Who Is In Your Front Row?

All my life, I’ve been a people pleaser. I want everyone to like me. And when they don’t, I wonder why not, and I try to change that repellant thing about myself in order to get them to like me. I try to win them over

Sound familiar?

Yeah, a lot of us suffer from this. Maybe most of us. I inherited this disease from my mother. She lived to be liked. She lived for the applause, the laugh, the ovation. And when she didn’t get it, she sulked. Bad. She got depressed.

I never had it like that, but I had it.

But I don’t think I have it anymore. And that’s because my friend Zee turned me on to this idea of The Front Row, which she heard from her guru. 

Your front-row people are the people closest to you who stand by you during your life’s journey. They offer unwavering support, encouragement, and positivity. Your front row genuinely rejoices in your achievements and successes. They care about your well-being and growth and provide motivation and inspiration to help you reach your goals.

Also, these are the people who are there for you when you face setbacks, failures, or difficult times. They have a positive impact on your confidence, resilience, and overall well-being.

These are the people you need to prioritize. And if you focus only on this group, it will cure your people-pleasing.

Because, really. You don’t need the applause of the whole world. You only need it from your front row. So here’s what you do. 

Identify your front-row people. Then, just do everything for them. Do your best work for them, be your best friend to them, show up for them—be in their front row! And don’t worry about the people in the mid and back rows. 

Who gives a shit about those people? You don’t know why they’re there, and you don’t need to know why they’re there. If they keep showing up for you, that’s great. Maybe someday they will graduate to front-row status, but you don’t need to bother about them. 

You only need to do your best work for your front row. 

They are the only ones who count. 

Those casual people in the back? The ones scrolling their phones, wishing they were somewhere else, or who are only there to steal your work? Stop caring about them.

Another pathetic pitfall of people pleasing is thinking you can recruit a front row. You can’t. A person either loves you, admires you, or respects you, or they don’t. You can’t people please them into it. 

Once you’ve identified who sits in your front row, you also must identify whose front row you sit in. 

Who are the people in your life you want to see succeed? Who do you stand up and applaud for? Whose work do you admire and support? Who has the character traits you want? Who makes you feel like a better person, a happier, a more worthy person when you are around them? Those are your front-row people. 

You pull for them to succeed. You are there for them when they fail. You’re not jealous of them, and you don’t begrudge them their moment in the sun. You want them to live in that sun forever! 

All the people in your life you meet and have interactions with are never going to be in your front row.

Once you realize this, you can stop paying so much attention to them, and stop trying to win them over. 

Many of them will be very sweet, and you can appreciate their presence in your life, but you don’t have to care what they think.

Ever since I encountered this front-row idea, there’s been a tectonic shift in how I see the people in my world. People I’ve known for a long time but have never seen before have just popped into clear focus. “Oh, she’s been in my front row for years! How did I never see that before?”

It’s been glorious. It’s been freeing. But most significantly, I can now focus my attention where it belongs, and stop wasting it on the back row.

I hope you, too, find this idea as intriguing and liberating as I do. I invite you to take a moment and write down the people in your front row, and then let them know how much you treasure them.

Then, when you think about your work or schedule your time, you can prioritize their needs and not waste your time worrying about the rest of the world. 

Love and Namaste,

Kath