Pleaser

If I had to sum up, in one sentence, the key message in The High 5 Habit written by Mel Robbins, it would be something like as follows (call it the first law for an adult).

There is only one person's opinion that matters: your own.

If you're growing up in a community with social code – and who isn't? – it's hard to get out of the habit of looking around for approval. There is nothing stopping me from pleasing other people. Many of us, especially those Enneagram Type 2s, struggle to say "no". We tend to betray our own needs for the fear of other people being upset with us. 

Mel Robbins is one of the people pleasers. Driven by a hobby of buying antique pool table, her father gave her a painstakingly restored Brunswick pool table as a wedding gift. The gorgeous table took up half of her playroom. Mel's family rarely used it to play pool, leaving the pool table sitting like an elephant in the room, covered in Legos. For many years Mel wanted the space back but ended up walking around the pool table to get from one end of the room to the other. 

She couldn't move the pool table because it seemed like a slap in the face to her parents who had given it to her with so much love. She was compromising her own needs of having an office. Mel was too scared to disappoint her dad, and twisted herself in knots. Which, in a way, she had. 

This story has a positive ending. It took Mel Robbins 45 years to learn the lesson that as scared as you are to disappoint someone that you love, it's always worth it to be honest about what you need. One fine day, she picked up the phone and told her dad that she was going to hire professional pool table movers to dismantle his gift. With love and care. And courage.