Breaking the Nice Guy Habit: How to Stop Being a Nice Guy

You’ve heard the saying probably hundreds of times by now:

“Nice guys finish last.”

Do nice guys really miss out when it comes to dating? Is being a nice guy so bad?

You’re not going to like the answer.

It’s not a great experience to be a nice guy. Most nice guys do finish last.

Most nice guys struggle with women, get trampled on in relationships, and go through their entire lives feeling weak – despite acting in a way that is what they perceive as “kind.”

But the problem goes deeper than just learning to stand up for yourself. “Nice guy-ism” is a social disease, and I want to help you get past it.

In this article, we’re going to go over how you can stop being a nice guy and learn to excel in your dating life.

1. Just Because You’re Not “Nice” Doesn’t Mean You’re Mean

This is something a lot of guys get wrong.

When they start to realize that their “niceness” is a problem, they start to go full-fledged in the opposite direction. They become jerks in the name of trying to stop being nice.

So what’s the difference between a nice guy, a jerk, and the man you’re trying to be?

It starts with how you handle conflict.

Nice guys seek to avoid conflict at all costs, even if it means creating suffering for themselves.

Jerks, on the other hand actively seek to put other people down. They ruin another person’s day to make their day better. They’re also known to some as “bullies”.

Don’t be a bully.

What you’ll notice about these 2 types of men is that neither is present in reality. They’re both spending more time in their heads than they are in the real world. They’re both more focused on themselves than the world. Their behavior is not correlated with their experience, and this is what makes them unbearable to be around.

Nice guys are so obsessed with avoiding conflict that they come off as insecure. Jerks are so obsessed with creating conflict that they also come off as insecure.

The only solution is to beat your insecurity and become more present in your life.

Following these 10 steps will help you beat “nice guy-ism” once and for all.

2. Recognize That You Have a Problem With Being Too Nice

The biggest problem with nice guys is that they deny their reality.

They view themselves as victims, not as men with a problem.

You might have reasons to act the way you do – you might be anxious, you might have trauma, or you might be depressed – but these reasons are not reasons for you to allow passive, conflict-avoidant behavior to take control of your life.

You’re too good for that.

And luckily, overcoming “nice guy-ism” is actually a lot easier than you think. Nice guy-ism can be overcome with a few simple steps, but you can’t get started on bettering yourself if you don’t admit that there’s a problem that needs to be worked on.

Look yourself in the mirror and admit the truth. None of the other steps in this article matter if you can’t do that.

3. Stop Saying Yes

“Yes-men” have no control over their lives.

They are slaves to the demands of others. They don’t know themselves, they don’t know others (when you’re doing whatever someone says, you’re not precisely their equal), and they don’t know how to exist in the world they inhabit.

Don’t be a “yes man.” Learn to start saying “no.”

You can start small – start saying “no” when someone asks if you want fries with that.

It sounds ridiculous, but if you have a problem with saying “yes,” you need to learn how to start saying “no.” You need to start creating boundaries, which starts when you say “no.”

It will feel awkward and uncomfortable at first.

I don’t care. Keep pressing forward.

4. Learn to Exist Without Approval

Legendary samurai Miyamoto Musashi was a unique guy.

Perhaps a unique thing about him was that he lived essentially his entire life alone, as a nomad. It’s also highly likely that Musashi died in a cave – by himself. He lived the samurai way until his dying moments.

In addition to living as a nomad, he also spent quite a bit of time in his life engaged in samurai duels with other people – to death.

Why am I telling you this?

Because Miyamoto Musashi was in control of his mind – this is evident in his writings in The Book of Five Rings and Dokkōdō, which emphasize the importance of self-control and discipline.

Be like a samurai – don’t be a slave to anyone.

That includes yourself.

5. Start Taking Control of Your Life

In addition to not being a slave to the intentions of others, you also have to take active control of your own life.

This could mean doing something as drastic as Musashi and taking up sword fighting, but it could be as simple as spending more time on the thing you’re passionate about instead of what you’re told to do.

I’m lucky – I only do work that I want to do every single day. I don’t have a “real job”. I’m in control of my life.

You can get here too, but it starts by figuring out what exactly it is that you want to do.

Maybe your goal isn’t even to be an entrepreneur or run your own business, and that’s okay too, but you need to learn to take control of your time.

When you own your time, you own your life. When you own your life, you’ll see how silly it is to be a nice guy.

6. Set Clear Intentions In Your Relationships

You hear a lot about “boundaries” in relationships, but you don’t hear much about intentions.

Especially as men, we’re notorious for being wishy-washy with our intentions.

The problem isn’t that we think more with the thing in between our legs than we do with the thing between our ear lobs. It’s that we as men don’t have experience with living in accordance with clear intentions.

Clear intentions aren’t taught in school, they’re not taught in many coaching programs, and they’re not written about much online.

The first time I dated someone with clear intentions for a relationship, I was taken aback at first, and then I was blown away. I wanted to be like them because I felt at much greater ease knowing the intentions of the relationship.

I have since adopted having clear intentions in every relationship I have.

This helps decrease anxiety, ease relationship unpredictability, and keep you oriented about the relationship.

7. Build Some Genuine Confidence

Despite what many people will tell you, you can’t fake it until you make it when it comes to building confidence.

You can fake it for a while, but eventually, your fake confidence cup is going to run dry, and you’re going to be left with a choice:

Either build real confidence or resort to being the insecure nice guy you were before.

One option is a lot better than the other, but that option is also a lot harder to attain.

You have to start building genuine confidence in yourself, which usually comes through doing the work. You have to give yourself a reason to believe in yourself.

You’re not just born with the self-esteem to navigate the world’s brutality – you have to earn it.

8. Learn to Accept Help From Others

One of the biggest flaws with “nice guys” is that they take the initiative in every interaction in your life.

You probably see this as a good thing if you’re a nice guy.

Taking the initiative and providing for others makes you an alpha male, right?

Unfortunately, being an alpha is more complicated than just doing things and caring for people.

If you’re constantly doing things for others and living to serve them, you’re not the alpha, are you?

Instead, you’re just a people-pleaser who has no control over his life. You’re not in charge of anything at all.

That takes us to the next point.

9. Learn How to Navigate Conflict

When you strip away all the crap, nice guys are terrified of one thing: conflict.

Nice guys have a disease – it’s called “conflict avoidance.”

When you’re conflict-avoidant, you’ll do whatever you have to do to, well, avoid conflict.

The problem is, conflict is an essential part of life. There will always be conflict, no matter what you do or who you do it with.

Most nice guys fail to realize that conflict does not have to lead to anger. Conflict does not mean “fighting.” I know this because I used to deal with this myself as a result of some traumatic events in my own life.

I couldn’t tell the difference between healthy and unhealthy conflict.

For years, I was conflict-avoidant and a passive onlooker in most of my relationships.

Don’t be like me – start learning to navigate conflict now.

10. Stop Expecting Something In Return For Your Actions

My biggest problem with nice guys is that everything they do is self-serving, even if they act like it’s for others.

This is the difference between being nice and being kind.

Nice people are nice because they expect other people to be nice back to them.

On the other hand, being kind requires nothing in return and expects nothing.

This is not only a kind of a power move; this is also how you make sure to leave a net positive effect on your world.

When you stop acting nice because you’re expecting something, you will probably realize that you’re not as kind as you thought.

You’re not anything special. You need to work on yourself.

This is a harsh realization, but this is how you make yourself better. This is how you learn to drop niceness for kindness.

This is how you learn to drop weakness for strength.

11. Develop an Assertive Communication Style

You don’t need to be “speaking up for your needs constantly”, but you do need to assert yourself appropriately in your relationships.

You need to take the lead when it’s clear that that’s what needs to be done.

Many women (I’m assuming the type of women you’re interested in) are more attracted to men with assertive communication styles–men who can lead with compassion, strength, and confidence.

But an assertive communication style is more than just confidence and speaking up for yourself. An assertive communication style first requires some guts.

To stop being a nice guy or a pushover, you must assert yourself in situations when you see it necessary – even if it means your actions will be inconvenient for others.

This is just how life works. Assertive communicators get to decide what happens.

“Nice guys” have to go with the flow.

Conclusion

Being a nice guy is a terrible life.

It’s exhausting, costly, and, worst of all, spiritual suicide.

That’s right – succumbing to nice guy-ism destroys your potential for everything you want out of your life.

I can guarantee that the strongest version of yourself and the nicest version of yourself are very different characters.

So which character do you want to be?

What kind of man do you want to be?

Maybe you need a little help getting started down the road of living the way you’ve always wanted to.

That’s why I want to tell you about my exclusive coaching program, led by my team of experienced men’s coaches and me.

We’ll help you tap into that inner strength and become the high-value man you’ve always desperately desired to be.

See, this program isn’t only going to help you break free from nice guy behaviors, build quality romantic relationships, and become a stronger Grounded Man. It’s also going to provide you with support from both myself and my elite community of men. Our coaches provide informed professional advice on how to play hard to get, among other important relationship principles.

No drama, no games, just growth. This will be the last self-development group you’ll ever need.

With this program, you’ll be tapped into your own “band of brothers” and you’ll also have access to the best training course for men in existence today, as well as weekly calls with my team of inspiring and determined coaches. There are no boys, no complainers, or dabblers, this program is for serious men only.

Click here to watch my new client orientation.

The Times Have Changed. This is the Way Forward in 2024.

Here’s how I can help in my new FREE training on becoming a stronger Grounded Man:

1. The new path for men that creates a purpose driven life and doesn’t require you to lose your personal power, put women on a pedestal or sacrifice your goals.

2. Why men consistently settle and ignore the most important areas of life like the quality of their intimate relationships, social life and happiness and how to optimize all three without sacrificing professional growth.

3. The biggest mistake 97% of men make that breeds loneliness, breakups and emasculation that is absolutely reversible with this counter intuitive strategy.