I am thinking you may have felt like this before. Like you just didn’t want to be nice anymore. Me too. And the worst part, being nice made me miserable.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Welcome back to the Something Better, My Darling podcast. I am here to help women find their purpose without compromising their values and ultimately reach their full potential. Or, just be their biggest cheerleader in life. You could be struggling with self-worth, confidence, or lack of taking action, motivation, or not even knowing where to start. Its okay, I have been there and still find myself there at times. At any rate, I am so excited you are here! I can’t wait to get to know you! If you are enjoying this podcast, please be sure to share this with a friend or send me a note on what you’d like to hear or how I can help you!
First episode of the year! It has taken me some time because honestly I am struggling with the new platform I have to use and technology. Now, if that doesn’t make me feel old. I am sure you don’t want to hear about that! So let’s talk about being ‘nice.’ As I say that I am thinking about all of the times I tell my kids to ‘be nice,’ or when they were little to ‘play nice.’ But what do we mean when we say that? Well, my bestie the Meriam Webster dictionary, defines nice as polite, kind, pleasing, or agreeable. Keep that in mind as we continue to chat about being nice.
I am often described as ‘nice.’ I used to take this as a badge of honor, that I was nice. It made me feel good that people thought I was nice. I liked, or do like being nice. I would much rather be described as nice than mean. And in hearing the definition, I would agree that I am truly all of those. So I guess all of the people who call me ‘nice’ are correct.
However, being nice has caused me some issues. I often say that I was nice to a fault, and that is very true. And when looking at the definition, the two parts that cause the most issues are agreeable and pleasing. After all, my battle with those two words is why I started Something Better, My Darling. I realized that being nice to a fault was not helping me. It was actually making me less than who I was meant to be. Less than God made me to be. So while the title of this may seem harsh, it is true. I was tired of being nice, or rather agreeable and pleasing all of the time, and putting my values second to being nice. I am not in that same spot today, but being nice to a fault still haunts me. And in all transparency, I am not fully ‘healed’ for lack of a better word from being nice to a fault. It is a very hard habit / past to overcome. I truly believe that this is a challenge I will always have, but just in different situations. And do not get me wrong, I do like being kind, because I believe you can have boundaries with kindness. However, it can be a fine line. The reason I wanted to talk about this today is it hitting me in a place I didn’t realize would be so hard. That place. Being a mom. I will also talk about being a leader in my full-time job, but that I expect. This mom thing. Woofta. You see, some of these same tendencies have carried over or rather the nice to a fault me has caused some issues for the current just generally nice me. Let’s talk about being a mom first. At the time of my divorce from the kids’ father they were young. My daughter was going into kindergarten and my son was in preschool. I am mom. I am the nurturer, the caregiver. I am not the disciplinarian. I don’t mean this to be stereotypical, but it is truly how I was raised and built. Moms are the caregiver, and dads are the iron fist. “Just wait until your dad gets home!” I am sure you’ve heard that. Well, after the divorce, I had to be both mom and dad. The trick, I didn’t want my kids to feel the pain of the divorce. I wanted to protect them, and the only way I knew how to do that was to keep being only mom. That meant being nice to a fault. I will clarify, it isn’t like they didn’t have any discipline, but I definitely leaned, and still lean towards being ‘nice.’ I know. I know. It is not my job to be my children’s friend. And I get that and it is almost easier now that they are older and I can say that God gave me them to raise them into good humans as their mom. Not their friend. They have friends. However, how this is playing out with my son is different than with my daughter. Yes, they have different personalities and temperaments, so that is some of it, but I have to look in the mirror on this one and realize I could have been better. I did too much for them, which means that now, my son particularly, relies too much on me to do things that he can easily do at the age of 13. But breaking the cycle is not fun, and leads to frustrations and stress. I am telling you this because the faster and earlier you can figure out where your boundaries need to be set, and then set them, the better. If you don’t believe me, come hang out with me some night when we are having a bad night. You’ll be like. Sweet, boundary set! It has been hard for me, but I have had to learn to be okay with my kids not liking me. For a people pleaser, this is NOT easy. Even though I know I am THE MOM, the engrained ‘be nice,’ and make everyone like you runs so deep in my core. But yes, I can deal with them not liking me and being mad at me much better than I could before, but some ruts have been dug and trust me, the kids to not want me to fill those in. They like the old me. Who wouldn’t! It was like the movie “Yes Day.” For them for the first few years after the divorce. Okay, maybe not that bad. I never went through a carwash with my windows down. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a cute movie. But there is more to this story other than having to fix my past habits. And it is sort of ironic. Even with my kids, being too nice all of the time, made me unhappy. Exhausted. Stressed. And I would be upset with them. It’s not their fault. It is what they were taught. But then I was frustrated when they didn’t meet my new expectations. But I moved the bar on them. I was miserable. And why I was tired of being nice. Here is what I had to do with them. I had to set reasonable levels or steps expectations and know that it wouldn’t happen overnight. For them or me. I had to take the baby steps to a mom with boundaries, just like they had to adjust to it. Or I should say ‘adjusting.’ We are still working on these. But what I can tell you, is that when I stick to my boundary, and it produces the outcome or expectation I am looking for, I feel SOOOOO much better. Like I have accomplished something and not compromising what I know to be good and true. If you are struggling with a person or situation and setting the boundary, I would recommend doing what I had to do. Steps. One at a time. For me, there were many behaviors I needed to address, but I could not do them all at once. I had to rank them and start the one I needed to address the most, first. After that one was resolved and my expectations were met, I went to the next one. Change is hard, even if you like change, so you have to give yourself grace and time to make the changes.
The second area being too nice can be hard is at work. I am a VP of marketing at my job which means I have a marketing team that I am responsible for. They are amazing. They are a great team, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t times when I have to have difficult conversations. And I am not sure I know anyone who enjoys difficult or critical conversations. Within my first few weeks as VP I had to let someone go. Can you imagine how hard that was for me? The person who wants to see the good and possibility in everyone? It was hard. I cried. However, I had to do what was best for the company, and my team. One weak link in our team makes it hard on all of us. And boundaries and being nice at work isn’t just about critical conversations, it is in the day-to-day as well. Our team does get asked to do a lot. Some of it makes sense, and some of it doesn’t. There are times we should says ‘no,’ but if we have the bandwidth, we can say ‘yes.’ However, there are some hard lines we have to draw too, and say the hard word for me, ‘no.’ But I know this is needed if I want to keep the team sane and not want to storm out the door.
Since this didn’t come naturally to me at work either, I worked with our head of development at the time. He is retired now, and I still miss meeting with him! However, I say his words often, ‘clear is kind.’ This is true for my kids too. I have to be very clear on my boundaries and expectations or I am setting everyone up for failure, especially myself.
There are days I wish I could literally be done being nice all together, but one of the gratitude I write down every day, it’s always my last one, is “I am thankful for another day to show God’s love.” So, I guess I can’t yell at everybody and be a meanie, but I can have boundaries set with kindness.
If you are ready to do some self-reflection and make some changes, check out my website (somethingbettermydarling.com). I have some free resources or a 40-day workbook available. You can do the book alone or always reach out to me for accountability and support! Or maybe you just like this podcast. I am good with that too! I am just happy to have you here. Just a reminder that if you like this podcast, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode and tell a friend about it too! Connect with me on Instagram or Facebook at Something Better, My Darling, or if you’d like to see me and my kiddos and fur baby, you can find me at Mandi Lanae! This is Something Better, My Darling. Thank you for listening. Make today great, my darlings!
Something Better, My Darling 