People Pleaser | Mollie'sThoughts

Hello everyone.

It's been a while. I'm glad to be returning after lots of university application organising - applied to all my unis now, hooray! Today I thought I'd do a Mollies Thoughts post as it has been a very long time since I last wrote one. Today's post is about people pleasing.

Since being little, I have always enjoyed helping to make other people happy. Everyone does; there's no feeling like putting a smile on someone else's face. Being a people-pleaser is a noble profession and in a world of many "how will this benefit me"s, it is an occupation which could do with more takers. It is not, however, an easy job.
People pleasing is, just as the name implies, pleasing other people even sometimes at the cost of your own happiness. This is really what I want to talk about today. Sometimes in the process of trying to please others we can forget that we also need to be happy ourselves. It's not selfish, it's life. No one is responsible for other people's happiness. We are responsible for not negatively affecting someone's happiness, but it is not our job to create it. That is far too much pressure for one person to take on. Nobody can make everyone happy; nobody can please everyone. There are going to be times in life when what you want isn't what someone else wants and there is nothing you can do about that.  This is something we all have to cope with because in life we change and we grow and in order to do this you can't question every move you make because somebody else might not like it. Life is yours to make and life is yours to live. So long as you're a kind and compassionate person, there is nothing more anyone can ask of you. A way of making others happy is by being your fun and happy self and you cannot be that if you spend your life shaping yourself to other people's expectations.
Live for you.

Just something I've been pondering recently. I will see you soon now that I'm a little more organised again. Until then,

Get Those Goals | Mollie'sThoughts

Hello everyone.

I hope you are all feeling very good about yourselves if you managed to reach the "20 Acts of Kindness" goal I set for you in last week's post- link. I've done my best to achieve it myself and I've found it very rewarding. I've also noticed that whilst focusing on doing more kind acts for others, I've been able to see all the kind acts that others do for me much more! It can be anything from paying someone a compliment to helping someone carry a heavy suitcase off of the bus.
I hope you enjoyed this challenge and found it rewarding too if you joined in and if you missed it, then set it as this week's goal - you won't regret it.

Speaking of goals, this is exactly the topic I would like to focus on for this week's "Mollie'sThoughts" edition. Although last week's goal was set to encourage everyone to put a bit more thought into demonstrating kindness, it was also to help illustrate this week's topic too - see, I do plan my posts in advance occasionally!

Goals are something we are all familiar with setting in a professional environment from agreeing the grade you hope to achieve in a class at school with your teacher to getting that promotion at work. We even set goals in our personal lives for things such as learning a certain skill, becoming the sort of person you want to be, saving up money to buy that new car etc. - basically, our dreams for the future. But the thing is, goals and dreams aren't the same thing. We could have a dream to be a successful musician for example and we could fantasise about being on stage in front of adoring fans, but if we don't take practical steps and set practical goals such as learning how to play the guitar, then all they'll ever remain is just dreams. Dreams are what we hope to achieve but goals are what make us achieve. Without goals, we'd have no direction.

That's why I think setting goals is so important in life. They keep us motivated, helps us to measure our successes and lead us in the right direction - forward. Not to mention that they help give meaning to our lives.

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"Reaching for goals is an important part of strengthening self-confidence. It helps shape and update how you define yourself while at the same time helping you add to your sense of accomplishment." - Marci G. Fox, psychologist specialising in self-confidence building.

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Everyone wants to feel like their life has purpose and everyone wants to make a difference somehow and what better way to assure yourself that you are achieving these things than to tick them off as you go along? It is a proven fact that simply crossing off items on a "to-do" list can increase your self-esteem significantly. This is because you are taking the time to appreciate what you have accomplished so you are able to feel good about every little milestone you cross.

That's something else to keep in mind, the size of the goal you are setting. To begin with you want your overall goal and as an example I'll share one of mine which is to increase the success and popularity of my youtube channel. Now if I just left my goal at that then I wouldn't know where to begin. That is why it is important to set yourself short-term goals aswell as long-term ones as these are what will eventually lead you to your overall goal. So in order for me to do this, I set myself monthly goals.
This began recently after I bought a new diary (half way through the year... but I needed one so I'm sure I can find a use for the unused months' pages) which I am absaloutely in love with but that is a different story. In my diary though, at the beginning of every month, there is a specific page dedicated to "My goals for this month" and I can't tell you how useful it has been! For someone as unorganised as me, being able to sit down and consider practical steps to achieving my long-term goals is so much more efficient and much less stressful that just making it up as I go along.
So continuing my example of my goal to improve my youtube channel, last month I set a goal to make at least one youtube video that month - a goal which I managed to achieve. This then led on to this months goal to do the same but with a video that is a little longer. These monthly goals will then continue and progress each time for however long it will take until I eventually achieve my overall goal!
It's not just about only setting big, long-term goals because though they're what you're eventually working towards, they aren't going to tell you how to get there. It's the job of the monthly, weekly and daily goals to get you there step by step. And as you cross those goals off week by week or month by month your confidence will increase as will your chances of achieving your dreams!

I strongly suggest (if you don't already) that you begin keeping a record of your goals weekly or monthly so that once you achieve your dream you can appreciate all the hard-work you have put in and you can see how far you've progressed.

Don't just follow your dreams, make them come true.

Mollie

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