I have spent most of my life as a "people pleaser". My happiness and sense of worth was always measured by my ability to satisfy others. It didn't matter if I was dealing with a family member, a friend, my spouse or even my supervisor at work. If what I was doing or saying made them happy, then I was happy. I understand that you can't please all of the people all of the time but if the percentages were high enough, that was awesome and for those that I didn't make happy this way, I could go back and do something "extra" to win their favor. Most of the time, this was enough for me, If I got to the point where I could no longer please a person, then I would just let them go, knowing that I had done everything that I could.
This actually worked pretty well for me or so I thought. All of these people were happy with me so I felt good. However, I forgot about one very important element-me. I had completely forgotten about what may have made me happy with myself. I could rationalize that I was happy with myself because I had the ability to make others happy. That was a good and easy cop out. If my happiness was based upon others, I wasn't responsible for taking a really good look at myself and the things with which I was not happy with myself.
So, the next step was to realize and understand that in order to be happy, I had to, first and foremost, be happy with myself. With my assessment of myself, I found that all I could focus on were the things about which I was unhappy with and in myself. Needless to say, I gave serious consideration about going back to my old ways of just focusing on making others happy but I understood that I would never gain any ground by doing that. So I started to allow myself to accept that there were some things about me that were good and positive. I began to realized that I couldn't make everyone else happy all of the time. I began to realized that it didn't make a bit of difference what I chose to do with regard to making someone else happy because their happiness was up to them. And by using the same logic, I came to realize that I am the only one who can make me happy.
As I started to take a more realistic look at myself, I realized that while I was far from perfect, I always did my best. No matter what I did, I gave it my all. I was always willing to learn more, do more and be more. I knew that I would never, ever do something to intentionally hurt another person. I knew that if I could help someone else, I would be the first in line to give whatever I could. So why would I think that I needed to do things differently or why would I think that I needed to become someone other exactly who I was? I suddenly realized that the as long as I was true to myself, I would always be happy and successful and the person that I really wanted to be.
No one is perfect. None of us has all of the answers. No one is an expert at everything and some of us are not even an expert as something. However, the truth is that it really doesn't matter. If we can acknowledge that we all have our own strengths and weaknesses, that there is usually more than one way to do something and that we all have our own uniqueness based upon our own life experiences, we can work together to accept one another for exactly who we are. We can allow for each of us to find our own happiness within ourselves in the only way possible and that is by being true to ourselves.