Becoming Your Warrior

S2 Ep14 - Be a Good Person over Being a Nice person: Unraveling the Dangers of Niceness and the Power of Self-Love

• Emma Ritchie • Season 2 • Episode 13

Share episode

Hey Beautiful,

Have people ever told you you're 'too nice'?

People always said that about me, and I never could understand why it felt like a negative thing.

That is until I realized that being a good person was way better than being a nice person.

And why 'being nice' can mean low self-worth, self-esteem and low boundaries

In today's episode, we discuss the concept of being a 'nice' person, revealing its downsides and how it can leave you vulnerable to those who might exploit your kindness. 

 By the end of this episode, you'll have the tools you need to maintain your individuality, establish your priorities, and evolve into a 'good' person - not merely a 'nice' one. 

With love always,
Em xx

You can follow Emma at:

https://www.instagram.com/emmaritchiewellness/
https://www.facebook.com/emmaritchiewellness/


Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Becoming your Warrior podcast. This is the place where you get to feel inspired and empowered to step into your very best life. Hey, hey, this is M. Welcome to this episode of the Becoming your Warrior podcast. This entire season is dedicated to helping you connect to your self-worth and living a life of high value where you value and love yourself and act from that place. And today's episode is actually titled Be a Good Person, not a Nice Person, and I want to really explain a lot more about that word nice.

Speaker 1:

Now, for many, many, many years. I didn't realize this at the time, but the word nice was actually a big trigger word for me because it's something that I was told about myself. A lot People would say to me you're too nice, you're so nice, you're too you know, you're too nice to work in this industry, you're too nice to people, people are going to take advantage of you, and it used to annoy me. It really like I didn't realize that was the emotion that I was feeling at the time, but I'd be like well, this is just who I am. I can't be anybody else. Like you know, you keep saying to me that I'm too nice, but like what is? I kind of had it in my head that everybody should be the way that I was, and I didn't realize what I was actually doing was living life through the eyes and the lens of a nice person. And this is why being nice was such a trigger word for me, the word nice. But this is also why being nice is not a good thing.

Speaker 1:

Now, when you think of somebody in your life where you go, oh, they're just such a nice person. What that generally means is that person is nice consistently, so they are nice to everybody. They are nice to people who maybe don't deserve it. They are nice to their partner. They are nice to their friends. They are nice to everybody. They're always nice, they're consistently nice. But when you are living the life of a nice person, what that basically means is you are going out there and you are being nice to everybody, and so your behavior is really deep down. It's about being very malleable, which basically means to be very fluid and change your personality and adapting your personality. But it also means that, because you are nice to everybody, you're not actually being true to yourself.

Speaker 1:

And I'll give you another sort of definition, another example of this like you don't want to date somebody who's nice, like if you think about the nice guy or the nice girl, why don't you want to date them? What is it about somebody who is nice that makes them unattractive? And this is what makes them unattractive. They are nice to you, but because they are nice to you. They are nice because they want you to like them and their behavior is coming from a place of being liked, and so that means, even though they're nice to you, that means that if their boss says to them, hey, that night hey, I know you've got your Partners birthday this weekend, but I need you to finish this project they will also be nice to their boss. So they're gonna be nice to the boss, and that means that they don't really have priorities in the life. They can't prioritize. So they'll be nice to the boss, which means you know, your birthday weekend might be kind of put to one side, but then maybe their friend calls them and their friend goes hey, I really need you to come and help me move house next week. And they go like I've got to be nice to them because I need their friendship to.

Speaker 1:

So, because they're nice to everybody, they don't actually have an access and they don't actually know who they are. They just trying desperately to be nice to everyone so that they're liked, and that's why nice people aren't normally attractive. That's why we're not attracted to them, because we get this sense that everybody is just being nice to everybody all the time and this was what I was like. So you know, it's almost like a little bit challenging even talking about this, but I can clearly see in my background I just so desperately wanted to be liked that I would be nice to everyone. If, if you know, when I was working on TV shows, if, like contestants were like being horrendous to me which you know sometimes happens on some of the shows I used to work on, you know I'd be so nice to them or I'd be absolutely exhausted and burnt out. But I'd still go and talk to people because they needed me and I wanted them to know. Think that I was a nice person.

Speaker 1:

But I didn't realize, like every time said someone said to me oh, you're so nice to you, nice, I'd let people talk to me like so poorly, so poorly, god. There's a situation that's coming up in my mind now where a girl I used to know actually sat on my boyfriend's lap and kissed him in front of me, in front of me, and I literally didn't say anything because it was really important to me to be liked and to be nice. And luckily, my boyfriend at the time was like what the frick is going on? But like, that is. That is the definition of nice and what is wrong with being nice. And there's a book that was out years ago which is called something like nice girls come last and I always hated the title of that. I was like that's so unfair because I really believed in being nice. It was really Part of my identity and I hated the fact that this. There was this book called nice girls come last. I probably should have read it. I probably should still read it.

Speaker 1:

But can you see the issue with being nice? When you are a nice person, it means that it's such a generic word. It basically means that your sense of self really depends on your reputation being nice and you will let people walk all over you and you'll let people talk to you poorly as long as people think you're nice. But it is actually like it's weakness. It really is a weakness and it stems from this lack of worthiness and it stems from this lack Of feeling enough and it stems from losing a voice. And this isn't a criticism of you, if you know that you're falling into the nice category.

Speaker 1:

I'm not like paying you out, I've been there, I'm talking from experience. What I'm saying to you is you need to get out of the nice zone, and the way to get out of the nice zone is to Prioritize being a good person or being a compassionate person or being a kind person over being a nice person. When you're a good person, when you've got good values, when you've got good integrity, when you've got compassion and when you've got kindness, you know who you are. But you operate from the world with having compassion. But you can have compassion for somebody without trying to make them like you, without trying to be too nice. Someone nice would be like oh my god, come and stay. You know that they offer you things way too quickly. They're kind of like here, take this jacket. You know it's raining, I don't mind getting wet, like. I'm gonna rephrase that because if a gentleman does that for you, that's great, that's a gentlemanly quality.

Speaker 1:

But what I'm talking about is just, maybe in a friendship way or something like that, if somebody is literally giving you the shirt off your back without you really earning it, like somebody is falling into that nice category. They don't value themselves as much as they should, and when somebody doesn't value themselves as much as they should, that means they don't value themselves in any situation. So they will constantly be trying to chase and make other people happy. And this is why you shouldn't date a nice guy and you shouldn't date a nice girl or anyone gender who falls into that nice bracket. You should date and be with somebody who's a good person, who's compassionate and who's kind and who makes you feel good about yourself. But, like when you have those other qualities, when you're operating from compassion, when you're operating from being a good person, that still means you know who you are and you can still be a good person.

Speaker 1:

But being a good person also means prioritizing yourself. So if somebody is talking crap to you or someone's putting you down, you can still be a good person by saying I'm not taking that, I'm not taking that from you and you can take that back and that isn't who I am. And you know, don't talk to me that way. I really don't appreciate it. You're still a good person, You're still a compassionate person, you're still a kind person. You're just not taking crap from people, you're not being nice, and so I've kind of covered it already. But again, when you're a nice person, you fall into that category of somebody who has lower self-worth, and we already know, we're starting to build up the jigsaw puzzle now about how to get out of this.

Speaker 1:

It comes with practice. It comes with, you know, really recognizing and being aware of situations, and I still catch myself now, this is the thing it's. It's never done, it's a work in progress. You know, you're working towards self-worth all the time, and I come away from situations sometimes where someone said something and I haven't, you know, I've kind of it's kind of gone over my head and it's only afterwards. I've been like whoa, like I really should have said something there. But even the awareness is is important, you know, but be aware and and and don't hold on to stuff, but just be aware and be like that's a learning point for me Next time that happens.

Speaker 1:

I know now that I can say something that that is like I'm going to say something from compassion or from kindness and I'm going to say, hey, I don't really agree with what you, what you're saying, and you know, yeah, like so much love and respect to you, but I don't agree with what you're saying there, and you can say it with kindness and compassion. You can be a good person. You don't have to turn into like a dickhead who's really aggressive when somebody says something because you're no longer a nice person. You're still you, you know. But you can do it from a place of love and compassion and just not take crap from people anymore. You don't have to. You don't have to put up with stuff, and being nice is honestly.

Speaker 1:

It's not something to be sought after like having a reputation as a nice person is not something to be sought after. What is to be sought after is having a reputation as a good person, as a kind person, as someone with compassion, as somebody who you know, knows who they are and operates from a place of integrity. That's what we want to be striving for and that comes with really loving yourself, really valuing yourself and really taking all these steps that we've been talking about to really raise yourself into this place of worthiness and understanding. You don't have to please people. You don't have to seek out more and more and more people to love you. It starts by loving yourself, and when you act from a place of loving yourself. That means you stand your ground, that means you use your voice and it's just practice, and I know it can be really challenging for people.

Speaker 1:

I know people have been through a lifetime of feeling worthless and not feeling that they're good enough and not feeling like they're valuable or that they deserve respect, because of so many different reasons. But, as I've said before, it's all a program. It's a program that's been put into your mind from when you were young through your teenage years, and it's just been playing out. But now is the time to break that. You don't need to be the nice guy. You don't need to be the nice girl anymore. Instead, you just get to be you. You get to be the you that you want to be. You get to be the you that's full of worth, that values themselves, respects themselves and loves themselves and speaks from a place of kindness, compassion and love, primarily for yourself, but then for the rest of the world as well.

Speaker 1:

But it doesn't mean you have to change and please people and do these things that you used to do, and today is the perfect day to start putting that into practice. So just be aware as you move through your day. This is your action point for today. Just be aware of where you slip into, that old behavior of people pleasing, of being nice, of trying to get people to like you, and instead just show up from a place of self-love, just show up from a place of loving yourself, having that energy, having that radiance, having that magnetism about you and just having that awareness every time you slip back into being that nice person again.

Speaker 1:

And even that awareness awareness of when you slip into that nice person kind of category again, that is a step forward. Even that might not seem it when you catch yourself doing that, that is progress and that's what we're working towards. So from now on, I want you to really focus and say to yourself every day I'm a good person, I'm a kind person, I'm a compassionate person and this is how I act. I'm no longer a nice person. I'm so much more than that, because I love and I respect myself and I am full of worthiness and I'm full of value and I am full of self-love. Thanks for listening today and if this episode helped or inspired you, just remember to share it to friends or family who could also use some inspiration. Today we are all about sharing the love.