3 Tips To Keep Your Loyalty From Digging Your Grave
By Life Coach Kelly Rudolph. Posted on .
As a positive woman, I was always a happy and loyal supporter of others doing good deeds - that is until I felt myself digging my own grave. I found loyalty to have several elements and then I separated doing good deeds from being a good person. Let me explain because I think this may assist you in becoming and remaining a positive woman without selling yourself out through loyalty to a draining cause or person.
First of all, loyalty is defined by Webster's as "faithful to commitments or obligations." Faithful is "steady in allegiance," commitments are "engaging oneself" and obligations are "binding promises" or "a sense of duty."
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So, for my example, being loyal is "steadily engaging ourselves in something where we feel a sense of duty."
An example of my over-loyalty was when I agreed to create a business project for someone that should have taken 5 days and took 6 weeks! I stayed in it because I didn't want to be a quitter. What I found was that I was manipulated and drained of my time, energy, positivity and money because I was loyal to a fault.
The good news is this sent me on a journey to recognize when to be loyal and when to cheer someone on from a distance without getting involved. Also, how to determine if someone is using me or truly needs and appreciates my assistance.
3 Tips To Keep Your Positive Woman Loyalty From Digging Your Positive Woman Grave:
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- Trust your gut feelings! You will intuitively know when someone is genuine or playing you for a fool. Tell them, "Let me think about it and get back to you," in order to have time to quietly feel the right answer.
- Value yourself. When we, as positive women, base our value on the number of people we can help, it means we don't value ourselves. We are worthy and valuable even before we help someone else so if it doesn't fit into your plan, say "No."
- Know the 3 things you can do with an agreement. 1) Keep it. 2) Renegotiate it. 3) Break it. These are for YOUR protection, use them!
Had I done one or all of these three things, I wouldn't have ended up in the situation I was in. I never got paid completely for the work I did but learning that my loyalty has to be to myself first has been payment enough!
To further explore locating and using your true value to upgrade your decisions and personal boundaries, grab your weekly Positive Woman Tip plus free eBook and audio book at Positive Women Rock right now.
