The Nice Girl Syndrome Read Online Free PDF Page B

when they have hurt or angered you. By not speaking up when someone insults or mistreats you, you are inadvertently giving permission for him or her to continue to treat you in the same way in the future.
Confront your own anger. Sometimes under all that niceness lies a huge storage bin of repressed and suppressed anger.
Acknowledge that often the real reason you take care of oth- ers is because you secretly want to be taken care of. You hope the person you’ve been taking care of will turn around and take care of you in the same way.
Acknowledge that sometimes it is easier to sacrifice yourself for others than to focus on your own problems or take the risk of going after your own goals.
Be honest with yourself about your real reasons for being a Nice Girl. When we look for the motive for our niceness, we often find guilt, shame, fear of confrontation, fear of rejec- tion, and an intense fear of being alone.
Allow yourself to be bad sometimes. It’s not only okay to be bad but it is healthy. In fact, if you don’t allow yourself to be bad at times, you will continue to attract people into your life who will act out your badness for you.
    Melanie is always attracted to bad boys. This is how she explained it: “I like them because they’re so sexy, and they’re so
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    much fun. Nice guys are boring.” But Melanie gets hurt a lot, too. Many of her bad-boy boyfriends have cheated on her, and some have become physically abusive.
    Melanie is not alone. Many women, even though it is against their better judgment, are attracted to bad boys. This is especially true of Nice Girls. Nice Girls like bad boys because they do all the things Nice Girls wish they could do but can’t. It isn’t a coincidence that girls who are raised by strict parents or in deeply religious fam- ilies are often the ones who get involved with bad boys. It’s their way of rebelling against all the rules; they’re being bad vicariously, with- out having to take responsibility for it.

    The Four C’s
    In a no-holds-barred manner, The Nice Girl Syndrome will challenge you to confront those beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors that invite others to take advantage of, manipulate, and abuse you, and will show you how to give up your “sweetness and light” image once and for all and replace it with an image made up of what I call the four power C’s: confidence, competence, conviction, and courage.
Confidence . The reason many women are too nice is that they lack the confidence to stand up for themselves, say no, disagree, or state their preferences. They fall back on the old standby niceness to get by because they do not believe in themselves or that other people will respect their wishes, pref- erences, or ideas. In this book, I will teach you how to gain the kind of confidence you need to become a Strong Woman.
Competence . Most women are more competent than they real- ize. But because they have been taught to be modest and even self-deprecating, they believe that acting competent is the same as acting conceited, cocky, or narcissistic. I will teach you the differences between acting competent and acting con- ceited and help you to become more comfortable in the role of a Strong, Competent Woman.
Conviction . Many women were taught that they should never disagree or argue with others, especially authority figures. Others become intimidated by those who are domineering or overly confident. Still others believe that they should avoid
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    conflict at all costs. In this book, I will help you to risk stand- ing up for your convictions, even if it means upsetting some- one else or creating conflict.
Courage . It takes courage to become more confident and to then show it to others. It takes courage to own your compe- tence and to stop hiding it from others. And it especially takes courage to stand by your convictions. In this book, I will help you to tap into your inherent courage—the