A person may be a person who is always ready to meet the requests of others around him, or to help them in emergency situations, without even being asked to do so. He may be particularly kind, considerate, alert, self-sacrificing, and always there to help. Or that may be what those around him describe him as.
While one might think that this is a very positive assessment of him, these qualities are not necessarily good for his mental health, at least if they are motivated by the desire to please everyone.
“If a person always bows before the desires of others, then he neglects his own needs,” says German author and career advisor Martin Wehrle.
Each of us has a limited amount of time and energy. In the event that a person agrees to do additional work when his boss asks him to do so, or he agrees to a neighbor’s request to help him do some work in his home, then he is depleting his time and energy reserves available to him.
It is pointed out that constantly depleted energy stores are harmful to mental health. It is a sign that a person is ignoring what their body and mind are telling them, and it also increases the risk of mental illness. Thus, people who are not selfish and always obedient to the requests of others, therefore, suffer from exhaustion disproportionately often, according to what indicates the doctor and psychotherapist, Dr. Andreas Hagemann, medical director of the private “Haku” clinics in Germany for psychiatry.
Being nice is not always a bad thing for him. Werle refers to what he calls the “concept of healthy kindness,” inspired by the optimal principle of economic efficiency of the Italian polymath Vilfredo Pareto (b. 1848, d. 1923). Pareto improvement is a procedure that makes at least one person better off, without making anyone worse off.
“If you do someone a favor and it makes them feel good, there is no problem… but if you feel bad later because you have crossed their boundaries, then what you did did not lead to the desired result,” Werle explains.
He continues, “those who are devoted to pleasing others,” who try to do everything for all individuals and do not wish to offend anyone, usually do so in order to be liked. According to studies published in the United States, Wehrle believes that those who are seen as particularly kind and helpful are often not very popular.
One reason for this is that those who are not very nice can feel pressured because of them. Wehrle explains this through an example: “If one imagines that he is queuing inside a supermarket, when the person standing directly behind him allows another person to stand in front of him, he may feel a kind of pressure to do the same.”
As for the workplace and the job, Hagemann points out that obedient employees are often assigned an exaggerated amount of tasks: “If a person wants to do something, he will go first to the employee who is expected to say to him ( Good). Saying “Okay” increases the pressure of the assumed expectations of this person, which leads to a self-propelled spiral. In other words, the more a person says “OK,” the harder it is for him to say “No.”
The magic formula is to set boundaries, keep one’s needs in mind, and say “no” to things that might infringe on one’s rights. This requires constant practice.
It is also important to lower one’s self-expectations and not demand too much of oneself. If one is unable to do so, Hagemann says, psychotherapy is an option.
Wehrle advises that “one should always give oneself time to think about it,” whether it is accepting to do additional work, helping a friend move to live in another place, or accepting an invitation to attend a party, explaining that this will avoid him reflexively agreeing quickly to something, and then regret it later.
Wehrle points out that while a person is thinking about accepting or rejecting the matter, he must let his gut feeling guide him, explaining that “sincere rejection is better than insincere acceptance.”
2023-08-25 08:39:14
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