People pleaser

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Remember your high school dances?

Back in high school, we used to have a school dance every fewmonths. One particular time, I had plans. Big, romantic plans.  You see, there was this girl I had a crush on. We’d been talking abit more and I was starting to think, “Yes. The time is right. I can ask her to dance.” I’d finally conjured up the courage. I’d practiced how I was going to do it and was extremely nervous, but also excited at the possibility. Maybe we’d even get to slow dance to “Love Bites” by Def Leppard. It was going to be great.
The big night arrived. I’m looking good in my mid-1980s school formal attire. This thing was going to be something you’d see straight out of a movie. Probably a movie like Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure fashion-wise, but still. Like every dance, it started with the girls on one side and the boys on the other.

I knew timing was everything. It was a tricky game because I didn’t want to ask her too soon, before people got dancing, to give her the opportunity to say no. I also didn’t want to wait too long in case someone else asked her to dance, leaving me out. It was like a game of chicken; who would dance first and how soon would
everyone get out on the floor? Well, the first couple started and then the second, so I thought this was my chance. I picked my target and started to make my move.

Going in for the kill!
She was there on the other side of the room. My heart rate was picking up with my nerves. I started moving across the floor and as I did, I saw movement coming toward me from the side. It was a girl, but it was not the girl I had a crush on. I started moving faster, hoping the new girl would either not get to me in time, or that she’d see I had my sights on someone else. I was avoiding eye contact and mustering up the courage to say no if she got to me
first and asked me to dance.
I was just a couple feet short of my crush when this other girl got to me and asked me the dreaded words: “Donny, would you dance with me?” I knew what I wanted to say though. This was my moment. I’d planned it. I’d rehearsed it. I was going to ask the other girl to dance. So imagine the way my heart sank when the words, “Yeah, okay,” came out of my mouth.
That dance lasted just long enough for another guy to ask my initial target to dance. I stood there trying to fake smile while I saw my potential love dance the night away with another guy. I just stood there while “Love Bites” by Def Leppard played, thinking,
Way to go, Donny. You idiot.

I guess I’ve always been a people pleaser. But that’s just part of the human experience, right? We want to keep people happy, to keep the peace, to make them like and accept us. It’s just that it keeps getting in the way of what we really want.

Let’s be honest; being a people pleaser is exhausting. Keeping atop the ever-shifting sands of expectation can seem like an impossible task some days. There always seems to be just one more thing getting between you and your goals.

Starting that business can wait. A friend needs help moving furniture right now. Saving those pennies for the dream house has to wait. Right now, the little brother needs cash because he came up short on the phone bill this month. There are constantly spot-fires to put out, family and friends who require help, moods to cater to, and extra tasks to do. We do it though, because we want to keep the peace. We ignore the feeling that eats
away at us—the gnawing sense that every time we drop everything to come to the rescue, or squash our personality, opinions, or ideas to keep the peace, a little bit more of our self seems to die.
But to a people pleaser the simple two-letter word that puts an end to it all is one that we choke on time and time again. That word, of course, is “no.”

Dr. Don MacDonald

exert from “The Underdog Curse”

Creating new habits

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Creating new habits must be mastered to create change in your life.  We learned this from our rescue pit-bull. Here is lesson #1 that I learned from our dog lux on creating new habits.

Lesson Number 1

Persistence is the only way. One of our challenges was to make sure he wasn’t aggressive or dominant over food.
Lux is in the pit bull family, so this can be an issue for the breed. These days, we always make him ask for his food, and has to make eye contact before he will eat anything. It was an issue for Lux. Sure, he had his “big dog” brain that was a little calmer and developed. Back in the beginning, he had his instinctive puppy brain in action. There was no control. If he saw food, he’d just lunge at it and gulp it down.
In order to train this out of him, we had to be consistent. It took a year. He had to overpower his instinct. You can’t just miss days when you are changing your momentum jar. Those missed days reinforce old habits! You’ve got to stick at it and be consistent. This might involve putting some structure around things that are automatic but need to change. If you need a power bond, call in a power bond! If you need to call to memory your
internal saboteurs, then write them down and stick them where you can see them.
No habit changes without sustained effort in the one direction.  

Where in your life could you use a little more persistence to change unwanted habits?

To learn more about the Underdog curse, what it is and how it might be preventing you from reaching your goals in life please click the link below.

To purchase “The Underdog Curse” click here to purchase

Crush the Curse

Dr. Don MacDonald

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What is stress?

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What is stress?

What is stress to you?  Do you think of stress as some major event in your life or the accumulation of all the little things? The funny thing is the perception of stress is different for everyone.  When I was researching for my book “The Underdog Curse” I realized that everyone will define stress differently.  Many will have stress and think they don’t while others that think they may have stress are not as bad as the ones that think they don’t.

Also the difference in genders makes a big difference on perception of stress.  Over the last 17 years as a Chiropractor I have seen the difference big time.  When I ask men if they are under a lot of stress many of them will say no I am good.   After a few probing questions though I can uncover quite a bit of stress.

The Challenge with men sometime is that they think that being stresses is a weakness.  They also think that they have to be a basket case in order to admit that they are under stress.

I had to change my approach with men about asking the question.  I now ask them if they have a busy mind.  You see when you have a busy mind you are thinking all about the future or the past.  When our mind is always worried about what needs to be done or what did not get done that triggers the stress response.  The act of thinking can create stress, however the act of doing is not stressful because you are in the moment.

I always use the analogy, if you are in the woods and you think there is a bear there, then that is stressful.  On the other hand if you see and bear and you are in the moment dealing with the bear that is not stressful.  Once you survived the meeting with the bear that can create stress again because you imagine all the bad scenario’s that could have happened with that bear.

In the Book “The Underdog Curse” I go over how your mind is often the major culprit for triggering the stress response.  I tease my patients and coaching clients saying that as a human being we are highly evolved over the rest of the animal kingdom.  We have developed a much higher functioning brain where we can think and solve problems.  We also have the amazing ability to turn on our stress response for no good reason.

Taking an inventory of our thoughts and how we think can go a long way in decreasing our stress.  To get the rest of the story go to Amazon and order “The Underdog Curse”.

Crush the Curse

Dr Don MacDonald