s never too late to amend a mistake. Learn to be kind to yourself even if you made a mistake because you’re not alone in this. We all make mistakes at some point. Don’t regret that you respected people more than they deserve. You should be proud that you are overflowing with love and abundance. Forgive yourself for not receiving the love you give to others. And believe that you will one day get all you’re giving because you might have heard that what you give is what you get back.
The Final Word
Don’t get worried if you are being nice to others and not receiving the same response. You always have a choice to alter your ways and set new boundaries. We all should know the difference between being kind and being too nice. In this era, people often misinterpret those who are too nice; they don’t see them as trustworthy. They see such people as greedy or someone who wants some benefit or favor from them. Stop being too nice to others, and don’t waste your energy on people who don’t deserve it.
As a people-pleaser myself, this post contained helpful tips to start putting myself first. It’s never an easy thing saying no or setting boundaries but, these tips were helpful. Great post!
I love this article! I’ve always have told myself: “Sometimes saying ‘no’ to others means saying ‘yes’ to yourself!” Thanks for sharing.