Drowning You Will Never Save Them

Kassandra Vaughn

4 min readFeb 8, 2020

How much of your life have you given up to ‘help’ others?

And, when I say ‘help’, I mean the following:

Compromising your life, putting yourself last on YOUR priority list, and dropping your biggest life priorities to ‘save’ other people.

How many years have you spent doing the co-dependent, “I’m the rock of my family” human doormat thing?

Because here’s the truth: You’ll NEVER get any of those years back.

Here’s the other truth: Every bit of rescuing you think you did didn’t do a thing to teach those people how to save themselves.

In fact, you’re taking on the role of savior has kept them from the powerful realization that they are perfectly capable of saving themselves.

Now it’s time to get clear on the one truth that will get you out of this very toxic, pervasive life pattern:

Helping them can NEVER cost you YOU…

Period. That’s it.

You can’t get poor enough to make another person rich nor can you get sick enough to make another person healthy and, yet, every time you compromise your integrity, core values, priorities, and self-commitments, that’s exactly the game you’re playing.

And you might be thinking “Fine! So how do I stop?”

I’m so glad you asked.

Here’s how you stop people pleasing and people saving so you can finally get to the work of focusing on YOUR life:

1. Get real with your payoff for being a martyr.

Yup, I said it. There’s a victim story in this but there’s also a HUGE payoff… and, for most people who get to play the martyr (“I’m always putting them first and they never put me first. I’m the one everyone relies on and I’m constantly doing this for them and that for them and I never have time for myself.”), there’s something in it for them.

What’s your payoff? Identify what you’re getting out of the deal so you can create a sweeter deal than that.

2. Put your goals and dreams FIRST.

You now have to redesign your life by putting your goals and dreams FIRST. I talk about this in a video on my YouTube channel called 10 Quotes That Will Inspire You to Rebuild Your Life and the reality is simple: unless you put you FIRST, no one else will.

What does putting yourself first look like?

A- You schedule time on your calendar EVERY DAY to work on your #1 goal or dream. That time comes first and foremost and no one else receives your time or attention until that ONE thing is done. Period. #non-negotiable

B- You say ‘No’ a lot more than you do right now. In other words, until you’ve taken care of you, the answer to any and all requests is ‘No.’ And you work hard to not feel bad about saying ‘No.’

C- You keep the commitments you make to yourself. Whatever you commit to do for you, you honor it. You do not betray yourself to keep commitments to other people, not ever!

So… what do you do about all the people who are not going to be very happy when you start putting yourself first and stop saving them?

This will feel hard but it’s super simple to implement:

1. You communicate the change to your boundaries.

2. You tell them how your involvement in their lives will change as a result.

3. You set and protect your new boundaries.

4. You see how they respond.

5. You fire anyone from your inner circle who doesn’t honor your boundaries and especially those who try to manipulate or sabotage you into giving up those boundaries.

At the end of the day, here’s what’s true: Every minute you spend on this hamster wheel of running to the rescue of people who don’t actually need saving is a minute you’re spending drowning your inner voice, killing your dreams and building a level of resentment and frustration that will eventually destroy the relationship.

Don’t do that.

Save yourself and, by doing so, demonstrate to others that they have the power to do the same. That’s the most loving thing you can do…

IS IT TIME TO LET GO OF A PERSON, PLACE, JOB, OR SITUATION?