While your driving fears and driving anxiety may stop you from offering to drive someone across the world, you may be killing yourself trying to be nice in other ways. Perhaps you say yes to every favor friends ask. Maybe you end up volunteering for causes you don’t even believe in. You may even buy magazine subscriptions you neither like nor read just to please the person selling them.
If any of these scenarios sound familiar, you may be a full-fledged “niceaholic,” and it can be making your life miserable and your driving fears worse.
“We live under this misconception that saying yes, being available, always at the ready for other people, makes us a better person, but in fact it does quite the opposite,” social psychologist Susan Newman told the Chicago Tribune. “You get stressed and anxious; you’re viewed as a patsy.”
Once you’re stressed and anxious, all your driving fears, driving phobias and driving anxiety have a field day. Putting yourself into such a frenzied state is like putting out a welcome mat for further worries and stress.
Being a niceaholic can also result in:
- Crumbled self-esteem
- Exhaustion from pushing yourself beyond normal human limits
- Vulnerability to those who may take advantage of you
- A fueling of your fears that no one will like you unless you constantly agree
- Good odds it will backfire
When Niceaholism Backfires
Two studies published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology illustrated how being always nice all the time can actually turn people against you or give you the short end of the stick. One had students engage in a game where some players were super-generous in their actions and others were super-selfish. Both groups repelled other players who did not go to either extreme. The complaint against the super-generous players was they made other players look bad.
The second study showed men and women who brought their extreme niceness to the workplace earned less money than those who weren’t chronic people pleasers. Nicey-nice men raked in 18 percent less and extra-nice women 5 percent less than other men and women who didn’t bend over backwards for others.
How NOT to Fix It
The solution is not necessarily to go the opposite route and start being nasty. You don’t need to stop volunteering or stop doing favors – although you may want to stop buying magazine subscriptions to magazines you don’t even like.
Psychology Today blogger Loretta Graziano Breuning (who happens to be a zoo docent) points out we mammals are wired to live successfully and harmoniously in a group.
“That means getting your needs met while surrounded by others seeking to meet their needs,” she explains. “This is not a problem to solve. It’s a reality that comes with the gift of life.”
We make decisions on what may best work with the group, which is OK unless those decisions are turning us into doormats. Just like it’s best to choose your battles wisely, you may want to use the same level of wisdom when choosing to go above and beyond what any normal mammal could possibly do.
Next up: More tips for monitoring your niceaholism
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