Am I Fun? Why you are fun enough
Am I nice enough? You'd like to have a social life with people who like you as much as you like them. Yet you may be unsure about your likeability and whether it affects your social life. To see if you are nice enough, in this blog I address the question "am I nice?"
Am I nice enough
Do you ever wonder if you're nice enough? When you first meet someone, this is often also a time when you decide whether or not you want to see that person again.
Researchers also wondered whether people can correctly predict whether a strange person liked them or not. In the study they then conducted, two strangers had to engage in a short conversation with each other. This conversation could last from 5 to 45 minutes.
Then they had to indicate whether the other person liked or disliked them.
These predictions went pretty well. People can tell very well whether someone likes them or not.
What doesn't go as well is indicating how much the other person likes you. So the answer to whether you are nice enough is usually wrong.
For example, many people think the other person likes them "a little," while the other person more often likes them "super." So there is a clear difference in the degree of niceness you give yourself and that the other person gives you.
This fun gap could also be found among students, in the U.S. among roommates. In fact, it took 2/3rds of the school year for students to assess the proper degree of how much the other person liked them. That's certainly more than half a year! And consider this, half a year where they see each other every day, every day, during the week[1].
So how well can you determine whether people around you like you or not?
Influence of thoughts
So why is there really this difference? Other things have been done in the studies on your ability to predict how much the other person likes you.
Some studies recorded conversations to see if body language signals are overlooked (which they are). Another study also had people write down thoughts about the conversation. This showed that people placed much more value on thoughts when they felt the conversation was going badly. Those thoughts were much more prevalent than positive thoughts and that caused the idea of being nice enough for the other person to deteriorate.
Therefore, you can give yourself the benefit of the doubt. In doing so, this knowledge is also good to realize that the other person probably also rates themselves as less likable than you like them.
This ensures that when you grab your phone to meet up again, you are likely to positively surprise the other person and they will definitely be eager to meet up with you.
I'm more fun with a wine on
To resolve that uncertainty about how likable you are, you can turn to things that help you relax just a little more. That’s where the idea comes from that a party isn’t really fun until you’ve had a glass of wine—or something else…
Research shows, for example, that drug users between the ages of 30 and 59 who have jobs can justify their drug use by citing a “party ” as the reason.
As long as it did not affect their continued functioning, they could justify drug use for themselves[2].
Whether it’s alcohol or drugs doesn’t really matter. What you do every time there’s a party is give yourself a positive feedback loop about using alcohol or drugs to be “more fun.”
The danger of this is that at some point you can start using these tools to also be more "fun" at work or while exercising.
Using resources to be fun enough is thus a slippery slope.
In my spare time, I'm not fun
Then in your life, you often have different roles. You have your role as a professional at work and the role you have at home. Maybe you're a mother and you're incredibly busy, or maybe you have nothing to do in your spare time.
Maybe you have many friends or maybe you have few.
In any case, you have a different role at home or in your free time than at work and suddenly you don't like yourself.
At work, you seem to have all kinds of interesting things to say, but in your free time you are a quiet mouse.
Is that even true? Why is it bad to be "not fun" in your spare time?
If you suffer from this feeling in your spare time go and find out what causes it.
- For example, are you too busy?
- Are you secretly a little lonely?
- Don't actually have any hobbies besides work?
- What is your definition of fun?
Hypnosis can help you figure out why you feel you are not having fun in your free time and what is stopping you from having fun in your free time.
With a Socratic conversation, for example, you can find out why you think you are not fun in your spare time and how logical or illogical this line of thinking is.
Then there is room for "installing" new beliefs with hypnosis. To do this, you are first put under hypnosis. Then you will be given hypnotic suggestions appropriate to your problem, such as:
"I'm nice enough."
"It's okay if it's quiet in my spare time," he said.
"Better to have a few real friends than a lot of fake friends."
These are just examples; depending on your beliefs, a hypnosis expert can offer you other suggestions.
I'm not a fun mom
Then you might also be a mother and feel like you’re not doing a good enough job. Where does that feeling come from? Are you comparing yourself to other mothers? Is that comparison even fair? Maybe you have a lot more children than other moms? Maybe you’re also working full-time? Or part-time, but that “fun mom” approach just isn’t working for you.
How fair is the comparison you make to yourself?
If a Socratic conversation and being honest with yourself about the equation does not help you feel like you are nice enough as a mother, hypnosis can also help in other ways to feel like a nice mother or even do more nice things as a mother.
When something is holding you back or you’re stuck in this feeling of guilt, regression therapy may be a good solution for you.
With regression, you go back to the moment when you determined what a nice mom is supposed to be or do that you don't meet. Then, while under hypnosis, you start doing something with that moment. For example, you look at the moment from a different angle which can already change your beliefs about what makes a nice mom.
Or removing any blockage that blocks you from being a fun mom.
What this moment is is different for everyone. Usually these are moments from your childhood, from elementary school age, because during that time you form your beliefs about how the world works and how you are supposed to function in it. This can be deep in your subconscious, which then doesn't come out until you are an adult or have become a mother.
Not feeling nice enough can be due to all sorts of things, but often we underestimate how much another person likes us. Then we may also feel not nice enough in a particular role. This is often related to the beliefs we have about how you are supposed to be in such a role.
With hypnosis, you can explore those beliefs and thoughts in order to think more positively about yourself and even change your behavior, making you more enjoyable.
Would you like to learn more about how hypnosis works and how you can use it to help yourself or others? Then come to a hypnosis workshop in Zwolle or Wormerveer. There, you’ll learn how to hypnotize people and experience for yourself what it feels like to be under hypnosis. You won’t learn any therapeutic techniques there yet.
Do you feel the need to learn more right away about these techniques to help yourself and others with hypnosis? Then come to a seminar or sign up for one of the training programs in Wormerveer or Zwolle.
Also pin this handy infographic as a reminder:
[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/ulterior-motives/201910/other-people-probably-you-more-you-think-they-do
[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0955395916301311