Why Other People Don’t Treat You As Well As You Treat Them

If people treat you badly do you ever ask yourself:

"Why don't other people treat me as well as I treat them?"

After all, you're so kind and considerate - it can seem like a mystery that they don't treat you in the same way?

Amanda’s Story

Like Amanda, one of my clients.

Amanda was always eager to give her friends a helping hand; she offered to babysit, and she helped them decorate. She walked people’s dogs and looked after their cats. She was always offering to help other people because she thought that they would be nice to her in return. 

But these friends very often took Amanda for granted.

‘I try really hard to be nice, but they still treat me like a doormat!’ said Amanda.

The problem was that Amanda was making a lot of her happiness dependent on how other people treated her.  She hadn’t stopped to consider how she was actually treating herself. 

All this seeking validation from other people meant she was forgetting to look to herself. She began to consider that instead of people pleasing others, she could start from within by offering herself the validation she craved.

Are You Giving Out The Wrong Signals?

A lot of the time we tend to think of communication as being open: you say something, I hear it, I say something back, you hear it… and so it goes on.

Much of the time, though, we communicate indirectly and in subtle ways. We do this by the signals we give each other, through our behaviour and by the way we treat ourselves. People make ‘Subconscious Psychological Agreements’ with each other all the time. These agreements are subtle signals indicating what they expect from each other.

How To Get People To Treat You Better

Think about ways that you could treat yourself, which would signal your high value to others. How often do you give away your time and energy at the cost of your own needs? Have you been clear on your boundaries?

The next time someone treats you badly, ask yourself:

How have I been setting boundaries?

What message am I conveying to this person about how I expect to be treated?’

Am I signalling to them that I value myself, or not?

Becoming skilled at showing how much you value yourself is the secret to getting treated by others with the same level of respect and consideration that you give to them.

Set Great Boundaries and Stick To Them

One great way to show how much you value yourself is by setting great boundaries—that is, clearly defining limits in your life and communicating your expectations to others. Make these changes, and you'll very soon notice that others value you more.

However, working with many clients over the years, I've found that a lot of people struggle with the putting boundaries into place, and sticking to them.