Putting yourself last = Minimising
Do you automatically put yourself last? Ignore your own needs to accommodate those of others? Do you have a habit of brushing off the disappointment at the way others treat you, telling yourself that their heart was in the right place and they probably meant well?… If this is the case and it’s always you left picking up the pieces, the chances are you’ve probably had enough.
Minimising is the act of diminishing our own needs in favour of the needs of others. It also involves the rationalising, brushing off or ignoring of the negative ways in which others treat us. Of course, the way others treat us may or may not be their conscious choice, but the way we respond to their actions or inactions has far reaching consequences for our own wellbeing. By minimising the things we do for others and rationalising the advantages people take, we are saying: “My needs don’t matter.”
What Does Minimising Look Like?
We may find ourselves rationalising what could be red flags as ‘nothing’ in early stages of friendships, work or romantic relationships. We may even blame ourselves for being paranoid or overly sensitive. However, this can be how we find ourselves caught up in unhealthy relationships.
We may have that friend who makes a habit of cancelling on us at the last minute when it comes to making arrangements to meet up. We may feel a crushing sense of disappointment, but choose to let them off the hook for accepting responsibility for having hurt our feelings by telling ourselves they can’t help it because… their life is hectic, they have been under the weather recently, they have to prioritise their children…etc…Of course, this may all be true, but if the friend habitually lets us down there may be inadvertently continuing this cycle.
We may minimise ourselves and our own needs by continuing to have a connection with the person/ people in question. In fact, in order to continue these relationships, we have to minimise ourselves because the other person takes up so much space.
Sometimes we call something a ‘little thing’ because we’re so focused on how it’s The Right Thing To Do. (However much we want to think of our acts of kindness as altruism, it’s human nature to seek approval and we shouldn’t punish ourselves for that.) We may end up rationalising our acts of kindness as ‘small’ in order to uphold our identity.
Minimising can also relate to the tasks we take on. This can lead to the build up of what we rationalise to be ‘small stuff’, but gradually builds up to be unmanageable. We may experience feelings of overwhelm, resentment, anxiety and shame. Maybe we start comparing what we perceive to be our shortcomings to other people’s accomplishments. We think we SHOULD be able to manage this because our friend manages to cope and she has twice as much responsibility or someone else we know does what we’re doing AND runs his own business…and before we know it, we’ve invalidated our genuine struggles and managed to make ourselves feel worse for feeling bad in the first place!
How to Recognise Minimising
We may recognise minimising through the way we feel. For example, feeling guilty for saying no… feeling inadequate, therefore setting ourselves high standards…or feeling less important than others and making excuses for their bad behaviour. We may have a habit of dropping everything and treating other people’s needs, expectations and demands as crises.
The uncomfortable side-effect of people-pleasing, conflict avoidance and dodging confronting the truth is that our own needs are overlooked. Then, as a result we may find ourselves attempting to anaesthetise ourselves against these feelings of disappointment at being ignored. This may lead us to unconsciously eat our feelings or drink way more alcohol than usual (which can lead us to beat ourselves up over being overweight or alcohol dependent). Then we may reprimand ourselves for the fact we are struggling, without acknowledging why we are struggling in the first place.
Who Does Minimising Effect?
Historically, women have been taught to keep themselves small and it’s only been in recent decades we have learned how to assert ourselves. This is not to say that minimising does not apply to men too. People with protected characteristics such as disability or sexual orientation, may feel more inclined to minimise as a way of fitting in.
The truth is, we can all find ourselves minimising to some extent in our lives.
But if you identify as struggling from low self esteem you may have difficulty in asserting yourself for fear of rejection and therefore you put yourself last. We learn a lot of this behaviour in childhood. This can lead to a pattern of people pleasing behaviour. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day or energy levels in our bandwidth to pay attention to absolutely everything and give an equal amount of attention to everyone. If we continue to minimise the big things, the next big thing will undoubtedly be our own emotional or physical health issues and they are harder to ignore.
The Steps to Stop Minimising
As minimising our own needs is the opposite action of self care, we need to learn how to flip this on it’s head! However, learning how to do that isn’t as simple as changing one aspect of our lives. It involves a combination of actions.
Step 1: Increase self awareness
Firstly, we need to slow down! An advantage of slowing down is becoming more conscious. Then we begin to tap into our intuition.
When we are self aware, we are able to recognise what it feels like in our bodies when something is wrong. We become more aware of what and who is important in our lives.
Intuition is not purely a spiritual practice it is a life skill all of us possess, but due to the chaotic lives we all lead nowadays, our intuition has become dulled. Tuning into ourselves is still possible though and sometimes we may do this without even realising we are. Those quiet moments we crave when life gets hectic, the deep breaths we take to settle our nerves, the early nights we have when we’re exhausted. These are all ways we naturally reconnect with our inner selves. Deep down we all know what’s best for us, but sometimes we are too afraid to listen for fear of judgement, rejection, or the work it may involve to act on the feelings we have. If you are open to mindfulness and meditation this is a good place to start.
Step 2: Prioritise
Learning to differentiate between our own issues and that of others and how to prioritise our own agenda creates healthy boundaries. When we are more present and aware of what is happening in our lives, we are able to differentiate between what is more important and less important, rather than functioning on autopilot. Just because we’ve always done something a certain way and other people are used to us doing things a certain way doesn’t mean to say we have to keep it that way. Learning to prioritise is a form of boundary setting which is crucial to our self care.
Step 3: Assert yourself
In order to support this newfound prioritisation, we need to learn when and how to assert our needs. Initially this may provoke some anxiety. Self-assertion can be incredibly difficult at first. Particularly for those of us who are used to putting other people’s needs above their own. Some people in your life may not know how to take this new assertive side of you. It may seem natural to put yourself last. If they start to question your boundaries or requests for their unacceptable behaviour to change, this may create a lot of anxiety. You may start questioning yourself…Do you really want to get into an argument? Wouldn’t it be easier to just continue the way things were? You may start apologising for having dared to assert yourself and slip back into minimising yourself. Surely putting up and shutting up is worth it for a peaceful life? Is it a peaceful life though? Peaceful for whom? Certainly not for you if you are continuing to minimise unacceptable behaviour and ignore your own needs.
Step 4: Be consistent
Once we have mastered self-awareness, prioritising and assertiveness we then need to find the courage to be consistent in these actions. My own experience has taught me that although asserting my needs felt uncomfortable at first, the more I stood up for myself, the more people expected me to and the less advantages people would take of me. These actions can become like muscle memory and the more we use it, the stronger it gets.
Stop Minimising, Start Living!
So what can we take away from this reflection? There are a combination of actions involved in preventing ourselves from minimising, involving self awareness, prioritising and consistent self-assertion.
It’s important to mention this process may come more easily to some than others, it may not work first time and could result in some people pushing back against our new boundaries. The most valuable thing we can do for ourselves is to remind ourselves why we need to stop minimising. Ultimately this is to support our well-being. If we stumble along the way and find ourselves back at the beginning, repeating old patterns of behaviour, it’s so important not to punish ourselves. Any change worth making involves consistent effort.
It’s only now that I look back over the last few years that I am able to see the huge difference these steps to stop minimising have made in my life. My increased level of well-being is testament to how it pays off to really value my own needs as an act of self care.
You may be familiar with The Golden Rule: ‘Treat others as you would like to be treated’. We most likely learned this in school or religious settings. Well, I personally believe it works the other way around. ‘Treat yourself the way you expect others to treat you.’ (Obviously, we need to treat others with respect, but the same applies in reverse!) Don’t put yourself last. Respect is a two way street! When we stop minimising, we start living the life we deserve!
It may be worth taking some time to reflect on why we are allowing our needs to be minimised… Why we feel less important…What feelings we are side stepping and whose feelings are we avoiding by continuing to play our part in this behaviour pattern.
If you recognise yourself or someone you know after reading this and would like to reach out for support, feel free to contact me on 07473241144 or fill the contact form for a no obligation consultation.
