Ep 137. Stop Being Nice

I am Kym Showers and this is Reinvented After 40, episode number 137, Stop Being Nice.

Welcome to the Reinvented After 40 podcast. I am your host, Kym Showers, and I’m a certified life coach for women in the second half of life. Each week I’ll bring you direct advice and inspiring, practical wisdom to help you live your very best life and create a future you’re absolutely obsessed with. It’s going to be fun, let’s get started.

Hey, my friends out in podcast land. Happy Thursday, happy pod day, best day of the week, favorite day for me. I love recording these and I love when they come out into the world. This is part of my life and I love it so very much. 137 episodes at 63 years old. I am on fire and I’m no longer trying to be nice. That is not my goal. 100% I spent the first 50 years of my life with the goal of being nice, of being well liked, well thought of, well talked about. And I did a really good job at that, but that was not what was best for me.

That was just what I was handed to from all the generations before me, and especially from men. Men like nice women to just go along with the rules and be supportive. So that’s just the air I breathed for the first 50 years of my life. So at 63 I can tell you for sure that for the most part I have stopped trying to be nice and well liked and well talked about. And I am so fine with people being wrong about me, whatever you think about me, whatever anybody thinks about me. I have made peace with that. That is not even actually on my mind anymore.

I am in such a different lane doing my own work in the world and that’s what I want to encourage you with today. My goal is to be focused every single day. My goal is to be confident every single day. My goal is to be strong mentally, physically, emotionally every single day. My goal is to be determined. And my focus, my confidence, my strength, my determination has nothing to do with me being nice. Nice was just in my way. So you don’t know any women who have made a big difference in the world who got there being nice.

So there’s a difference between being nice and being kind. I just want you to know that. I am an extremely kind, loving, generous woman. That’s what I’m confident about. This is what I know about me. And nice is the opposite of all three of those actually. Nice is not useful for anyone. So we’re nice when we say yes to things, to people, to invitations, to work that we don’t want to do when we mean no, but we don’t know how to say no. And we’re so afraid to let people down because we’re afraid people will judge us and talk about us and say that we’re not nice. Do you see that?

So we’re not in integrity. We are not being honest. We do not trust ourselves and that means other people do not trust us. So I just want you to know there is a big difference when you become conscious, when you come online, when you get aligned with your purpose, when you love yourself more than you love everybody else. When you stop acquiescing and living someone else’s dream and you decide that you’re worth so much more than how other people are treating you and you decide you’re going to treat yourself with the utmost respect.

And you decide that you’re going to require that from the people who are allowed to be in your life. So this is the work that we do. This is how we become the woman of our dreams is to stop being nice and decide instead to live a life that’s focused, that’s confident, that’s strong and that’s determined, totally different and it’s so much more fun. I’m just telling you.

So what happens, though and what’s happened with me, you guys, the reason that I’ve been able to create so much in my life in the last 10 years is because I stopped people pleasing. I stopped being ‘nice’ to people and showing up in ways that they never showed up for me. I just thought that that was just how I found my validation, was I was the super nice girl and I threw all the parties for all the people and I celebrated all of their birthdays. And that was just who I was, but it never served them and it never served me.

So I just want you to understand, maybe a big aha moment from this is that you don’t have to be nice anymore. Stop being nice. You already are kind and generous and loving. There’s no possible way that you’re here in my atmosphere, if you’re not. I want you to trust that about yourself. That is the energy that you walk into a room with. So you don’t have to be something that you’re not to get other people’s attention. We don’t need other people’s attention. We just want your attention. I want you to love you. I want you to validate you. I want you to show up for you.

So I was telling my clients today, can you imagine if you were married to someone who said to you, “Kym, I want you to write down all of your biggest, wildest dreams and then I’m going to 100% help you make those dreams come true. Let’s talk about them every day. Let’s strategize. Let’s set all of our time up that’s aligned with making those dreams come true.” Can you imagine if you’re married to someone like that? Maybe you’re not married to someone like that. I think very few of us are married to someone like that.

I’m not married to someone like that, though I’m married to the man of my dreams. There’s no other man I want. But because he has upper limit problems, I have upper limit problems. And because of that, there’s no possible way that he would ever say that to me unless I said, “I really want you to say this to me. I want you to do this for me.” Because I get to be the one to do that for me. I don’t even need him to do that for me. I can stay married to him.

And I can write down all of my wildest biggest dreams. And I can get on board 100% and make sure that I make them all come true for me. That I know that I’m worthy of them, that I know I’m capable of creating them. I have all the resources that I need. I don’t need anyone else to help me do that because I have me.

And so that’s what I want to offer you today is I want you to take all that energy that you have spent trying to win people over and convince people of who you are so that they think nice thoughts about you and say nice things about you. You don’t need any of that anymore because I want you to be that person for you. I want you to know who you are. I want you to see yourself in the highest light.

I want you to get on board with all of your dreams and know for sure that you’re extremely capable of making them all come true, you’re strong enough, you’re confident enough, you’re determined enough and you’re focused enough. And this is what’s going to take you to the next level. To just believe in yourself more than you believe in anyone else, more than you believe in anything else, more than you want people to think nice things about you. That you just get to think whatever you want to think about you.

So this is where all of our power lies and we want to make a difference in the world. And the most powerful women in the world are not worried about people thinking they’re nice. Trust me, they do not think that. And they’re just busy with their big work in the world. And so I just want you to know this is what we want. And once I had this whole epiphany about how much time and energy I have spent trying to be the nicest one in the room or the nicest one in the group or getting certain people to think I’m nice. Such a waste of my time and energy.

I get to focus all of that energy back where it belongs, in my own lane, with my blinders on, doing my amazing work in the world, growing my confidence, growing my determination, growing my focus and growing my strength mentally, emotionally and physically. That is what my work is. That’s what’s going to make the biggest difference. And that is what your work is. And that’s what’s going to make the biggest difference for you.

You know what’s so funny is I just looked at my calendar and this episode 137 comes out on April 25th, which on my calendar says Liberation Day. I mean, what a better title, stop being nice. As women in the second half of life, we don’t have to be nice anymore, which is so lovely to know. It’s such a relief. And it’s such a wonderful moment when we realize that we don’t owe anyone an explanation. We never have to ask for anyone’s permission again.

And nice girls think they owe everyone an explanation, and they’re always asking for permission and hesitating on anything that they want. They don’t believe in themselves. They’re waiting for other people to believe in them instead. We don’t need that. We get to believe fully in ourselves and in our dreams and in our purpose here on Earth. So no more hesitating, no more waiting for validation outside of us, waiting for permission outside of us. We don’t owe anyone an explanation. We get to live fully into our purpose, into our dreams, into our wildest imagination, into our joy and into our happiness.

So that’s what I want to encourage you with today. I am all in. I want you to be all in. Set yourself free, my friend and stop being nice. It will change everything for you, I promise you. Okay, I love you so much and I will talk to you next Thursday.

If you love this podcast, I invite you to come work with me. Go to kymshowerslifecoach.com, sign up for my next group and retreat, and let’s create your dream life together.