Well-known psychiatrist and business consultant Mark Goulston writes about this in the book Mental Traps at Work, published by Mann, Ivanov and Ferber. We publish an excerpt from it.

Raymond was working for a Los Angeles electrical wholesaler when the sales manager had to leave town for family reasons. Popular with both clients and colleagues, Raymond proved to be the most suitable candidate for the vacant post.

However, he had no management experience, and he did not know how to approach his new responsibilities. “It was just awful,” Raymond recalled. - I did not want to upset my subordinates and therefore I forgave them many mistakes, correcting them myself later. I didn’t want to go into conflict with anyone, and as a result, they just wiped their feet on me. ” Raymond didn't know how to gain the respect his subordinates needed to make them feel they were responsible for their actions. The result was deplorable: although formally he was the boss, no one considered him as such, and he himself did not feel like one.

“If you want to be respected, first and foremost, respect yourself; Only by self-respect will you make others respect you.”

F. M. Dostoevsky

After a few months, tired of the conflicts, Raymond began to withdraw into himself, spending more and more time in the office. Meanwhile, some of his subordinates began to openly be rude to customers, complaints from which flew to the owner of the company. Only after receiving a severe reprimand from his superiors, Raymond decided that he had had enough.

Such disastrous debuts are not uncommon. Novice managers rush to one of the extremes: either they lose control of the situation, because they try to please everyone, or, conversely, push their subordinates to rebellion with their despotism. The period of the first management experience can be difficult and strange. However, subordinates wipe their feet about trying to please all managers, regardless of their experience.

Trying to please people is like a boomerang: the harder you try to please, the less people respect you. Such managers are like puppies, demanding attention. At first, their attempts to please look touching, but the further, the more they begin to annoy you. I knew one woman who worked so hard to please everyone that those around her actively tried to unbalance her and make her angry. When colleagues brought her to tears, she asked me: “Well, what did I do to deserve such an attitude?” “You asked for it yourself,” I replied.

“Never regard as useful to you something that will force you someday to break your faith, forget shame, hate another.”

Marcus Aurelius

Why do we go out of our way to please others? From a psychological point of view, this is quite simple problem whose roots go back to childhood. (Children of alcoholics often grow up to be pleasing people because they early age ready for any sacrifice, just to keep the peace in the family.) If you are trying to please everyone, then in this way you are trying to achieve positive attention, which you did not receive in childhood. You may also have found that you are able to manipulate teachers and other adults with your "good behavior", "kindness", "politeness", "diligent", or some other way. By pleasing everyone, you were getting the attention you needed. For you, it has always been a way to control the situation and fight negativity - at least for a while. However, such methods cannot work for a long time, moreover, they lead to failure.

Women are particularly prone to this behavior, since their self-esteem is directly related to relationships with others ("If people like me, then I am something; if no one loves me, then I am worthless"). In men, self-esteem is associated with competence (“If I am competent, I am appreciated; if not, then I am worthless”).

As a rule, people who try to please everyone are prone to the following forms of behavior.

First, they work themselves hard, working from dawn to dusk to earn praise.

Secondly, they are pathologically organized - only for the purpose of minimizing the chances of making a mistake in something.

Thirdly, they try never to go into conflict, so as not to upset others.

Fourthly, they are sociable, friendly, cheerful, always ready to help in word and deed, optimistic and inventive, because it seems to them that all these traits will help them earn the trust and respect of others.

Fifth, they are always ready to take on a new project, humbly accept new tasks and are always ready to respond to a request.

"No" said with deep conviction is better than "yes" said only to please or, worse, to avoid problems.

Mahatma Gandhi

Seemed to be excellent quality. In fact, everything is not so simple.

If as a child trying to please everyone can lead to success, in adulthood they can give rise to a whole bunch of different problems. Instead of listening to yourself, you have trained yourself to listen to others. It is difficult for you to clearly delineate boundaries in relationships with people. You want to hear “yes” so much that it is very difficult to say “no”. You are taking on too much. You crave love. Perhaps such behavior even put you in frankly dangerous situations. And, worst of all, you lose the respect of the people whose opinions are most important to you and whose approval you are especially persistent in seeking. It's time to stop.

Does this mean that we should stop being polite and friendly? Of course not. This means that it's time to finally hang a semaphore in front of you: red means "stop", yellow means "wait", green means "the road is free" - and start filtering people through these colored lenses. This means that you need to rebuild the entire system of views. Instead of thinking of yourself as a puppy that wants to be petted, start thinking of yourself as the owner of that puppy—the person you want to respect.

Owners have boundaries that cannot be crossed. To become a master, you need to outline them while solving the problem own protection and maintaining self-respect. Think about this: a puppy needs more than just casual attention. He wants more - a good owner who will be kind to him, who will love and instruct him, but at the same time will train him and clearly show what can and cannot be done.

A good owner will not let a puppy run out into the middle of the highway. Instead, he will teach him to be careful. A good owner will teach him to distinguish good people from the bad ones, will show when to run and when to fight. Until now, you have been a puppy that needed a kind but demanding owner. Now it's your turn to become the owner. Draw your boundaries. Set rules for yourself.

"Inner strength is the ability to respect other people's music, but dance to your own tune and listen to your own harmony."

Doc Childre

In addition to all this, you also need to teach your "inner puppy" to say "no". If you are in a leadership position, consider delegating some of the tasks (for more details, see the chapter "Don't share power"). If you're not in charge of anyone, but people are constantly asking you for help, resulting in you wasting time not really progressing in your own work, just tell them no. Don't worry, it won't cause an apocalypse.

Stop trying to be friends with everyone. It's okay to be friendly, of course, but remember to keep your distance. This doesn't mean you can't have lunch with your friends after you get promoted - it means they don't have to be your friends just because you work together. When people act unreasonably, refuse to indulge them, and you will be respected.

Necessary steps

1. Make a list of people whose respect will help you become more successful.

2. Ask yourself: Do they respect you or do they just like you? If you want them to respect you, then move on to the next steps.

3. Determine how you should behave with these people so that they begin to respect you more. Remember that behavior must be specific, unambiguous, and consistent.

4. Now ask each of them if the behavior you have chosen will improve the working relationship between you. If not, ask them to suggest an alternative.

PART 10: The Trap of Blind Faith

Faith is a special state of mind, which consists in the complete and unconditional acceptance by a person of any information, information, phenomena, events or his own ideas and conclusions, which in the future can become the basis of his own "I", as well as determine his actions, judgments, norms of behavior and attitudes. The more developed the mind of a person and his culture of thinking, the less reason he has for blind faith. The trap of blind faith is often fraught with serious danger. Suffice it to recall the warped fates of thousands of people caught in the net of destructive sects. Most of them lost all their savings, friends, loved ones, jobs, and some lost their health or even their lives.

In fact, many things that the modern inhabitants of developed countries believe are no less absurd than the beliefs of the savages of antiquity. For example, mathematicians have long proved that there are no patterns that allow you to win at roulette. However, many people continue to invent such systems or pay big money to their creators.

Equally strange is the idea, which has become quite widespread thanks to the New Age movement and books like Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, that if a person really wants something, his desire will surely come true. In our country, some people with higher education and a fairly good social position sincerely believed that the crisis that erupted in Russia in 1998 was due to the fact that they placed a non-feng shui toilet in the dacha. The building was moved to the right place, the country began to slowly crawl out of the crisis, and this finally convinced the fans of feng shui that the main problem in Russia was the improperly placed country toilets.

The countermeasure in the case of the trap of blind faith, unfortunately, does not always work. First of all, because people who are in this trap resist with all their might to doubt the things they believe in. The deeper blind faith is soldered into the structure of the personality, the more difficult it is to question its truth, because, having lost faith, a person, as it were, loses himself. It is for this reason that even professional psychologists are not always able to pull people who have fallen under the influence of various destructive false messiahs out of the trap of blind faith. However, people who are not yet too deeply immersed in the web of false images can try to put into practice the advice that you should not blindly believe anything and anyone. It is necessary to feel the measure of truth contained in each statement, and do not forget that this measure can change in one direction or another depending on the situation. You need to use images correctly in the right context and at the right time.

Practical psychology, or How to find the key to any person. 1000 tips for all occasions Vitaliy Klimchuk

How not to fall into the relationship trap and what to do if you fall into it?

A few more psychological games. Games are different. What is the game made of? How not to get into someone else's game and stop playing?

Act one

I walk down the street.

Ahead is a deep hole.

I fall into a hole.

Everything is lost!

And it's not my fault.

It is not known if it will be possible to get out of here.

Act two

I walk down the street.

Ahead is a deep hole.

What is a pit to me?

I'm going down again.

It can't be, but I'm in the same hole again.

And again, it's not my fault.

Again, it is not known whether it will be possible to get out of here.

In this chapter, we will dive deeper into relationship pitfalls and explore new psychological games, which were first identified by Eric Berne. Triangular relationships can also be traced in them, but their difference is that the roles are more specific, down to the phrases that one of the participants in the game must say. Once in such a game, you are carried away by its current, and it is very, very difficult to resist it. But probably!

The game "Punish me!" It is played by at least two, but there may be more participants. At the same time, the main actor one. This is the one who provokes other people. This is the one who, knowing what and how to do, suddenly starts doing everything wrong. And it doesn’t matter if it’s work, hobbies or relationships.

The guy, knowing how his girlfriend loves fresh flowers, suddenly stops giving them on dates. A man, knowing that it is impossible to change and that he does not know how to lie, suddenly forgets about it and starts an intrigue on the side. The husband, remembering how important his attention and care is for his wife, suddenly stops giving them to her. An employee of the company, who knows exactly how the processes are organized in the enterprise, suddenly makes a mistake that jeopardizes the work cycle.

There is also another form of play, not so active. Then there is an accumulation of trifles, nit-picking, troubles, until suddenly someone loses their nerve or something comes to the surface. And then the player is definitely out of luck.

The result of this game is a feeling of humiliation, uselessness, a drop in self-esteem, a decrease in mood and, possibly, depression. Why is this a game? Because it's repetitive. This is not the first such episode in a person's life. And this game is needed, most likely, in order to prove to oneself: “Something is wrong with me” or “Something is wrong with them.” I am not OK or They are not OK.

Naturally, the roots of such a life position are in the past, in experience and in those early decisions that were once made and fixed deep in the mind.

The game "Here you are!" often coexists with the game "Punish me!". In this game, we enter into a relationship, business or personal, with a known “wrong” person. So, a woman may know that her man has a gambling addiction. But she seals an alliance with him and tries to live together for a long time. At some point, when, for example, everything in the house is already lost, she decides and leaves him. She triumphs, she is sure that she is right. And on her way she meets a new man ... who has an alcohol addiction. And so on.

A woman to herself, or maybe out loud, says: “Here, I knew it! All men are fools! “Why does she choose such people?” is the question that really deserves to be asked. Who gave her the message about all men?

Of course, the woman in the example is just an example. Men play this game just as well. This game is akin to a microscope with which we walk and look closely at people. In addition, this microscope has a filter that allows you to see only dark colors: bad deeds, failures, deceit.

How long can you behave adequately if you are constantly being looked at through a microscope?

Game "Yes...but..." has already sounded like a trap that we sometimes resort to in order to devalue our resources or the opponent himself. If the trap becomes a lifestyle, then it is already a game.

In this game, the ringleader directly or indirectly asks for help, while he behaves exactly like the Victim from the Karpman triangle. He does not see a way out of the situation, he puts all his hopes on another person.

The game starts:

“I can’t deal with depression! What should I do?"

"You can see a psychotherapist."

Game continues:

Yes, but it costs money. And I don't have time."

"You can go to a psychiatrist, he will prescribe medication."

"Yeah, but I'm not crazy. And then, they say, you can get used to them.

"If you take it right, then no."

"Yes, but side effects there are…”

“Not always and not in every preparation. That's why you need a psychiatric consultation."

“Yes, but it costs money, and you need to drink them for six months, right?”

At the end of this game, the host leaves, leaving you confused and helpless. And he himself is outraged that you did not help him, and he is sure that nothing will help him.

Game "Why don't you..."- a mirror of the game "Yes ... but ...". The game requires a couple, so often "helping" people find "needing help" to play. Their difference from real helpers and real people in need of help is that the latter really use help and provide it correctly.

Participants in the game "Why don't you ..." very often give advice left and right and cannot understand why no one uses it. Their dominant feeling at the beginning of the game is superiority, desire to help, self-confidence; after the game - misunderstanding, resentment, depreciation of oneself and the interlocutor.

Game "I just wanted to help" similar to "Why don't you...". The difference is in the degree of activity of the helper and as a result of this help. In this game, those who want to help actively undertake to do something: repair, heal, renew, reform. At the same time, not having the proper qualifications and not knowing all the information, he makes mistakes, sometimes fatal. When they attack him with accusations, he says: “I'm sorry. I just wanted to help…”

Game "I tried so hard"- another game from a series of "helping" games. It lasts much longer, maybe even years and decades. Such a game is a very frequent guest in parent-child relationships. This is what parents say to their child, who seems to be no longer a child, but a hairy man, when he is going to do something in defiance: “I didn’t sleep nights for you! And you!"

The trick of the game is that they are trying to make you responsible for actions that you did not ask for, did not know and did not want. Here and take it - it will be bad and not take it - it also seems not very good.

Criticism game. It is played by people who are not particularly able to do something. They don't have time for this. They are very, very busy. They track down other people's punctures, flaws, mistakes, and savor all this long and loudly. They can criticize anything. Appearance, clothing, speech, deeds, deeds - everything can fall into the field of view of a critic.

Critics like to flock, and then their game can go on for a very long time.

However, sooner or later, retribution comes. Most often in the form of a reaction of the object of criticism, which is not always calm and adequate. Sometimes it is a break in relations, sometimes it is an active attack. Sometimes - an offer to do something yourself. From such a proposal, the critic falls into confusion, but then immediately adopts the game "Yes ... but ...".

The game "If not for you ..." typical for people who do not want to actively change their lives. Why, if there is someone nearby on whom you can push the blame for your passivity and all your misfortunes?

“If not for you, I would have gone to the sea this year!”

"If it wasn't for you, I'd be married to a millionaire by now."

“If not for you, I would be president!”

“If it wasn’t for you, we would have made it!”

The only trouble is that, even if everything suddenly works out, there will not be a single obstacle and the road ahead will be open, he will still stand still and look for someone to whom he can say: “If not for you ...”

Game "Look what I've done because of you!" - a favorite game of those who are not used to being responsible for their mistakes; it is easier for someone to blame another instead of hard and painstaking work on themselves. Most often, a player provokes a partner with clear hints that he himself cannot do anything and he clearly needs help.

Partner, of course, rushes to the rescue. He does it especially quickly if he loves the role of the Rescuer. And of course, little comes of his help. Since the player cannot adequately use the help, he does everything wrong! But now he has someone to blame, and he says: “Look what I did because of you!” From a quiet Victim, he turns into a Persecutor, and a Rescuer quickly moves into the role of a Victim.

I can't attach this picture. Hold the chair...

Let me hold.

Just be careful... be careful... I asked you to be careful! Look what I've done because of you! Now I have a hole in the next bedroom!

Games are different according to the severity of their outcome.

First stage games are the easiest. Players can discuss their results in their circles of trust - among friends and girlfriends, relatives, etc. A husband can complain about his wife to friends over a beer, a wife can discuss with her husband's friends.

Games of the second stage are harder. Players prefer not to talk about them. They are accompanied by very strong and very unpleasant emotions, blows to self-esteem, disappointment in a loved one.

Games of the third stage are the most difficult. They can end in court proceedings, hospitals, physical suffering, even death.

Remember that the severity of the game can increase. Starting with the games of the first stage, you can gradually reach the third. Be careful when playing games.

What is a psychological game? The game formula, owned by Eric Berne, consists of six blocks. Here they are:

Hook + Hook = Reaction - Turn - Confusion - Payback

The hook is the first move the person offering the game makes. These are words, gestures, intonation - everything that hints at the beginning of a gaming relationship. But the hook by itself cannot start the game. It's a decoy, it's a sign for a person who has a lead.

A hook is something that makes us react to the hook. These may be the beliefs “People need to be helped without sparing themselves”, “All people are bad”, etc. This may be life experience, decisions that were made in early childhood, unmet needs.

"Hook + Hold" marks the beginning of the game. Next comes the Response stage.

Responding - certain steps that the playing people take. This is an exchange of phrases, actions. The response may take a few seconds, or it may take years. But there is always a twist.

A turn is the moment when one of the participants finally does something that changes the situation. And confusion sets in.

Confusion is the feeling that grips the participant in the game after the Turn. He does not understand what has happened, but he is confused, he does not know what to say and what to think. And then comes the payback.

Payback is the final game, when each of the participants receives those feelings and thoughts that they subconsciously aspired to. Righteous anger, indignation, fear, shame, guilt. Thoughts? “I, as always, could not help”, “All people are ungrateful”, “I am a bad person”, “He is a bad person ...”

How not to get into someone else's game and stop playing?

As you can see, games are a double-edged sword. For them, the consent of both parties to play is important. Of course, it happens that you are drawn into the game without your knowledge, but this is rare. Most often, the Hook has something to hook you on.

First rule- personal psychotherapy. Or at least an independent analysis of your current life, your past and your life situations. This is easier to do if there is an experienced guide nearby, but you can try it yourself. The challenge is to see your typical games. Then - see the Leads. Then - deal with them so that they stop being so annoying. And then - gradually refuse to swallow the bait.

Second rule- be aware of the possibility of choice. There is always a choice, and you do not have to act according to the same scenario every time. Moreover, if you remember that, in addition to the choice, you also have creativity and a sense of humor, then you will be able to skillfully refuse hooks. Over time, this will become a habit, and you will not even need to focus your attention on it.

You can suddenly change your ego state. We have not mentioned this concept before, now is the time. According to Eric Berne, we have three possible ego states: parent, adult, and child. Parental - evaluating, patronizing, supporting or criticizing. Adult - rational, logical, analyzing, weighing. Children's - having fun, rebellious, joyful or sad, requiring care. Often the hook in the game is thrown into some kind of ego state. And then a great choice is to react from a completely different state.

I just can't handle it! (Hook for the game "Yes ... but ...", the position of the Child, an appeal to the Parent.)

Try to do this... (Option 1: Hook, reaction from the state of the Parent. The game has begun!)

A! I can't help it either! (Option 2: Refusal to play, reaction from the state of the Child.)

How would you like me to help you? (Option 3: Refusal to play, reaction from the Adult state.)

Remember, there is always a choice!

Third rule- excess. An overreaction from some unexpected ego state can interrupt the game and keep the Hook from getting hooked. Exaggerated, theatrical reactions can turn on the resources of humor that are so lacking during games. After all, psychological games are the most serious occupation in the world.

Fourth rule- an invitation to intimacy. All games are built on devaluation and on demanding attention from others, usually negative. Why is that? Because negative attention is still better than no attention at all. Thus, not knowing how to get positive attention (strokes) and being afraid of not getting anything at all, a person strives to get negative attention (pricks and blows). You can suggest breaking the script.

Look, I just realized that I did everything to fight. But really I don't want it. I want to see your smile!

Remember, you cannot change a person, make him stop playing, but you can offer something different, and maybe at some point he will respond.

Act three

I walk down the street.

Ahead is a deep hole.

I can see her very well.

I'm flying down. You could say it's business as usual...

You see everything as if from the side.

It's clear where I am.

Himself to blame.

But getting out of here is not the first time.

act four

I walk down the street.

Ahead is a deep hole.

Yes, I'll just skip it.

act five

I'm walking down another street.

Portia Nelson. Autobiography in five short acts

What to do if you get a call Keep up a pleasant conversation. Don't ask questions that may be difficult to answer, and don't make demands that you've already made a list of. Feel free to ask where a person lives, how he earns a living