Avoid becoming a puppet: how not to succumb to manipulation

Are you easily influenced by others? We tell you how to recognize and overcome this drawback.

Are you easily influenced by others? We tell you how to recognize and overcome this drawback.

To be successful, it is important to be able to behave well towards others. Kindness helps maintain relationships and attracts other people to you.

However, the line between a gentleman and a simpleton is very thin. If you are too kind-hearted, you will end up just fixing other people's problems, and no one will take your interests into account. If you are afraid to speak your mind and pursue your own goals for fear of appearing too opinionated, selfish, or impolite, you are putting yourself down and limiting your potential.

Here are some common habits of people who try to be too nice to others to their own detriment.

Compliance

You regularly soften or even change your position because you are afraid that others do not share your true thoughts. To be successful, you must be firm in your beliefs and not afraid to express them directly and clearly.

Don't try to earn approval by giving in to others. Believe that you are worthy of respect.

Learn new things and improve in your field to feel more confident when communicating with other people.

Reasons for dependence on other people's opinions

Nowadays, dependence on other people's opinions is a fairly common problem. However, over time, some mostly manage to get rid of this addiction, since it is impossible to completely get rid of other people’s opinions. But what about the rest? And what is this dependence in general?

Dependence on other people's opinions is a psychological state in which one's own self is suppressed due to the imposition of ideas by other people, or due to coercion to do something in order to justify other people's ideas and plans. In other words, this is a kind of psychological pressure that forces a person to do what others need, but not himself. The reasons for dependence on the opinions of other people lie in the following:

Parents' opinions and their pressure

As a rule, parents who raise a child in strictness act on the principle “as I said, so it will be, and don’t argue with me,” which is fundamentally wrong. By not giving the child a choice and depriving him of the opportunity to express his own opinion, parents deprive the child of the opportunity to make independent decisions in later life and make him weak-willed and weak-willed.

Attachment to others' approval

As a rule, attachment to approval and evaluation of actions from the outside is also laid down in childhood by parents and, in addition, by teachers, and usually during school. People who need someone else's opinion and evaluation of their actions on their part, subsequently succumb to absolutely any other person's opinion. Information belongs to the site REV/MED

Low self-esteem

Here, I think, it is clear without explanation. If a person considers himself insignificant, the opinion of any other individual will always be regarded as more significant. Even if this individual turns out to be less intellectually developed.

Fear of responsibility and its avoidance

Such people are afraid to make any serious decisions and solve serious issues, so it is easier for them to avoid responsibility. Such people often lie. Avoiding any kind of responsibility also raises the question of the possibility of human existence. Other people often make decisions for such a person, or they dictate to the follower how and what to do, and accordingly the person does not live his own life.

Inability to defend one's own opinion and point of view

This quality is established in childhood by peers, parents or members of the older generation.

Seeking approval from others

Your need to constantly seek approval can tire others. Don't expect others to give you the self-esteem you need. You won't achieve much by staying on the sidelines all the time. The real path to success lies through believing in yourself and the willingness to devote your life to your chosen goal.

If you feel the need to gain someone else's approval, ask yourself: “What do I really want?” Your goals and desires matter, and if it causes inconvenience to someone, what can you do, that’s life.

The only way to get what you want is to directly state what you want and go towards your goal.

Kinds

There are different ways to manipulate people, but many psychologists identify three main ones.

“Positively reinforced actions” - excessive attention, cajoling, praise and gifts. The victim finds himself in a situation where it seems to her that she owes the manipulator for gifts, beautiful words and attention. This makes it difficult to complete the manipulation. “These flowers are for you. You look so good today. I hope you won’t refuse me a date?” - looks like simple good manners and gallantry of a man towards a woman, and perhaps it is so. But if we consider a situation where a girl has already refused a man, but he will not calm down, then this can be considered manipulation. In this case, what is important to a man is not so much the girl herself and her company, but the fact that she agreed and the date took place.

“Negatively reinforced actions” - threats and games of silence, imposition of guilt, reproaches, intimidating behavior. “If you don’t give me back everything that I gave you, then we will talk to you differently!” - pressure on the victim puts him in a hopeless situation, the feeling of fear drives him into a dead end and forces him to participate in manipulation. “Look what you did to me, before you everything was fine with me. You ruined my life! - the manipulator imposes a feeling of guilt on the victim, blames a loved one for his failures, abdicating all responsibility.

“Neutral actions” are silence, denial of the obvious, distraction from the essence of the matter. The manipulation will succeed as soon as the victim loses his vigilance - this is exactly what the manipulator achieves. “I’ll solve this issue later, today the weather is so beautiful, maybe we’ll go for a walk?”

But you shouldn’t divide the world into white and black, and people into manipulators and the manipulated. Every person has found himself on both sides at least once in his life. The main thing is to understand why this happens.

3. Insincerity

If you constantly try to say nice things to others, it may be a sign of lack of self-confidence. Starting and ending conversations with compliments can make other people feel manipulated. Such compliments are often insincere. In fact, you are trying to “appease” your interlocutor in order to cope with your own feelings of insecurity. This is the wrong way.

Success can only be achieved by those who take risks, not by those who try to please others.

Fightback techniques

"That's who I am"

When trying to shift the blame onto you, blaming you for your insensitivity and your mistakes, use the technique of rebuffing the manipulator “That’s who I am. I like everything about myself and I won’t change.”

An answer in this style is categorical and is not suitable for a conversation with your boss at work. But you can easily blow off friends you don’t know well.

"Answer without an answer"

To the manipulator’s requests, you always have options for non-conflicting answers:

• This is interesting.
• Thank you, your opinion is very interesting.
• Maybe I'll think about it.

Defensive position

Defensive behavior is usually considered a sign of weakness. In life you will have to face the fact that people will disagree with you. If any obstacle causes you to feel anxious or upset, you will not be able to achieve success. You need to learn to accept criticism without getting upset. No one will contribute to your success out of pity.

Criticism is a reason for development, not for frustration.

How would life change if we stopped worrying about what others think of us?

People judge others based on their own experiences and vision of the situation, which have nothing to do with us. Therefore, it is illogical to base your self-esteem on the opinions of strangers.

As soon as a person puts his own goals, life experience and spiritual values ​​at the forefront, he will stop being led astray by false goals that are imposed by society. He will be able to objectively evaluate his big and small successes - and this will motivate him to move forward.

The problem is that these fears are deeply rooted in the subconscious, and to get rid of them, you need to work hard on yourself.

Lie

By trying to please people, you create dishonesty. For example, you agree when deep down you think differently. If you only follow someone else's point of view, no one knows the real you, cannot appreciate your ideas and your inner world. This type of lie is caused by fear and the desire to be like everyone else.

But only an ordinary person can “be like everyone else.”

If you want to achieve something, you sometimes need to be able to go into conflict or tell the unpleasant truth straight to your face.

What feelings do manipulators most often play on?

For a real manipulator, the space of provocations knows no boundaries, but there are several key feelings that he will never stop playing on. In order not to fall for his tricks, you should know them too:

• guilt;
• call of Duty;
• feeling of pity;
• feeling of fear;
• self-esteem;
• sense of justice;
• reliability.

Thus, when it comes to your (boyish) dignity or they start making you look guilty, be ready to fight back. After all, this could be a game of manipulation.

So, our advice had to answer two pressing questions of our time: “Why am I being manipulated” and “How not to allow yourself to be manipulated.”

If you put them into practice, your communications with manipulators should become much safer and easier. Use it.

• Author: Dmitry Petrosyants

Workaholism

Sometimes it is rooted in a desperate desire to prove one's worth. As a result, you will begin to do some things that you absolutely do not want to do, because you will be afraid that you will be judged for not being diligent enough.

When people feel like you're desperate to please them, they lose respect for you. Relax and do your job - and let others do their part too. It’s still not possible to move a mountain alone.

Learn to say “no” and not feel guilty. There is no need to take on a business that you do not want to do or the success of which you do not believe. What you are willing to give up is very important - it sets you apart from others. This is how, by building boundaries, you let others understand where their world ends and yours begins, and if they don’t see these boundaries, they will violate them.

Psychological help online

You probably know people who always apologize for everything, and when you point it out to them, they apologize for apologizing. Yes, it's about me. I've been such a "wag" more or less all my life, but the older I got, the harder it was for me to bear it. Finally, I decided to do something about it. I'm not sure when it started, but I remember when I realized I couldn't stand it anymore. My fiance and I finally chose a house. I saved for years for a down payment, he also invested some savings, and we were happy that things worked out. But I noticed something during the process: everything revolved around my fiancé. When I made the first payment, the real estate company thanked him. The mortgage company only called him. He answered all calls. It was as if I had nothing to do with this. At first we were just joking about it, but then the climax came. I submitted documents for a loan, they were approved, and we officially became owners of the property. I sent a thank you letter to the mortgage company and the response was, “Congratulations, Brian!” It was stupid and funny. But I didn't want to laugh. I got angry. As petty as it may sound, I wanted to be relevant to the goal I had worked so hard for. Instead, I felt helpless and invisible. I started swearing, and my friend, who was sitting next to me, said that she had never seen me angry before. I apologized. I felt guilty for not feeling grateful. In the end, I bought a house and I should be happy. “You don’t need to apologize,” my friend said. “You can be grateful and still want recognition.” Now I know that I am a soft person. I'm quiet. I can be a wuss. So I know how it happened. But it was not only this incident that overflowed my patience. For years, friends manipulated me, bosses overwhelmed me with work, colleagues asked me for favors. I felt helpless. I realized that I could continue to complain about it, or I could try to understand why this was happening. So I sat down, thought about it, and formulated a few rules that help me not give in to others and become stronger. I didn't want to change my character, but I wanted to change some social habits that were bothering me.

Be direct

Like many people, I hate confrontation. Some of us hate it so much that we avoid everything that reminds us of it. Is the salesperson doing a bad job? It's okay, I'll take it. Did the restaurant mix up my order? It's OK. I am sure that the situation with the house could have been resolved from the very beginning if it were not for my constant fear of confrontation. No one had any idea how annoyed I was at being thrown out of the process, and how would they know? I never said anything because I didn’t want to conflict with anyone. However, there is another solution to this problem. It is quite possible to convey your point of view to others without being confrontational - this is called straightforwardness. Being direct means talking about your thoughts and feelings, being objective and rational. Confrontation, on the contrary, is a manifestation of aggression and frustration. When I thought about it, I realized how many situations in which I felt like a wuss could have been avoided if I had been straightforward. So that became Rule No. 1. I'm not the only one who has a fear of being too aggressive. In a Columbia University study on assertiveness and shyness, participants negotiated and then rated themselves on an assertiveness scale. It turned out that people with normal levels of assertiveness overestimated themselves: “People who were given an average score by their opponents believed that they were too assertive, an effect we called the “line-crossing illusion” ... For example, people who lacked assertiveness believed that their opponents assess their level as normal or high.” In other words, no one thinks I'm aggressive when I speak up. This gave me confidence and helped me follow the rule. I ended up calling the mortgage company, I was direct but polite and told them that I would love to be included in the home buying process. Of course they apologized, and even though the deal was already over, I felt more confident and strong.

Don't be afraid to say no

A few months ago, a friend asked me to help her with a project. At first it was easy, but over time it became more and more difficult. The more serious the tasks became, the more letters my friend wrote to me, and the more work I had to do. Because of this project and other commitments, I began to feel like I had no control over my free time. When I thought about how tired and powerless I felt, I realized that this could have been avoided if I had said no to the person who was taking away my time and productivity. “I’m really sorry,” I told my friend, “but I’m very tired and can’t devote as much time to this project as you need.” It's that simple. Since my friend is a reasonable person, she understood everything and thanked me for my help. Around this time, a client asked me if I could change my already busy schedule and finish the job ahead of schedule. This meant working 12-hour days, and I knew this would lead to my burnout and poor quality of work. My first reaction was to do what I had done for years - agree without talking. But I remembered rule No. 2 and told the client that I was very sorry, I couldn’t do this, but I would try to finish the job as soon as possible. I was terrified. I didn't want to get fired. However, I knew what would happen if I agreed: I would get bogged down in work, get angry at the client, hate my job, and feel helpless. But if I say no, I will do the job on time and well. Even better, I will have control over my time and work output. It was worth the risk, and fortunately the client agreed. Of course, this doesn't always happen easily. There are obligations that we cannot neglect. However, I believe that we often convince ourselves that some tasks are mandatory, which in fact are not the case. This was the easiest rule because the result is visible immediately. You say no and the load is reduced.

Be proud of your achievements

When someone gives me a compliment, I return it or start putting myself down. Either way, I reject it. People reject compliments for many reasons. Perhaps they are embarrassed and do not like to draw attention to themselves. Perhaps they have low self-esteem. Maybe they don't want to appear complacent. Whatever the reason, recognizing your own accomplishments can boost your self-confidence. When you are in control of your actions and achievements, you feel stronger. A list of weekly achievements can be a serious motivator. Recording your achievements does not mean patting yourself on the head. This means that you remind yourself that you control the results of your work, that you receive a reward for it. Learning to accept compliments and recognize your accomplishments will help you understand what your strengths are that we often take for granted and don't notice. Accepting my strengths became my rule. A weekly list of achievements helps with this. As for accepting compliments, I analyzed my usual response to them and replaced it with a more confident one. Even a simple “thank you” sounds quite confident. It seems simple, but when this behavior is not habitual, you have to completely rebuild your way of thinking.

Don't give in to other people's stress

When I started this experiment, I had a phone call with potential clients. They wanted me to run their blog, this is my usual job, and I told them about my schedule. I could write them a text in a week. “But we need him by Monday,” they told me, “We have a tight deadline.” Given the fact that it was the end of the week, customer demands meant that I would have to work over the weekend. Plus they asked for a discount. I should have refused, but I agreed and spent Saturday working. I didn't do it because I needed the money or liked the job. I agreed because the stress of the clients affected me. During our conversation, I also began to feel stressed that the work had to be done quickly and they could not find another author. It seemed that I was their only hope. Helping people feels good, don't get me wrong. But taking on other people's stress is a bad habit. My clients were not my friends or family. This was a company that wanted to delegate its urgent task and for some reason I agreed to it. I could have helped them by recommending another writer, or ending the conversation quickly, saving them time. But I didn’t help them, I just took their problem upon myself. As a result, I felt tired, angry and offended. And I myself was to blame for this - I agreed to it! This rule is similar to the ability to say “no”. But stress can be contagious, whether someone asks you for help or not. If you are a person who likes to solve problems, you know what I mean. We can't ask people not to burden us with their stress, but we don't have to accept it. It’s another matter when you have already agreed to a job associated with stress and are ready for it. There is a big difference between being asked to do your job and someone simply passing their problems onto you. When you give in to other people's stress, you have less time for your tasks and you lose control. At least that's how it happens for me. Ultimately, strength and confidence come from within, but let's be honest: other people's reactions and actions affect us. Whether we agree to obligations that we cannot handle, whether we solve other people's problems, or simply remain silent about our feelings, this has a bad effect on us. Understanding this helped me formulate the rules described above. By focusing on each rule in turn, over time I began to feel more in control of my life. Author: Kristin Wong Translation - Psychological Studio of Polina Gaverdovskaya Source: https://lifehacker.com/four-rules-i-followed-to-stop-being-a-pushover-and-make-1782042324

Silence

Whenever you don't express your thoughts or opinions, don't respond to an insult, you cease to matter to people, they begin to look past you. Don't hesitate to speak the truth.

To achieve anything, you need to realize that sometimes conflict is inevitable. Learn to be brave and stand up for your own opinion, it is your right. If you constantly hide your views for fear of rejection, no one will ever know your true preferences. Don't compromise. Just indicate what you think is true.

Selecting a reaction

Considering that the main task of a provocateur is to upset the emotional balance of another person and cause acute negative reactions, the surest way to act is nothing more than maintaining calm and awareness. In this way, a person can not only remain unshakable, but also cause an emotional imbalance in the provocateur, not meeting his expectations.

In order to prevent yourself from “boiling,” you can take a few simple steps:

• Remember that your reaction is only your choice
• Count to yourself to ten
• Take several deep breaths and slow exhalations

Any of these methods can “slow down” a person’s psyche and calm his thoughts, as a result of which he will lose the desire to react to provocation, which, in turn, neutralizes the attacks of the provocateur.

It is the choice of reaction that is the key point in the issue of protection from provocations. But understanding ourselves, identifying provocations, studying the provocateur, assessing the situation and choosing a reaction - all this is based mainly on observing ourselves, the people with whom we interact and the interaction process itself. Only knowledge of one’s strengths and weaknesses and the desire to stop succumbing to the manipulation of other people can protect a person from provocations and the occurrence of unwanted and even extreme situations in communication.

We also recommend reading:

• Storytelling
• Mastery of Self-Control
• Methods of mental self-regulation
• Active and passive protection against manipulation
• 6 Skills to Develop Emotional Intelligence
• How to develop self-control and self-discipline
• How to manage anger
• Emotional Anchor: Definition, Examples, Establishment and Release
• Characteristics and types of conflict personality
• How to protect yourself from rudeness: simple and effective rules
• Forms of social behavior of people

Key words:1Rhetoric

8. Uncertainty

Stop the habit of asking for permission in cases where it is not required. This often happens when we try to appear polite and respectful to others. Unfortunately, when we cannot act on our own, we look stupid and pathetic .

Learn to be courageous and make decisions even when you are not sure. If people see a bold solution, they follow it.

To overcome uncertainty, you need to express your opinion and not give up on it.

Why are they susceptible to bad influence?

No friends in the family.

Unfortunately, again we need to start with the family. If a teenage child does not have friendly relations with family members, then he will look for this communication on the street. A teenager needs to feel that his family needs him. If he has household responsibilities and is praised for his obedience, spends time with him regularly and organizes interesting weekends and holidays for him, if possible, then the child will not be drawn anywhere from the family. However, if the teenager is left to his own devices and the parents are busy with their own affairs, then quickly there will be someone who will be closer to your child than you. This happens both in not prosperous (as they say) and in prosperous families.

The reason is not the amount of money and family capabilities, but the emotional atmosphere at home.

Strong influence.

Indeed, your child may be subjected to pressure to become like everyone else. Bad guys (if you call them that) can also be annoyed that someone is different from them and acts more correctly than them. Teenagers don’t like it when someone already has an inner core and strives to bend this person under them. They can use threats, emotional bullying after lessons and even during lessons and breaks, organize boycotts, etc. In general, they will do everything possible to get their way, unlike parents who cannot influence the child in the same way in a positive way, as sometimes happens. Of course, many parents also begin to fight for their child, but then do it with more persistence and consistency than teenagers at school. Do you understand?

Habit of constantly apologizing

If you start every sentence with “I'm sorry,” people will think you don't respect yourself. There is no need to apologize for your existence. Starting with “sorry, but” prefaces the message with the expectation of disapproval. Learn to start a sentence like this: “Listen!”

Be brave enough to make mistakes. What joy is there in hiding your personality and just trying to please others? When we do this, we become fake. Living people make mistakes, no one is perfect, so there is no point in apologizing in advance. They learn from mistakes, but for one beaten they give two unbeaten ones.

Habits of a manipulator: how to recognize him

There are signs of manipulation that can be recognized in advance. This is what betrays a person who is preparing to manipulate.

Photo: pixabay.com

Internal sensations. The person does not understand what exactly, but he feels that something is wrong.

Strange behavior. A previously familiar person becomes overly polite and attentive and behaves in a slightly unusual way: he does not use direct dialogue, but goes into lengthy thoughts out loud, moving further away from the essence. One gets the impression of losing the thread in the conversation, it is not clear where they started, and the essence is reduced only to the judgment of the manipulator.

Targeted manipulation is psychological violence; it is the dishonest, unethical and violent behavior of one person towards another. It can lead to psychological trauma, anxiety and other psychological problems that only specialists can help solve. Psychological violence can be used by women and men towards each other and towards children. There are several types of psychological violence.

Depreciation. The contribution to the family (“you don’t earn enough”), appearance (“you’re not beautiful”), and the personality of the partner (“you’re standing still, you’re not developing”) are devalued. A person is constantly pointed out his shortcomings, he is ridiculed and humiliated.

Control. Most often, children are subject to such control. Parents control the time spent on social networks, the content the child receives, finances and even hobbies. In case of disobedience, the child is punished, prohibitions and control over him are tightened. It turns out that children do not have trust in their parents, they lack love and affection, but they are afraid of aggression and punishment from adults.

Gaslighting. One makes the other believe in the unreality of what happened: “It seemed to you,” “You just don’t understand,” “This didn’t happen.” Denial of events and emotions, the victim begins to feel like he is going crazy.

Insulation. The partner forces the victim to refuse all communication with people, except for one person - the partner. Thus, he closes all communications on himself. The victim is deprived of support and becomes completely dependent on him.

Psychological violence differs from manipulation in that it carries much more serious consequences. The victim is under great stress, losing any trust in people.