That Girl Radio

JanYouary: I'm Done Being Nice

• Rikki Lee • Season 3 • Episode 22

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Have you ever realized that your eagerness to please could be the very thing that's chipping away at who you are? I found myself grappling with this truth in the most alarming way—through an anxiety attack that landed me in the ER. On our latest episode, I pull back the curtain on the high price of being too accommodating and the journey towards reclaiming my own happiness. 

Treading the fine line between self-care and obligation often feels like walking a tightrope.  It's time to break free from the cycle of people-pleasing and reshape our relationships and work environments into spaces where our needs are met with the same enthusiasm we've always extended to others. Say goodbye to the 'too nice' persona and welcome a more balanced, assertive you.

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Speaker 1:

What's up, guys, and welcome back to that Girl Radio. It is your girl, ricky Lee, here, also known as that Girl, and for today's episode of January, we are going to be talking about how I'm done being nice and why you should be too. Being nice got me in the hospital At the tail end of last year. There was a series of events that happened. I met one person who hurt my feelings to the core. Another person was on the phone with me that was hurting my feelings to the core and it was like a spiral of events that left me leaving a bar, going home shaking uncontrollably. My head was like pounding, my skin felt like it was on fire. I lifted myself to the ER and I sat in the emergency room for an hour before I was seen. I was feeling so terrible, guys, when I tell you I was shaking uncontrollably and I vividly remember this woman coming into the room and she was like an angel. Guys, I promise you she was like an angel. My phone was on like 2% at this point, right, my phone is on 2%, like I can't really talk to anybody because there's no charges around.

Speaker 1:

It's like 4 in the morning in the hospital and I'm just like at a loss for words. I'm nervous. I'm like am I dying? What's going on? I only had one lemon drop. God, what is happening to me right now?

Speaker 1:

In that very moment, this woman walks into the room. She's the doctor, but I promise you she was an angel, y'all. She's talking to me and I'm asking her am I going to be okay? I want to be okay. She puts her hand on my leg and she looks me in my eyes. I just want you to know you will be okay. We're going to do some tests and I tell her I really want us to do a CT scan. I just want to know what's wrong. She's like okay, that's fine. If that's going to make you feel comfortable, we can definitely do that. We did all the testing. Everything came back fine. I just needed to take some muscle relaxers because at that point I had pinched a nerve previously in my neck earlier in the semester.

Speaker 1:

I think that kind of just got frantic in the moment. What I think what I had was an anxiety attack. It attacked my nervous system. My nerves were so bad that I was having head sensations. My body is trembling and shaking and I'm just at a loss. My body at this point is decomposing because I have been too nice.

Speaker 1:

I'm sure many of us can recount times when we found ourselves at rock bottom because we chose to show up for others before we chose to show up for ourselves. In that very moment I realized that I could no longer be nice at the expense of myself. It's so funny because last year, at the start of season three, I was on this high ride of just pushing out content for that girl radio and one of my most popular videos. I was saying that you know, are you nice or are you kind? And I always used to say to my mom I'm so nice, I'm so nice, and she would just be like girl. No, you're not, you are kind. And I used to be nice, though Nice got me nowhere.

Speaker 1:

Nice got me in the ER. Nice got me putting to the side my dreams and accomplishing other people's accomplishing their goals and putting mine to the side. Nice got me diagnosed with PCOS. Nice got me so many different things hair falling out. Nice got me skin breaking out like nice got me those things.

Speaker 1:

And it's cool to be nice, it's nice to do nice things for people, but when you're sacrificing your wants, your needs and your desires to make other people happy around you, to make your job happy, to make you know nice politics happy, like to make fashion happy, like you're not living in your authenticity, you're not making you happy. And ultimately you have to figure out what weighs more, your happiness or theirs. Because I know for me, at this point in my life I want to be happy. You couldn't call me today and guilt, trip me into going out if you wanted to, but me two years ago you definitely could, because I wanted to be nice.

Speaker 1:

I felt like it was rude to say no, especially to people who have always said yes to me, but at the end of the day, you do not know what calculations they have to make before they say the yes to you. You give what I'm saying like sometimes it is a given for someone to just say yes, it's, it's no bother, there's no sacrifice, there's no loss in it for them to agree to do the things that you ask them to do and the moment that there is best believe they're going to tell you no. So it's okay for you to be the first to initiate that in your relationships. It's okay for you to be the first to set a boundary, because when you model for people how to treat you, then you won't have to go to the ER and worry about your nervous system breaking down because someone has chosen to try you, because someone has chosen to play in your face, because you were too nice. That's when you have to realize, like, okay, I have to stand up for myself. If I say yes to everything, how am I standing for anything? You get what I'm saying. Like you have to say no.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes you have to be the mean girl that you think you're being, because you're not even being mean, you're just setting the standards, you're setting Boundaries and you're saying you know, no, I don't want to be on the phone for three hours at a time. You know, like girl, I love you, but we have been talking in circles, we're not getting to any solutions to your problems and weekly you're calling me talking about these things. I love you, but I can't sit on the phone and listen to you all day, every day. Like I have things that I need to be doing and because I've been playing nice, I have backtracked the progress on this project by three months. Like you'll just wake up. You'll be like, well, damn, where did the time go? Like damn, how did I forget that I was supposed to be doing this? Damn, how did I forget to get ready every day? Because you started to be too nice.

Speaker 1:

Your boss said that they wanted you to be at work at this time and ready for this meeting or whatever. So that's cut back into your get ready time. And because you wanted to be nice and not set boundaries and say, well, you know, actually I think that I would still like to arrive to work at this time and we can schedule this meeting for another time slot, but no, instead you wanted to be nice, and Now it's cutting into you being nice to yourself, and that's what we're not doing anymore. We're not doing it anymore because, at the end of the day, the nice girl Always becomes the super bitch and everyone is just so offended when, when you finally put your foot down, because you've always bent over backwards and basically allow people to walk all over you, and then they just get so confused like you're shaking the table, when you're just like no, like I'm not, I'm not fine with that.

Speaker 1:

And the thing is, I am a very easygoing person. There's not a lot of things that I am very firm and have Strong opinions on, because for the most part I do life alone. I do me like, if you want to come along and, you know, hang with me, cool. But I'm not gonna force my hand when it comes to group settings and stuff like that, because I Realize that this is a one-time thing, it's cool, but when you want to go into community with people, when you go on want to go into partnership with people, when you have Want to have relations with people like you, have to set those boundaries because it's not gonna be a one-off Scenario where you're hanging out. It's gonna be often.

Speaker 1:

And if you are someone, when people comes into your house and you want them to take their shoes off, tell them take their shoes off. And if you feel like you're being rude, make it a little bit more nice, make it a little bit more of an easy transition and say, hey, I'm gonna put a basket full of socks or like little slippers for my guests at the front of my house to Communicate, without me even having to communicate, that this is my expectation when you come inside my house. I want you to take your shoes off, put these on, you have gained a new pair of socks and I don't even have to say anything to you. They walk into the house, they walk into your kitchen. They're like oh my god, like thank you so much for these little slippers. Like wow. You're like, oh, no problem. And you don't even have to address the fact that you are someone who likes for people to not have their shoes on in their house. This is just but one example of how you are setting your standards. You're being kind, you're you're giving, but you're also not allowing someone to just walk all over you and do as they please. There are nonverbal ways to communicate your needs, your wants, your desires, without having to continuously have conversations with people about your expectations.

Speaker 1:

And once I learned that, I Realized that I Don't have to feel like I'm giving away my power or, you know, submitting to anything. When I do choose to conform, you know it's just like okay, whatever, I'm being easy going, whatever, it's fine, because I don't want to be Like prissy and acting like I'm just doing too much all the time. But at the same time, you know, sometimes there's this there's a time and a place where it you know we can't be nice anymore. I need to let you know like this is not okay for me, because I'm gonna end up going home and being super upset and dragging out the emotions that I feel About this situation because I failed to address it with you in that moment and when you're nice, when you are nice, you allow so many different things to slide by that there's a day that's going to come where you're going to explode, and you may explode on the wrong person, who doesn't deserve that sort of energy because you chose to be too nice for far too long. So you have to get that in check now and I'm talking to myself because for the year of 2023 and that was nice, ricky that was Ricky who Continuously, continuously and time after time after time, allowed people to take my, my kindness for granted.

Speaker 1:

There was a particular instance that, like, really hurt my feelings. I was a part of an organization and there was a committee that we had to oversee the marketing and my friends were over this organization. So there is a loose form of communication that we're keeping, of course, right, and there's an instance where there is a need for a flyer, and at this point, my committee has been absolved because there's a very low Participation rate with all the people who have been assigned to my committee. So at this point. I'm having to do everyone's jobs and I had already previously Communicated to the leaders of the org that this year is my senior year. I have a lot of other things that I'm focusing on, that I'm expanding and I have to take more of a Background role with this organization. I let that be. No, I would be more of an advisor and I would be passing the torch to another student and when that was not happening and I was continuously having to revisit that conversation, it's just like, well, dang, like I can only be so nice, right, but this was the camel that broke. This was the straw that broke the camels back. My aunt was in hospice and I was needing to you know, tend to that back in Cincinnati. So I wasn't back on campus and there was some sort of issue happening with the flyer that was made by by another committee and they wanted me to fix it. So I fixed it, or they didn't need me to fix it, they wanted me to look over it. I fixed it because I am the one.

Speaker 1:

This organization is very new, so I'm the one who created all the brand guidelines for the organization, so you know, as rightfully, so I would know what it is supposed to look like according to the guidelines, so that it can be cohesive with everything else on our page. I made the edits that I I saw fit and, apparently, whoever made the graphic in the first place had a lot of issues with my changes, and so I received a phone call and On the phone they are asking me you know, like what's going on? Like we're hearing that someone doesn't appreciate all the changes that you've made to this said flyer and blah, blah, blah. And I'm just thinking to myself and I forgot to. I failed to mention this. So we were supposed to have a meeting that day. We have meetings on Mondays. We're supposed to have a meeting that day and I failed to. Um be, I would not have failed to.

Speaker 1:

I was not able to attend the meeting. I let them know that because my aunt was in hospice, I wouldn't be able to attend the meeting and that was that. So they were. They were aware of the circumstances, of what was going on. So they call my phone and they're talking to me about this flyer and I'm like in my mind thinking this is so minuscule, like it's not that deep. It's really not that deep. I never thought it was that deep. I just made some edits to it and I said I would highly recommend posting this one, and that was that she had texted me, asked me, um, why I had made the changes that I had made, and I wasn't able to respond to her. I was working on an assignment.

Speaker 1:

So, as I'm on the phone with them, I'm just like thinking to myself there's no way. You're calling me and also it's my friends calling me, asking me about this. Knowing this, the state, in the mental state that I'm in, with my aunt being in hospice, and you're trying to consult me about a flyer for your org for a little event, like in the grand scheme of things, that's not nice. You know, I've been nice. I have overextended myself and done things when I needed to be taken care of me. I'm breaking my bending over and breaking my back to pour into this thing because you guys are my friends and on the back end of that, I am being treated like this. I am being micromanaged and I am being questioned by people who are not in my position, which is very confusing for me, and I was just so frustrated and I started to cry on the phone because I was just like there's no way. There's no way that this is my life. There's no way that this is my experience. But that's what being nice got me.

Speaker 1:

As soon as they called me talking about that on the phone, I should have said you know what, now is not the time. I'm so sorry, like I can't be accommodating at this point because, as I told you, I'm dealing with the family matter. When I get back on campus we can discuss this. I should have just nipped it in the bud then, but because I was so nice y'all, I stayed on that phone. I'm hearing them out, I'm doing this, I'm doing that, and then at some point I'm like moving stuff around and it just clicked for me and I'm just like there is no reason for me to be subjecting myself to this, to be making having to feel like this for something that's not mine.

Speaker 1:

You give what I'm saying, like I'm over here losing hairs Because people aren't stepping up to play and doing what they're supposed to be doing, and yet you're expecting the world of me. And Because I am an overachiever and I am someone who is not going to allow anything that has my name on it to fall to the wayside, I'm stepping up, but that's not my job because I told you what I had the capacity to do and because I'm so nice I kept expanding and expanding and expanding and stretching myself to cover everybody else's ass, and you can't be doing that. You can't be doing that because, at the end of the day, who is who? Is it all going to fall on to the one person who actually stepped up to the plate and covered it? And so I'm not doing that anymore.

Speaker 1:

I learned my lesson and I'm no longer being nice, because people will take for granted the, the value add that you have, and also people take for granted the fact that you are human. They saw me in that moment and they thought of the Ricky Lee agency and what they failed to do in that moment which still hurts my feelings is think of me as just Ricky Lee, as their friend, and think about the fact that I was going Through something and said, okay, let me consider that, let's consider that this, like you know, she's going through something right now, like we can talk about this at another point. And I feel like, because I am such a person who is always consider it, I always consider what I'm saying, I consider my words, I consider how people feel I consider context like I am a Person who considers everything before I ever approach somebody, because I always operate on a standpoint of the golden standard Do unto others how you will want to be done. And that is why I am blessed and that is why I am favored, because I move with such a Grace, with a such with, with such poise and with a posture of knowing that integrity is everything. And so you don't have to be nice to have integrity. You don't have to, because people will take advantage of your niceness. They will take advantage of the fact that you don't respect yourself enough to set boundaries. That's what a nice person is someone who doesn't respect themselves enough to set boundaries. When you don't do that, they will keep pushing the limit, pushing the scope, trying to expand your role when you didn't sign up for that. That was not what you were told to do. That is not what you, what you signed up for. And you're not about to guilt ship, guilt, trip me into thinking that that is what I did, because I did not.

Speaker 1:

Let me remind you, but I sit here today as a woman who was transformed by all of the moments where I was nice and I had to Be emotional on the onset after that, because it was just like, wow, like do people not remember that I'm human? People not remember that I have emotions, that I, that I get sad, that I grieve, that I, you know I have fears. Like, do people not see those things? But they can't see them Because you try to act like you're all high and mighty and you can do all things. And so when people see that on the onset, they, they will forget, they will forget. But you will have to remind them your humanity is everything, it's everything and as independent woman, as that girl, time and time again people are going to approach you as though you don't have Humanity and you will have to remind them that you are a woman of grace, you are a woman of gentleness, you are a woman of patience, you are a woman of love and you have emotions flowing and living through you.

Speaker 1:

And While you do and while you are kind, you will not subject yourself to consistent disrespect, it for the guise of success or anything that's attached to that. Like I'm just, I'm not dealing with anything, I don't have to Because you think or because you say I need to, because, at the end of the day, what that's going to lead to is Frustration and anger on my end. I'm going to feel resentment towards you or towards whatever it is that I'm involved with. I'm going to start, you know, just crying myself to sleep at night and Just feeling bad, feeling overwhelmed and anxious, consistently, and it will lead to really bad panic attacks and anxiety attacks, like the one that I had that I talked about at the onset of this episode. Like you don't want to take yourself to a point where you are bottling up in your body the emotions that you're refusing to release from people abusing you daily, abusing you at work, in your relationship, in your friendships. Like you have to stand up for yourself at some point and set those boundaries, because what people will do is continuously abuse your niceness and then expect you to become rude.

Speaker 1:

I Think it surprises people when I don't react, when I don't go off, when I don't, you know, do the typical things that most people should do when it comes to you being done wrong. But I've realized that the God that I serve is such a gracious God and the, the revenge or the karma that results from that will be tenfold. You know it's nothing that I could do, that he couldn't do even better. You feel me, so what it comes to people that do me wrong, or what comes to me when I do people wrong, is so much greater than what any person or myself could do. It's like there's no point in me stooping that low and trying to get revenge with people who themselves are vengeful. If you would go that low to try to take my humanity, if you would go that low to try to hurt my Feelings or disregard my feelings, I imagine how low you would go. If I would go lower. You tell me like you might go to hell, and then I might have to go to hell, and then we all go on to hell Like it's just. It's not.

Speaker 1:

It's not a good place to put yourself in to be vengeful, because it's a vicious cycle that it's really hard to get out of, especially when you're dealing with somebody who has nothing to lose. And so you have to consider to yourself why do you think you have to be nice? Why do you think you have to play into nice politics? Who does that serve at the end of the day? Cause it doesn't serve you, and I hope you guys don't dislike my tone for the majority of this episode, cause I really feel like it has been combative. But I just speak with such passion about this because being nice has gotten me nowhere. It's gotten me nowhere.

Speaker 1:

Being pleasant has gotten me, has opened a lot of doors, because being a pleasant person is always warm and inviting and I always provide a space for people where you can come as you are and I will embrace you and I will listen to you and I will provide a space where you will be heard. But more often than not, when you provide those sort of things, a lot of people will try to take advantage. They will take advantage and they will take your resources, and if they can't take your resources, they will take your peace, they will take your joy, they will take your love, and then one day you'll wake up and you'll be like I have nothing left to give, not even to myself. And so now I wanna give you some tools from Erica. She is a licensed psychotherapist who has a guide on 20 ways to say no without looking bad, and in this guide she has five steps to helping yourself learn how to stop being so nice, the first one being to stop looking for your worth outside of yourself because there is no job relationship outfit, like dress code. Anything that's gonna make you feel like you're enough Confidence is going to come from your thoughts. It's going to come from training yourself to believe that you are enough, and so once you do that, you are going to be able to be a little less nice because you're not worried about your worth coming from outside of yourself.

Speaker 1:

Number two you're going to be aware of the thoughts leading to your people pleasing, like do you believe taking care of yourself is selfish, and if so, why? Do you believe that if you say no to your parents, you are disobedient, and if so, why? Like, asking yourself those sort of questions is going to help you understand if people pleasing is actually manipulating and hurting those around you. The next one is imagining yourself saying no or just standing up for yourself, because if you have those imaginary conversations, sometimes they can manifest. You know, you've ever like imagined all the things you should have said in an argument. Afterwards you're like in the mirror, like girl, I should have said blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, start imagining yourself standing up to the very person who you are afraid to. Start imagining yourself having the very conversations that are super tough but will allow you to start setting boundaries, and the more and more you imagine yourself doing that, the more and more it may become easier for you to. You know, grow the balls to actually start saying it.

Speaker 1:

Number four you're going to remember that you're not responsible for others' feelings. People's feelings come from their thoughts, not your actions. Okay, so you're not responsible for how people feel about you, how people think about you, their opinion of you. None of that is your concern. Your concern is how you are showing up for people, and if you feel like any of your actions are out of line, you can consult that and you can change them. But other than that, you can't control how you showing up for somebody is going to make them feel or not. Showing up for them is going to make them feel, and the only way you can really understand that is by having conversations.

Speaker 1:

You have no idea how many times I've talked to someone about not being able to come to something or not being able to show up in the capacity that I thought I was going to be able to, and just by us having a conversation and me lowering their expectations by communicating that I wouldn't be able to do that. There was an understanding and I didn't have to be nice and overextend myself and do something that I no longer wanted to do or no longer was able to do, because they now had an understanding of what I was capable of. And that is all that you have to do. I think nice people often also have communication issues. You're scared to communicate how you might fall short, or you're also scared to communicate how your needs may have changed and how you may need more. And just because you think somebody might not be able to meet your expectations doesn't mean you shouldn't ask them or set them. You feel me like. Stand up for yourself and see if somebody is willing and able to rise to the occasion, and if they can, that's great, and if they can't, that's okay as well.

Speaker 1:

The fifth thing is that you're going to want to start taking risks. You can start small by telling the people in the mall who wanna give you samples that you're good. No, thank you, it's fine. Like it starts in the small ways in life, by showing up for yourself and saying no, and then overall it's gonna start expanding. You'll find yourself setting boundaries. When you get that phone call from that ex lover, you're like okay, I can't answer today. I can't hear you vent about everything that's going on in your life right now Because I need to work on me. You know you start to show up for yourself in the small ways. It gets easier and easier and easier to do the heavy lifts of showing up for yourself in the bigger ways.

Speaker 1:

So I really do hope you enjoyed this morning's episode on no longer being nice. Okay, we're standing up for ourself this year and we're going to try our hardest to do away with people pleasing. And if you're not already subscribed to that girl radio, make sure to do so. Leave us a rating, guys. I do have a goal we need to reach by the end of January. So if you haven't left a rating where you listen to your podcast, make sure to do so. And make sure to follow us on Instagram at that girl radio, and to follow your host, rickybeeco, on Instagram. I love y'all and I will catch you bright and early tomorrow morning. I'll see you, guys next time.