Anita-
You described it absolutely perfectly. My latest example was in Mcdonalds drive through I ordered 2 apple pies, but because I used paypass I didnt see that I only paid for 1. When I came back around to get a second one, my friend said, tell her that it was meant to be 2 (as she made the mistake). When I went to tell her I got this instictual feelign that it would make her feel uncomfortable that she stuffed up my order and made me come around twice so I was “sorry, it was meant to be two” and she replied “thats okay”. My friend sitting next to me just stared at me like what the %#@….why are you apologizing? It made me feel so unassertive ><.

In my history……I have always been a ‘nice’ person but its never been an issue. I think towards later high school, I started to simultanous work in customer service (Mcdonalds actually) where you constantly trying to be nice and smile and make the customer feel good. I never use to be into books I was typical kid who played games, skateboarded and saw friends. But in year 11, a girl I was dating read a lot so she got me into books. And I sortof started on a self-help book craze, where i wanted to continually improve myself and continually be better..maybe even 1 day the best. And this just compounded over time. I thought How can I make my customers the happiest (started innocently) Im like maybe they will prefer this tone. Maybe they like a bit more/less eye contact —- all things I did fine naturally started a process of over analysis. So I think it just compounded as a habit from here that im trying to unlearn? This is my best guess.

Id love to hear anyone have any strategies you have for moving past this kind of thing 🙂

Saiisha-
‘The disease to please’ – absolutely love this. It totally is a disease!
Im going to go check out your blog now 🙂