00:00 

Hey there, welcome to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. This is episode number 349, "It's Okay If People Don't Like You." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:22 

Alright, hello there, my friends. Welcome to the podcast. I am so glad to have you here with me today. A couple of things before we jump in. My Sense of Self classes start next week. They are up on my website. You can go to tanyahale.com, go to the "group coaching" tab, and you can check those out. They are nine week classes. Same class each time but three different time periods so you can find a time that works best for you. I have a morning, an afternoon, and an evening class available. They're gonna be great. Sense of self is foundational to us having a healthy life and healthy relationships with ourself and with others. It decreases, as we're going to talk about today, if people don't like you, we're able to go, "Oh and that's okay." Right, so we're gonna be talking a lot about that. 

01:18 

Also next week is my next Talk with Tanya on Tuesday March 11th. You can get signed up for that at the same place. This is just an open forum for you to ask anything. Bring any topic, maybe you want to ask me specific questions about something? It's just open and if you're the only one that shows up, you get some free coaching, which is pretty brilliant. The last few times we've had more than that show up obviously, but it's been great and we've had some great discussions and even when one person gets a little bit of more one-on-one coaching at the end. Everybody's like, "oh that was so helpful to hear." So if you would like to experience that, I would love to invite you to come with Talk with Tanya on Tuesday, March 11th is the next one. 

02:04 

And okay, just a quick reminder as well that I am now doing individual coaching and I'm doing couples coaching. And they're both brilliant. I work with people in all stages of divorce. I work with people who are like, "listen, I don't wanna get divorced, but this marriage, I don't know what to do with it." And I work with people on adult parenting, like just a lot of relationship struggles that we have in midlife. So good, good, good stuff. And one last comment, I just want to remind you that I have started in the last, I don't know, 10 podcasts or so in the show notes ,if you go down, I have a list of related podcasts. So if something about this podcast goes, "oh, I want to learn more about this," you can go on wherever you listen to your podcast or my website. Even you can scroll down and you can see a list of podcasts that will strengthen your understanding about the content in the topic. So I think that that's a brilliant addition that I've done, and I'm really happy to be able to offer that to you. 

03:10 

OK, so let's jump in talking about today's podcast. OK, alright. So we're talking about today with the concept that it's OK if people don't like you. So if you're like me, you grew up in an era that taught women that we are supposed to be likable, that that's where our value is. And I think that that concept is still a huge part of societal expectations for women. We're supposed to be likable. We're supposed to be desirable. And I'm always shocked and surprised. Well, OK. Am I really shocked and surprised? I'm really not. Right. When studies come out that show that if a woman in the workplace isn't compassionate and likable first and foremost, that it doesn't matter how competent she is because people won't trust and like her. OK, and the same concept does not apply to men. People can think he's a jerk, but if he's competent, they will put up with his jerky behavior and even be OK with it. Not so for women. 

04:20 

And with being societally taught about likability growing up, many of us also attached our sense of self to whether or not people like us. And so we became really proficient at people-pleasing, at accommodating, at obliging, at not speaking up, at making ourselves small so we don't rock the boat. And we also became really good at saying "yes" when we really would  have rather said "no." We became great at setting aside our needs to make sure others were comfortable, that they didn't have any complaints, that they had their wants and their needs satisfied. Because if everyone around us was happy and liked us, then we were doing our job. We were doing what we were sent here on earth to do. And if we were doing our job, then our worth as a person was intact. We were whole and complete. We were fulfilling the mission we were sent here to do. 

05:21 

And all of that was a bunch hogwash, as my dad used to say. So because first, our worth, our value as a human has nothing to do with anyone else in any way. If people in our sphere of influence are happy or if they are not happy, our worth does not change. If people in our sphere of influence are successful or not, if they are content or not, if they like us or not, none of that has anything to do with our value as a human because our worth was set the day we were born and nothing we can do or not do will change our worth. We cannot make our worth less. And second, it's hogwash because it is not my job to make anyone else happy. Do I put actions in their circumstance line? Absolutely I do. But then I have zero responsibility or capacity to make them think or feel a certain way about me to include whether or not they like me. 

06:34 

So even though in society, we were taught that we are more valuable as women when people like us, I would love for you to consider that this thought just may not be true. And it's absolutely not a helpful thought. So does broccoli become more or less nutritional or valuable for our bodies depending on whether people like it or not? Okay. I know, silly question, but no, if people don't like broccoli, it doesn't change the nature of the broccoli at all. It doesn't make broccoli less valuable. The only person it impacts is the person who doesn't eat it. Now, they may feel all self-righteous about their dislike of broccoli, but it doesn't change the broccoli at all. Okay. Somewhat of a silly example, but we have to really know and believe deep in our soul that if other people don't like us, it has nothing to do with our worth or value. They are completely unrelated. So it's not true that we are more valuable when others like us. And second, it's not helpful to think that either. How do we know? Because of how it shows up in our action line, or to use a phrase from the Bible, by our fruits people will know us. 

08:00 

Okay, using the thought model when I think the thought "they don't like me. I must be worthless." What feeling does that create? Here's a list I came up with: sadness, depression, hopelessness, anxiousness, despondency, despair, isolation, worthless, maybe powerless. And from those types of feelings, what are our actions? How do we behave? We might physically self-isolate or emotionally shut down. We might go into people-pleasing, accommodating, obliging, making ourselves small, shutting down our own wants and needs. It's just not a good thought model any way you look at it. And all of this ties back to our sense of self. When we have a strong sense of self, we also recognize and embrace our worth. We know that even with our faults and weaknesses, that we have great worth, that we are capable, that we are strong. 

09:03 

When we have a weak or reflective sense of self, we look to others to determine our value. We can only feel strong and capable when others tell us we are strong and capable. We only have value when others tell us we have value. So, when people don't like us, it brushes up against our need to have people like us in order to feel valuable. But here's an interesting piece of the puzzle. The more we struggle to have a strong sense of self, the more controlling we will tend to be. 

09:41 

So, this is how this works. When I need other people to pump up my ego balloon, to help me feel good about myself, I am always running in a deficit, because I can't control whether people will be there to say nice things about me when I need it, or to build me up in any other way. So rather than doing the tough capital W Work to build my own sense of self, I do the easier work of trying to control others so that they will shore up my sense of self, which, as we've discussed before, doesn't work. But we do get really controlling. And some of the ways that we seek to control others is through people-pleasing. See, if I bend over backwards to make other people happy, they can't help but like me. And then they give me the validation I need to know that I'm a good person. Okay. This is classic reflective sense of self-thinking. When I say "yes," when what I really want and even maybe even need to do is to say "no," I am trying to control how other people think and feel about me. Saying "yes" seems to ensure that they will praise me, that they will feel that I'm responsible, that I'm somebody they can depend on. And if they feel this way, then they will have to like me, right? 

11:07 

But here's the problem. This kind of people pleasing doesn't guarantee that anyone will like us. It just gets the other people what they want without having to do the work, physical or emotional. Because, remember, we can't control other people no matter how hard we try. In fact, often times, though people may appreciate our people-pleasing efforts, underneath it all  there can often be a place where they don't respect us because they can intuitively sense that we are only doing it to make them like us. Which actually makes them like us less. We will often start coming across as needy, as graspy, meaning that it is apparent that we are seeking their validation of our goodness as a person. And though their primitive brain response is so glad we're there because it makes their life easier, it doesn't actually make them like us more. It makes them like us less. There is an intuitive sense that we are trying to control them. 

12:18 

I've heard this talked about before about when we are people-pleased, meaning when other people are people-pleasing toward us. We don't like it. We bristle against it. And we tend to like and respect the other person less rather than more. We feel controlled and we push against it. I mean, we like it because our lives can be easier when they are people-pleasing us. But we don't necessarily like them. So if people don't like you, trying to control them with people-pleasing actions doesn't make them like you more. It can actually do the opposite. In fact, it weakens our own sense of self when we are people pleasers. And here's a fascinating part about learning this concept. The more we try to control others, the less control we actually have in our own lives. And the more we give up trying to control others, the more control we actually have in our own lives. 

13:24 

And all of this is tied back to our sense of self. When I feel insecure in my reflective sense of self, and I work desperately to try to control others and get them to pump up my ego balloon to validate me, I don't have any control if they do or don't. And then I feel more out of control. My insecurities run rampant if others don't behave the way I need them to or expect them to. But when I feel secure in my sense of self, I don't need others to pump up my ego balloon. I don't depend on them to feel valuable, so I don't need to try and control how they're showing up in the relationship. And I feel more in control of myself because I pump up my own balloon. I'm responsible for my own sense of self. When I get panicky, because others don't like me. I imagine myself running between a row of 20 spinning plates. I'm frantic. I'm in super hustle mode trying to manage each plate before it falls back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. And if I ever slack, one or two or more are bound to crash to the floor. This just isn't sustainable if we want to be at peace in our lives. We can't be constantly worried about managing everyone else's thoughts and feelings about us. And we can't do it anyway. We have zero control over what people think or feel about us, regardless of what we put in their circumstance line. We can give people money, time, energy, compliments, and gifts, and they still may not like us. 

15:08 

So rather than continuing to do all those things in an effort to manipulate their thoughts and feelings, we get to decide that it's okay if they don't like us. And not that giving money, time, energy, compliments, and gifts is bad. We just get to learn to do it from a strong sense of self, with clean love, with zero expectations that they will respond a certain way. We do it from a place of wanting to do those things because we love them, not because we are expecting them to love us in return. We just cannot buy people's love. We really cannot pay them to like us. We can pay them to pretend they like us, but no amount of currency, money, time, energy, kindness, sacrifice, etc. will buy the real thing. 

16:05 

I used to be a believer in the phrase, "kill them with kindness." And nowadays, I think it's a ridiculous phrase because what it implies is that if I am kind enough, they will eventually like me. It is a subtle, manipulative phrase that says, I can control if they like me or not if I just keep being kind. And any time I find myself thinking people should behave a certain way because of how I treat them, I'm in sketchy territory. When I first married Sione, there were a few people that we encountered who really resisted us getting married. And I believed at the time that I could kill them with kindness. Now I generally really strive to be a kind person anyway. It's one of my core values, but I was stepping into a manipulative mindset with that concept. And it took me a bit of time, but I finally realized that no one, even people who are very important to Sione, they don't have to like me. They don't have to like me even a little bit. And I could not buy their liking me with my kindness. 

17:20 

So what do we do then if despite all of our kindness, they still don't like us? We really just have to decide that it's okay. We all like different things. We are attracted to different types of personalities, humor, and activities. We have had different experiences that naturally attract us to some people and not to others. And we don't feel connected to everybody that we meet. Not that we would want to intentionally treat anyone with unkindness, but we can not like someone and still be kind to them. And when I really got to the point that I was a hundred percent okay with some people not liking me, I stepped into a stronger sense of self. My kindness went to a deeper level of genuine and authentic. And I felt so much better honoring other people's agency enough to allow them not to like me if they don't is an incredible part of emotional maturity of growing up. 

18:29 

And here's another concept. We have a fairly limited capacity for how many people we can really have in our inner circle. As much as we might want to be best friends with 50 people on our list, it's just not a feasible option for anyone including you. So understanding that we also can't be the best friend for that many people either can take some of the pressure off. But what if you genuinely are a super kind person and you really try to be consciously aware of others and you put yourself out there in service whenever appropriate and people still don't like you. For example, I have worked with a lot of divorced and then remarried people over the years. And in that context have had so many discussions about why their new spouse's kids don't like them. They show up as kind as they can. They try to be hospitable and open when the kids go to their home. They try to be generous with resources and love and still nothing. So now what? 

19:38 

Well, they can go into drama response and start to make a big deal out of everything. They can refuse to go to family activities or even make themselves super sparse when the spouse's kids come over. They can make passive aggressive comments and little digs whenever they get the chance. But here's the thing. Even if you take the kids' responses out of the equation, or whoever it is that doesn't like you, all of those responses feel horrible. When you jump into your drama response and blow everything up, it feels like crap. You know you're not being in alignment with the kind of person you want to be. So not only do you need to manage your minds around other people not liking you, now you also layer on getting to work through your feelings of being out of alignment with yourself. 

20:31 

If someone doesn't like you, there is nothing you can do about it. And you can write them off and disappear from the family activities or you can choose to accept that they have the agency to like and not like whomever they choose. Them not liking you is only a problem if you need their acceptance to feel whole and valuable. Does it make it easier if they like you? Of course it does. There's a lot less to manage your brain around when everyone likes you. But when they don't like you and it's inevitable, you can't change that regardless of what you do. So learning to honor their agency to like or not like you, liberates you from the layered on emotions of angst and frustration and guilt and anxiety that come when we dwell on why don't they like me? Because their why for not liking you most likely doesn't have anything to do with you anyway. It may have to do with their own thoughts about the particular situation or maybe you remind them of someone in their past that they didn't like, or maybe they just don't have emotional space in their life for someone else. 

21:53 

For example, when I've had clients move to new areas and they keep reaching out to people and nobody reaches back. Maybe these people just don't have space for another close friend in their life. It's not personal. It's just people have their reasons, right? And maybe, maybe ultimately it does have something to do with you. Though you can't control whether they like you or not, you do get a chance to look at how you're showing up and decide if it's in alignment with who you want to be with your values. Are you genuine? Are you open? Are you providing a safe space for engagement? We're not just walking away saying, "it's their loss. They're a bunch of jerks." We're taking the opportunity to address how we're showing up and adjust our thinking and feeling and behaviors, if necessary, to get in alignment with our values and then letting them figure out the rest. 

22:54 

I've worked with people who are still dismissed by their spouse's adult children and they've been married 20+ years. That's a difficult situation that's made more difficult by their resistance and angst toward their spouse's children. Listen, they may never like you and you can significantly decrease the drama by letting them not like you. You can't really change it anyway. A much used quote from me by Byron Katie says this, "when you argue with reality you lose, but only 100% of the time." When you give up trying to control whether or not they like you, then you really step into control of yourself. 

23:45 

And this concept applies not just to spouses, children. I know that's been an example I've used a couple of times, but it also applies to people at church, to people at work, maybe even your own children or siblings, maybe even your spouse. It can apply to someone in your neighborhood that you'd like to be friends with and they don't seem to be interested and they never reach out after you've reached out to them. It really is okay if people don't like you. That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with them or with you. The story we often want to tell ourselves is that if everyone doesn't like us, then there is something wrong with us. Not so. People like and dislike for a lot of strange and unrelated reasons and a lot of valid reasons and none of them have anything to do with you. Let them not like you and instead expend your energy and focus on how you are showing up. Do you feel good about your interactions with them? Can you feel at peace around your thoughts about them? A good measurement for this is if you feel you can relax around them even knowing that they don't like you. 

25:08 

Nobody has to like you for you to like yourself. And that's where this all begins, with your own respect and love for you. When you are secure in your own sense of self, you can stay in your own lane better and allow other people, the agency, to like you or not like you. And it won't impact your ability to like yourself. Okay, that's what I got for you today. Good stuff, right? Love it. 

25:39 

If you love this kind of content, you're going to love my weekend win. I was chatting with someone the other day who says she's listened to me for over a year and she's like, "no, I'm not signed up for your weekend win." And you know who you are, girlfriend. Go to tanyahale.com, it will be the first thing that pops up. I promise you, I do not inundate you with tons of emails that you don't want. I will send out emails when I have classes coming up and most weekends I send out an email with just a tidbit of information, something to be read in two minutes or less where you can just go, "oh, I love that idea." That's one more piece to add to the processing and the information your brain has to figure out. 

26:19 

So go to tanyahale.com, get signed up for my weekend win, get signed up for my Talk with Tanya if that's an option for you and gosh darn it, get signed up for one of those sense of self classes. I promise you, they are going to be so good and you will walk away from that class feeling more empowered. Everybody who takes a class, even previous clients, they even come back and they're like, "wow, the class was just such a different experience than the one-on-one and I learned so much." Even people who have listened to me for years and I do have a few of those who have listened to every podcast I've put out there and they come back and they're like, "I love your classes." The discussions are great. The people who take these classes are amazing and we develop friendships and a safe place to talk about all the things. You're gonna love them, okay? So get that done, have an awesome, awesome week my friends and I will see you next time. 

27:21 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.