The Disease to Please!!

Disease to please:
Author: Harriet B. Braiker
ISBN Number: 10:0-07-138564-9

This book “The Disease to Please” highlights the fact that “people pleasing” is a dangerous disease. This book is split into 3 main parts,
1. People Pleasing Mindsets
2. People Pleasing Habits
3. 21 day action plan to get rid of the disease
The book begins with a test to understand whether one has the disease to please. 24 true or false questions and at the end the diagnosis is made depending on one’s scores.
Disease to please triangle helps one know whether the mind is driven by thoughts feelings or behavior.
The first part deals with explaining how dangerous the people pleasing mindsets are. The 10 people pleasing commandments are listed and also the “7 Deadly shoulds” of people pleasers are also listed. Removing the “must” and the “should” thoughts from one’s mind is the next action.
“It’s OK not to be nice” Is another important step towards getting rid of the disease. One of the main advantages of getting rid of this disease is that one will get a balanced mind.
The people with this disease, in spite of wanting to say “no” will be forced to say yes because of a fear of being hated. There are various marked characteristics that the people with this disease will exhibit. All these will boil down to one single thing “wanting to be liked by everybody”. This book focuses on one main thing, making people understand that speaking one’s mind is more important than pleasing others.
When the Disease is at his highest degree, people will just not be able to say “NO”.
Ones the author explains the people pleasing mindsets and the people pleasing habits. She begins with the corrective action.
The 21 day action plan helps to cure oneself of the disease. This is a gradual process where one is first trained to “buy time”. This is the first stage when one gets used to buying time. The next stage is training one to offer counter suggestions. This effectively is easing one to get into the habit of saying no. When one has gradually learnt to buy time and offer counter suggestions, the next stage will be to say no politely. This is the tough stage, when one has mastered this, the next stage will be to say no when one feels like .When this is done, one has overcome “The Disease to please”.
The various real life experiences narrated helps one to understand the importance of getting rid of the
From a personal view, though I went through the whole action plan, putting it in action when I was emotionally cornered seemed quite tough, At the end of the 21 days there was a distinct but I wasn’t able to practice it ever where.
From someone who doesn’t know how to say NO on the face, this book is a must read. The 21 day routine just eases one into the habit and is very effective.