We’ve all heard it: treat others the way you want to be treated. It sounds wise — even sacred. But what if the Golden Rule is missing something essential? If you give your time, energy, and generosity to everyone else while neglecting yourself, you’re teaching the world that you come last. And people respond accordingly. Today, April Shprintz explores why self-neglect isn’t noble, how you’re constantly teaching others how to treat you, and why treating yourself as well as you treat everyone else may be the real key to better relationships, stronger boundaries, and greater success.
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What The Golden Rule Gets Wrong
I am so glad you’re here. Now, it is not often that I am calling out sage wisdom, but I am definitely calling out sage wisdom when I say the golden rule got something wrong, it did. I will explain to you what that is, but first, just in case you’re one of the few people who do not know what the golden rule is, it is to treat others the way you want to be treated. I lived by this rule for many years of my life because it made so much sense to me. If you put good out into the world, good will come back to you.
The Golden Rule’s Missing Element
That works with mindset, that works with manifesting, it misses a key element that many of us who are naturally big givers totally miss. Here it is. When you treat other people the way that you want to be treated, but you do not treat yourself well, other people are never going to be able to follow suit. We live in a world that is attraction-based. I believe 100% in the law of attraction.
I believe that mindset is the first step to manifesting. I also believe that not only do we get back what we put out into the world, but we get back what we’re putting into ourselves. Let me tell you what I mean. When you are always generous with your time with other people, and you always make time for them, no matter what they need, but you do not make time to do things for yourself that are really important to you, you are telling the world that you’re not that important.
You’re going to attract people who are takers, who will not value your time because you yourself are not valuing your time. This can be something that is so difficult for people to grasp, especially if they’re kind and giving, and they get a lot of their value from doing things for others. I want you to realize that the things that you do for yourself are what you’re actually telling the rest of the world is good enough for you.
If you are never allowing yourself to have time to relax, if you’re never investing money in yourself to get better at things, to feel better about yourself, to take care of your health, if you’re never buying yourself gifts, but you buy gifts for other people. If you’re never going where you want to go to dinner, but you’re always going where everyone else wants to go, you’re basically asking other people to value you more than you value yourself.
You’re Constantly Teaching People How To Treat You
It is very hard for people to do because, whether you realize it or not, we’re constantly teaching people how to treat us. We do that with boundaries, right? If someone talks to us in a way that is rude or condescending, and we say, “It is not acceptable for you to speak to me that way.” That is setting a boundary. That is teaching them how to treat you. If you’re always putting yourself last, that is also setting a precedent of how you think it is okay for you to be treated.
Now, some of this might be pissing you off candidly because you’re like, “I am a good person. People should treat me well. I do not have time to treat myself well.” That’s where you’re missing it. When I would go into companies that were failing and turn them around, one of the first things that I did was talk to leaders about pouring into their people and finding out the things that they needed and providing those to them.
They would almost across the board say they did not have time to do that. Just like you, they did not have time not to. Because in spending that time and investing in their people, they tended to find out problems they could solve that would improve the business, changes they could make to the way that they did things with their team that increased longevity and employee loyalty, changes they could make with clients that allowed them to expand their business and make more money.
Whether you realize it or not, we’re constantly teaching people how to treat us. We do that through boundaries. Share on XGuess what? Businesses and people are very similar. If you take the time that you think you do not have to do things for yourself and treat yourself well, you will find that you get time back because a lot of the jerks that you have that are causing you issues or not treating you well are going to respond to the way that you’re treating yourself.
Now, you may be saying, “April, I do not really know how to do this.” For this week, what I want you to do is wrap your head around the idea that you deserve to be treated as well as you treat anyone and everyone else in your life. If you’re a parent, you deserve to be treated as well as you treat your kids. If you’re a wonderful friend, you deserve to be treated as well as you treat your best friend.
If you’re a great leader, you deserve to be treated as well as you treat your people. I want you to wrap your head around that and see if you can commit to treating yourself better and putting that effort in. Next week, I am going to tell you one of the easiest ways to start doing it. Here’s to your success.
