View of one of Taninah's palapas (fab photo by Sean Ogle)

“We show up, burn brightly, live passionately, hold nothing back, and when the moment is over, when our work is done, we step back and let go.”

–Rolf Gates, Meditations from the Mat

Yoga at sunset on top of the water tower (By Sean Ogle)

I just got back from the most incredible week of my life…totally unplugged with 11 other entrepreneurs in a Mayan villa called Taninah, situated in the middle of a jungle near Playa del Carmen in Mexico. We slept in palapas at night under the stars, then woke up to the sound of birds chirping and ducks splashing in the pond. We ate three meals a day together cooked by an incredible staff, and laughed, played and had great conversations all day every day like we were kids again.

It’s funny that just before I left I wrote the post, What’s Your Happy Place? I found it. I found it in physical form (the resort had ziplines, a mini golf course, a game room, a treehouse, hammocks, and a waterslide in a cave) and in my spirit — I’ve never felt such a pure sense of joy, bliss and love for such a sustained amount of time.

This post won’t be a recap of my vacation – there are no words that would do the experience justice. I feel transformed beyond measure, and this is my attempt at maintaining it moving forward, and helping you find that same sense of aliveness in your own life.

My book is centered loosely upon the Wheel of Life (template here), an exercise where you can rate every area of your life on a scale of 1-10 (work, money, friends, family, home, organization, health, personal growth, relationships, fun & relaxation). While that exercise can help you design your life in every area, it doesn’t quite hit on the qualities that bring us alive within that life.

The areas (and accompanying Wheel of Aliveness template) below are based on my trip and are influenced heavily by Martha Beck’s latest book, Finding Your Way in a Wild New World. I believe they can be applied to any person at any time, because they hit upon fundamental aspects of being fully human. If there are any areas that don’t resonate with you, feel free to replace them with ones that do.

12 Ways to Wake up, Come Alive and Find Your Bliss

As you read the list below, consider how each one is showing up in your own life (or not). On a scale of 1-10, how present and full is that element? How do you feel when you maximize each one? What would be possible in your life if you were to increase the areas that are lacking? Feel free to also use the shiny new template for this exercise.

• Movement/play – many of us sit at computers all day and continue staring at screens into the night. How can you incorporate more athletics and movement, even outside of the gym? Yoga in the rain, tossing a football and baseball around, and zip-lining (among many other activities) completely brought me back to my body this week. The owner, Marino, even set-up an obstacle course for us on the last day, and I almost peed my pants watching everyone else go through it! It feels great to sweat and release energy through play. See also: Sean Ogle’s The Importance of Play (about our trip)
• Dance – you may not like dancing, but I believe that there is something incredibly powerful about connecting with music, feeling it in your bones, and letting yourself dance and be free. Sweating in a club, connecting with people around you, or just dancing by yourself when no one’s watching. See also: Where the Hell is Matt? (One of my all-time favorite YouTube videos — you can’t watch it and NOT smile)
• Nature – It was an incredible experience getting to immerse ourselves totally in a Mayan jungle, especially after coming from THE concrete jungle of New York City. A reminder about how powerful it is to be outside, play outside and rest outside. Go for walks, lay in the grass, sit on a bench and people watch. See also: Martha Beck’s Logging Off: The Power of Disconnection
• Water - I thought about combining this with nature, but it’s different. Water has a powerful effect on our bodies — whether it’s a pool, hot tub, bath tub, slip and slide, or even staring at a natural body of water like the ocean or a river. See also: Bon Iver’s incredible Holocene bonus video from his self-titled album, 20 Life Lessons I Learned on the Rogue River
• Community & Connection – there is something magical about sharing meals (3 a day), and finding people who inspire you to be the best, most authentic version of yourself. Consider the communities in your life: are they serving your most authentic self? Are they making your life better? During the trip we would come together for a few rounds of “Ohm” after every sporting event, even in the middle of a restaurant one day. Ohm is said to be the universal sound, and the beautiful harmony reminded all of us that we are connected and we are loved. See also: The Holstee Manifesto: This is Your Life.
• Laughter – laughter is one of the purest forms of joy. Find people who make you laugh, don’t take life too seriously, and let yourself be silly. See also: Top 10 Funniest YouTube Videos
• Learning & Creativity – this entails reading books, engaging in conversation, asking questions, giving yourself space to explore your creative side. Engage your mind, and just as you let your body play and be outdoors, allow your inner creativity to shine through freedom and flexibility. By creating such an incredible place, Marino taught us all to dream big, bigger and bigger still. Never give up on bringing your wildest dreams to fruition.  See also: Live for the Dip
• Challenge – get outside of your comfort zone, tackle big goals and big ideas, undertake projects that bring you alive. See also: Joseph Campbell on The Hero’s Journey
• Commitment – what matters to you? Commit to living authentically, commit to living in accordance with your core values, and commit to projects and people that carry significant meaning. See also: Big Difference by Willie Jackson, about the powerful conversation we had with Marino about the plight of the Mayans (much like Avatar) and his commitment to serving them.
• Gratitude & Positivity - it was amazing to be around a group of people who let all negativity roll right off their backs at any given moment. No sooner did someone state a fear or self-doubt than it was washed away by caring, positive encouragement. This is about maintaining a player mentality (as opposed to a victim role) in your own life, about reframing negative thoughts into positive incarnations, and about constantly reminding yourself of everything in life that you are grateful for, therefore giving it a chance to expand even further. See also: Be Thankful  and Zen and the Art of Happiness Book Notes
• Letting go – resting, relaxing, dropping any thoughts or worries that aren’t serving you, let small infractions in life roll of your back. My friend Mike from the trip uses the motto, “Zero F*cks” — as in, “I have zero f*cks to give” when something irritating happens, or even when going into a situation (like a night out with friends to focus on being carefree). He quickly got us to all adopt the phrase — making sure to clarify that Zero F*cks only applies to stuff that doesn’t matter, so that you can focus your attention on everything else that does. See also: Dancing with Demons and Finding the Light
• Light and love – sending love to yourself first and foremost, then to all others around you. One love. See also: Light, Love and Yoga Money and Expanding Happiness: on Bliss and Fear (with notes from my dad)

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments: What brings you alive?
What do you have room for more of in your life?

Modified pigeon pose at Taninah (HDR photo by Sean Ogle)

“It’s always darkest before the dawn…
And it’s hard to dance
With a Devil on your back
So shake it out…”

—Lyrics to Shake it Out by Florence & the Machine 

Yesterday, as I was transferred for the seventh time during a 15-minute phone call that can only be described as a customer service black hole, my blood started boiling. RAGE.

I’ve had a cold this week, so my normal be a friendly decent human being defenses were down. I hadn’t gone running or to yoga in days. I had a devil on my back (as the brilliant lyric above goes) and I had lost my happy place.

Origins of the Happy Place

After my sophomore year of college, I did a two-month travel study program in Europe. My roommate and I devised a method for dealing with frustration, long lines, angry people and other mood-zappers: go to the happy place.

Mine happened to be on an island with Vin Diesel, and she taught me how to say it in sign-language.

When something would go wrong, instead of reverting to RAGE or complete bitch-mode, she and I would look at each other and sign our happy places. “I’m on an island with Vin Diesel!” I’d mouth while giggling. It might be a complete fabrication, but it worked.

(Consider also Adam Sandler’s happy place from Happy Gilmore for a good chuckle/example…thanks Alex Dea!)

Shake it out. . .

These days, my happy place is my yoga mat. While it helps to have a place that actually exists, it’s certainly not required.

When I feel my patience grow thin or my good-mood resources deplete, I know it’s time to get out of the house and get moving. Fresh air, a walk or a run, and definitely a yoga class. My dad has a theory that unused adrenaline (which we start out with every morning) quickly turns toxic in our bodies if we don’t put it to use within 24 hours.

When you’re in a funk, you don’t always realize that it’s because you’ve neglected your happy place…but it’s never too late to go back. Or to imagine yourself there in vivid detail.

Just as negotiators suggest “going to the balcony” instead of reacting on the spot, the same applies for going to your happy place. The next time you find yourself sad, mad, frustrated or otherwise on a rapid downhill slide into toxic energy, conjur up a place that makes you smile.

What does it look like? Who is there with you? What are you doing? What imagined scenario (or real activity) is guaranteed to lift your spirits? It might even help to make a list or do a free-write so that you have something to come back to when you’re feeling less creative.

I’d love to hear in the comments: what is your happy place?
What person or place (or puppy!) makes you smile just thinking about it?

***

P.S. Two fun features elsewhere on the web today: My “Act as If” story is up on Positively Positive, and the most in-depth interview I’ve done in a while is posted at Idea Mensch. Head on over and check them out — both are great websites that I am honored to be on and look forward to exploring more!

P.P.S. Thank you so much for all of your enthusiasm and kind words about the Mint infographic — it’s been a blast seeing it spread around the Internet!

I’ve been in a great mood this week, feeling very optimistic about the present and future; radiant, cheerful, and impossibly gregarious.

But a wave of anxiety swept over me this afternoon. I felt knots in my stomach, tension in my jaw, and had a sad expression on my face. I was grateful to be headed to yoga class because I knew it would force me to breathe, and to let go of this unnecessary weight.

Traveling lightly, I left my purse at home and tucked my credit card, metro card and $10 cash into my vest pocket.

Side note that will be relevant shortly: I taught my first official Geek Yoga class in NYC last night (yay!), and one person paid in cash. A lightly worn $10 bill.

Mood a little low, I headed down into the subway with the thick, warm air that I fell in love with as a kid, and I was immediately taken by two women singing their hearts out into a portable mic and speaker system, in what sounded like a cross between Amy Winehouse and Aretha Franklin.

They were smiling, dancing, and singing with soul. So I started smiling back at them.

Bigger, bigger, bigger still. They literally turned my frown upside down.

They snapped me out of my sadness and brought me pure joy. What could be more worth $10 than that? My $10 came from teaching a yoga class, and it felt right to use that same money to spread a little more love and happiness in the world, as these women had just done for me.

Into their hat it went before I stepped onto the subway car.

My word of the year is Light.

I am pouring my focus into being a shining beacon of light in the world, to bring joy and positive energy to others, uplifting them in the process. To practice, I’ve been smiling at people, complimenting strangers and generally going out of my way to be friendly and strike up conversations.

Though I am succeeding at uplifting others, the more surprising realization has been that it is working on me.

For the next ten minutes after giving the two women my cash, I felt filled with love. Joy. Bliss.

“Yoga Money,” I laughed to myself while walking to class. Of course it should stay in circulation!

And then I proceeded to have an entirely transformative yoga practice.

During class I focused my gaze on the lights outside. I smiled as I pictured them being put there just for me.

By the end of class, I found myself in a yoga pose that I had never done before; one that I thought I would never be able to do in my lifetime. I didn’t even know the name of it until I researched it for this post (a near miracle that I could even figure it out!).

Being in that yoga pose was the most open I’ve ever been . . . and they say that open hips are the way to an open heart.

As I left class, I started typing a reminder to myself on my phone:

Every light is for . . . but before I could type “you,” the word “for” auto-corrected to God. I’m not religious, but that certainly got my attention.

Every light is God.
Every light is for you.
Every light — streetlight, sunlight, night light, invisible light — is a reminder to shine our lights more brightly in the world.

Namaste.

*If this is an art, my current skill-set is that of a five year old with crayons . . . but hear me out.

Three things before we jump in:

1. HUGE thanks to all of you for helping me max out Jeremy’s DonorsChoose.org page on my birthday last Sunday — we did it!! We weren’t the only ones to contribute, but by the end of the day he had raised the remaining $448. It completely warmed my heart and his — makes me so proud to have a community of readers like you. THANK YOU!
2. I was honored to be chosen as one of 100 women for eHow’s first annual “Shift List” — check it out here.
3. I am going to be speaking at the Texas Conference for Women on November 17 — if any of you live in the Houston area, this will be a don’t-miss conference with a huge line-up of incredible speakers (including one of my idols, Martha Beck) — the registration fee is a very reasonable $140.

***

The Itchy Scratchy Art of Saying No

“Any change, even a change for the better, is always accompanied by drawbacks and discomforts.”

–Arnold Bennett

If you recall my New York, New York post, you’ll know I had every intention of taking things slowly this quarter so that I could leave the house and spend time in this great city rather than remain chained to my laptop by emails and meetings. You were all very understanding, and it really felt possible!

You have to crawl (and fall) before you can walk

The month of September went as follows: I kept telling my coach, “I’ll slow down next week — this one just got really busy.” Then next week would come, and I would do nothing differently.

My first homework assignment was to take a four-day weekend off given how hard I’d been working after the Make Sh*t Happen launch.

I barely took four hours, let alone four days. So we adjusted our expectations and my homework the following weekend was to take Saturday and Sunday off. Once again, even with the best intentions, I bulldozed right over what should have been time untethered.

Then you hit a breaking point, and something has to change

Niagara Falls from the Maid of the Mist Boat

My first true days off since I’ve been here were the week of my birthday, when I went to Niagara Falls with my mom and grandma. I left my laptop at home (shocking!!) and spent time reading, reflecting, and relaxing.

Correction — I was trying to relax. But requests and emails kept pouring in. Shockingly, they followed me to Niagara, even though I was on a break. Funny how that works! Over two days, I received 8 requests for my time (outside of coaching calls) — Skype chats, networking, interviews. I felt my anxiety bubbling to a boiling point. Taken individually, no one request was a big deal. One was even just 10 minutes! But taken as a whole, it was just too much.

Enter nature: the great sorbet for the soul.

Niagara Falls is an incredible sight to see, and call it cliche — but I had an epiphany standing there on the Maid of the Mist boat, water raining down on me, staring at this great landmark with it’s gorgeous, powerful water spilling and crashing everywhere.

*I* have to change. People cannot read my mind. If I don’t learn to say no, and learn to take time off, NOTHING will change.

It sounds so obvious in hindsight. But I kept waiting for “next week to be better” when deep down, being the self-help junkie that I am, I knew that “next week” had to start NOW.

Changing a well-worn habit is like turning a giant ship around.

It takes TIME. Patience. Self-love. Compassion. Discipline. A little bit of failure.

I’ve got to say . . . this mission to slow down in Q4 has been very humbling for me. It’s humbling because I normally respond quickly to goals I set, but in this case I felt like such a failure. I literally did not know where to start, and I found myself continually overwhelmed week after week.

You can’t just wait for things to change, then get frustrated when they don’t.

New habits, especially one as sensitive as saying no (at least for all you people-pleasers like me), are scratchy and difficult. That is why they are new. That’s why they matter. It’s frustrating, but you’re in the trenches now. You’ve got to fight, learn, and fail your way through.

We can’t expect to turn the entire ship around in two seconds.

10 Important Reminders for Habit Change and the “No” Business

1. It’s not enough to hope for habit change. Actions have to follow desire — this is not easy. There WILL be a dip when you are learning a new skill.
2. Habit change starts with one tiny aspect at a time. In yoga, the teacher might give the most subtle correction: don’t collapse the arches of your feet during standing poses. That alone will take me months of concerted practice and repetition to correct! And yet those nuances are part of the fun. It’s a champagne problem to have (in yoga or life) to be in the business of refining, not just survival.
3. What got you here won’t get you there. This is a popular business book that also applies to habit change. Sometimes the very habits that have made you successful (working around the clock) are not the ones that will help you create sustainable success over the long-term. At a certain point you have to evolve, particularly as your life, goals or responsibilities become more complex.
4. Any big goal usually comes with new habits. How will you make room for them in your life? If your goal is to lose weight, what new eating and exercise habits do you need to develop? If your goal is to start a blog or write a book, when will you set aside the time to write?
5. You may will probably fail at first. Remember learning to ride a bike? It’s scary. Wobbly. Crashy. It requires support from those around you. But, after concerted practice, one day it will become second nature.
6. Habit change starts TODAY. Not tomorrow, not next week. Snap out of your procrastinator’s paradise (more like purgatory) and make the tough decisions to change and improve your life TODAY.
7. Saying no — especially to people you care about — can be very challenging. Root your response in truth and values — share your conflict honestly. Let them know that normally you would love to say yes, but right now you’re taking a much-needed break (or insert other authentic reason) and that you hope they understand. They might even relate and admire your no-wielding courage.
8. Priortize. What is most important to you? If you are clear on your priorities, it will be easier to say no. One of my mentors Susan came up with a great checklist: Are you healthy? Do you have enough time for yourself? Do you have enough time for your friends and family? Do you have enough time to get your own work done? If yes — and ONLY yes to all of the above — should you then start entertaining others’ requests. Make your own list — what should come first before saying yes?
9. If it’s not one exception, it’s another. Don’t let exceptions wiggle you out of your commitment to habit change. We’ve all played the “just this one time” game. When is it time to make yourself the exception?
10. When all else fails, get outside! Nature has this amazing way of bringing clarity and a sense of grounding. If you’re frustrated about a habit you can’t break, frame up your challenge as a question and go for a walk, a hike, a bike ride, a run — anything that will shift your thinking through the power of fresh air and connection with the great outdoors.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments:

What helps you turn the big habit ship around?
Got any great tips for saying no, even when you’re conflicted and want to say yes? 

One of the struggles I hear most often from new readers is that they have a gnawing feeling of bordom when they think about their future. Many are a few years into their career and know it’s time for a change, but have no clue where to start. They feel directionless, foggy and tentative. The age-old “follow your passions” advice is not helpful for those who don’t even know what their passions are.

Enter today’s guest post from Therese Schwenkler;Therese writes for the young & confused at TheUnlost.com, proving that good advice doesn’t have to be boring or uncool. Her mission: to bring more & better direction to today’s mainstream. Find out why she’s getting naked for 3,737 people or Take Therese’s hilarious happiness quiz here. Therese tweets at @tschwenkler. 

You want to find your life’s calling— the work that you’re deeply, madly, insanely passionate about. 

You’re sick of staring out the window and watching the clock. You’re sick of that listless feeling in your soul and that dragging feeling in your step. You just can’t get the thought out of your head that there’s got to be more than this.

But there’s one big, fat problem standing in your way: you haven’t a clue what your passion might be.

A few years ago I was faced with the very same problem.  I made a ton of mistakes before I finally realized that there’s a better way to figure things out— a method that, for some odd reason, isn’t talked about a whole lot.

Almost every passionate person I’ve met has used this method, whether knowingly or unknowingly, with great success in discovering their life’s path. It’s in fact quite simple: rather than trying to jump straight to the endpoint, these people allow their passions to organically evolve.

In other words, they don’t try to decide upfront what it is that they should end up doing. Instead, they kindle many small fires, allowing those that spark their interest to naturally progress until they evolve into full-fledged, passionate pursuits.

Let me show you what I mean by this and why it can be so effective. In three simple steps, I’ll break this method down for you and show you exactly how to do it. I’ll also weave in examples from my own story—i.e., how I went from being an unfocused and passionless college student to finding a pursuit that I’m desperately, madly, passionately in love with (and strangely enough, my pursuit does not involve stalking Brad Pitt).

How to Allow Your Passion to Organically Evolve — by Therese Schwenkler

1. Try lots and lots and lots of stuff. Sometimes finding your passion is like shopping for jeans: you’ve got to try on a lot of pairs before you find the right ones. Why? Because no matter how much you window shop, you often can’t (& won’t) know beforehand which pair will actually fit your sexy a**. Yeah, you know what I’m talking about.

Jeans aside, this is exactly why you’re likely to fail if you try to choose a pursuit upfront without having prior exposure— for example, by declaring “I want to be a doctor” or “I want to be a graphic designer” without truly having been exposed to these pursuits. Again, you can’t always know beforehand whether or not something will interest you.

On the flip side, there are certain things that you might normally have disregarded from the get-go, but that you might actually end up enjoying if you gave them a chance.

So here’s my advice: unless you’re absolutely positive that you’ll hate something, throw out all your preconceived notions and just try it. It won’t kill you at all; in fact, exploration is an essential piece of the organic method.

For example, you could do any of the following:

• Attend local events in the community or on college campuses
• Keep an eye out for people in your social networks or in your community who are doing cool things, then ask to meet up with them and talk about their experiences
• Talk to your friends, acquaintances, or professors (or ex professors) about their pursuits and ask if they know of any interesting projects or events that you might want to participate in
• Take a class, attend a workshop, or read books and blogs to learn more
• Ask to shadow someone at their job or pursuit
• Anything else you can possibly think of

2. Implement the “spark test.” Each time you try something new, ask yourself if it sparked your interest in any way. If your answer is no, then you can cross it off your list. But if the answer is yes, then…

3. Follow up. This is perhaps the most important step in this method and it’s where 99% of people fall short— in fact, I ignored this step for years at my own peril. I had found several things that passed the “spark test” such as writing, marketing and psychology, but I never followed up with any action, and as a result my newfound interests led me absolutely nowhere. If you pay attention to just one thing today, let it be this: discovering an interest will do you absolutely NO good unless you follow up.

This simply means is that once something sparks your interest, you should actively pursue (or create) opportunities that will expand upon these interests. This could include any of the following:

• Offer to contribute to a related organization in some way. Can you help organize an event or add something to a project or (fill in the blank) here?
• If you encounter an interesting company or an interesting individual, offer to work for free, allowing the potential for paid work down the road
• Start your own project or team up with someone to create a new endeavor
• Anything else you can possibly think of

In my own case, I began following up on my sparked interests in several ways:

• I started my blog, The Unlost, which spins timeless wisdom and advice in a way that appeals to young people.
• I volunteered to write a weekly column for the Boise State University newspaper and I began contributing guest posts to sites like Jenny’s.
• I’m scared sh*tless of public speaking, but I’m submitting a talk for a local event and could end up speaking in front of 500+ people next month.

Each of these pursuits builds upon one or several of my sparks, and I can’t even pretend to know where they’ll end up leading me.

Therein lies the beauty of the organic method: the more that you follow up on even the smallest of sparks, the more they begin to grow into promising new opportunities— opportunities that you couldn’t have possibly dreamt of or conceived from the get-go.

So go on, start kindling some fires and watch as your spark grows into an insanely intriguing, wildly passionate, absolutely unstoppable pursuit.

Got questions? Comments? A story of your own? Lemme know in the comments— I wanna hear it all.

***

Discover Your Career Calling Retreat in Bali with Adrian Klaphaak

Speaking of finding your passion and career calling, my great friend and very first coach, Adrian Klaphaak (the awesome guy quoted on the cover of my book!) is hosting a Discover Your Career Calling Retreat in Bali in December. Adrian is my go-to guy for career coaching; in fact, when new clients reach out to me specifically for career guidance, I often end up referring them to him if my slots are full.

This opportunity won’t be for everyone, but I couldn’t resist passing it along in the event that it’s right for some of you — Bali is at the top of my travel life list — I’d be there in a heartbeat if I could!

More about the Bali retreat (in Adrian’s words):

This is a transformational retreat for people that want to make a career change into an entirely new career and/or rejuvenate their existing career with meaning and purpose. If your work is feeling stagnant and you know it’s time for a change, this retreat will help you find your calling and re-inspire your career.

Our career coaching process blends your quest for meaning with the practical need to get results and build a successful career. This retreat will guide you through a process of discovering your gifts, passions, values, and purpose and how to translate the uniqueness of who you are into a concrete direction in your career.

In addition to guiding you through our career coaching exercises, activities and assessments, we will draw on the fresh perspective and soulfulness of Bali by incorporating cultural activities, walks through the rice fields, and little adventures throughout the week.

Logistics: The retreat will be held in the beautiful town of Ubud on the Island of Bali, Indonesia from Sunday December 11th – Friday December 16th 2011.

Early Registration Discount: Register by October 21st and receive a BIG discount. Space is limited. More information is available at http://www.APathThatFits.com/Bali.

It might be the double latte talking, but I’m totally fired up right now; I want to shake my people-pleaser self, look her in the eyes and tell her to STOP.

STOP TRYING TO MAKE EVERYONE HAPPY ALL THE TIME!!

You can either go (emotionally) broke running around trying to please everyone, or you can spend your time creating, living and being AUTHENTIC to your own needs and desires. This is not new information — I’m sure countless blog posts exist on this topic (including my own Stop Auditioning for Other People’s Lives), but it’s time for a reminder.

This post is a letter to myself. Believe me — I am not up on a high horse…I am laying underneath one about to get trampled if I don’t turn this issue around! This post is also dedicated to any other “givers” out there (or Type 2/3 Enneagrams) who naturally get satisfaction from giving and making others happy.

A people-pleaser gets her wings

It started in Elementary School. I was a quiet, shy, fringe girl. I wore spandex shorts, baggy t-shirts, and Doc Martens. I wasn’t the pretty one or the popular one, but thankfully by third grade I had landed on a solid group of friends. Or so I thought.

We ate lunches together for months until one day they stopped talking to me and started pointing and laughing instead. Turns out the ring-leader of the group had bribed them all to STOP being my friend, but only after ALSO bribing them to entrap me into gossiping about her behind her back so she could later use it against me. “We never liked you, anyway” they all cackled during the lunch break in which they revealed the whole scheme.

From that day forward, I think I subconsciously decided to make it my life’s mission to never give someone a reason to turn on me. To impress, charm, please and befriend everyone I could so that I would never hear those dreaded words again; so I’d never have to watch my friends turn their backs on me (or stab me in mine).

Combine that with an ENFJ personality type that thrives on helping, teaching and serving others, and well — we are ripe for a major approval-seeking vulnerability!

It shows up in the pettiest, stupidest ways . . . all the way to much bigger fears and insecurities:

• Worrying sometimes that if I don’t reply to every tweet, blog comment or email that people will never write again…or worse, decide they dislike me because they interpret my non-responsiveness as bitchy
• Worrying that if I don’t say yes to all plans/requests or have a “good reason” for saying no, that I will massively offend the person asking (even if I have no energy to do said thing and would probably be a drag anyway)
• When I haven’t heard back from someone, wondering if I’ve done something to anger or offend, then over-analyzing until I do get some sort of sign that they don’t hate me
• Accepting less-than-ideal behavior from people I date because I don’t want to rock-the-boat by speaking up (even though when I do, I ALWAYS feel better)
• Wondering, after some social interactions, if I’ve “met expectations” or not — and have been cheerful/happy/engaged enough, or if I’ve disappointed the other person
• Generally being way more lenient and understanding with others than I am with myself

The wake-up call

Although I’ve been making a great deal of progress over the years, I continue to learn the following lessons:

• People-pleasing is exhausting. It is inauthentic. It means placing everyone else’s needs above your own.
• You cannot make everyone happy all of the time, and it is futile to try.
• You have two choices: you can spend your time worrying about other people, or you can bravely follow your own wants and needs.
• The universe rewards backbone.
• IT PAYS OFF to stick up for yourself, to say the hard truth, and to make the hard choices about where to spend your time and attention.
• It pays off in sanity. Ease. Lightness. Sense of self. Confidence. Clarity. And cajones.
• You are no good to anyone if you run yourself ragged trying to please everyone.
• Start with yourself so that you can give back (with gusto!) to those in your life who are worthy of your precious time, love and attention.

How to turn your attention inward:

• Author Brene Brown suggests making a list of five Most Important People: ”the short list” — of those who really matter in your life, or as she puts it, “would help you move a body.” Keep that list in your wallet, and when you ruffle feathers or do something that invites “haters” out to play, ask yourself what the people on your short list would say. If they’re on board, not much else matters.

• In her book, Steering by Starlight, Martha Beck suggests using a “shackles on” versus “shackles off” approach. Does this request/person/action weigh you down and feel tiresome or draining? Or does it feel exciting, energizing and uplifting? Whenever possible, make decisions based on the latter. Homework: over the course of the next week, ask yourself whether things feel shackles on or shackles off BEFORE making decisions.

• Another book that I’ve found extremely helpful on this topic is Byron Katie’s I Need Your Love…is That True? How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead. As Katie puts it (paraphrasing from memory): “If you are worried about someone else’s business, and they are worried about their own business, then who is looking out for yours?”

• Free E-course by Martha Beck Certified Coach Amy Pearson called “I Don’t Need Your Approval.”  Pearson lists six steps for overcoming approval addiction: mindfulness, compassion, analysis, courage, vigilance and “enjoy!”

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How do you scale back when you realize you’re people-pleasing or worrying too much about what others think? How do you reframe fear of rejection or the fear of letting people down?