There is nothing worse than being taken advantage of, and yet so many people find themselves victims of such a scenario.
The good thing is, there is a way to ensure that people can never take advantage of you, and in this post, I’m going to show you that way by answering some of the most common questions about being taken advantage of.
How do people take advantage of others?
All human relationships have boundaries, and people frequently test those boundaries to see if they can get more from a person.
It is not just bad people who do this; all of us, in some ways, are guilty. It’s human nature, we all want the best deal we can get, and that means if we can get more from someone, and we want more from that someone, and we think we can get more from that someone, we will try to get more from that someone.
For example, imagine going to a shop, seeing something for sale, but believing that the price is too high and that you can get it cheaper if you barter. Are you going to pay the higher price, or are you going to barter?
I’m sure everybody knows what the majority will do.
We treat human relationships the same way, we assign values to them. And when it comes to relationships, some of us simply want a fair deal, while others want the best deal they can get; but all of us want to pay the price that we think is right — and not a penny more.
Again, it is simply human nature. We all want the best deal we can get. To some of us, that is paying what we believe to be a fair price; to others, it is paying as little as possible.
This brings me to how people take advantage of others, and it is very simple. They barter and barter to get as much as they can from a person for as little as they can offer in return. Some do it intentionally; others do it unintentionally.
Whichever it is, the outcome is always the same. A person being taken advantage of. Which means the way people take advantage of others is that they simply keep pushing for more and more while offering as little in return as they humanely can.
What is the most common reason that leads to people being taken advantage of?
We set our own value, and we set it based on how we allow people to treat us, and what we expect people to do for us when we do things for them.
If we allow people to treat us badly and allow people to constantly take things from us for very little in return, then we are telling people that that is our price, that that is our worth.
When we set our values low — or more often is the case, let people make us believe that our values are low — even good people take more from us than they should. Not by intention, but because we tell them that they can.
That means the most common reason people get taken advantage of is that they set their worth so low that even good people end up unwittingly taking advantage.
How do you stop people from taking advantage of you?
To stop people taking advantage of you, you truly must fight to change the terms of your relationship with people and demand to be paid your true worth. It truly is the only way. And if you choose to fight, know this, even those who did not intend to take advantage of you but are doing so will likely put up protestation, and that will make you feel guilty.
Forget that guilt. You must ignore it and bypass it. The fact is, no matter what they say and how you feel, to create a better future for yourself, you must be firm. And in truth, by doing so, you will be doing them a favour because it benefits nobody being given a free ride.
When fighting to get your worth, remember that. You’re not just improving your life, you’re improving theirs by giving them a wake-up call.
So, the way you stop people from taking advantage of you is by fighting for your worth, and the people who know your worth, when you show it to them, will be glad for it. The people who don’t will disappear, and you will be better off for it.
That means the key way to stop people from taking advantage of you is to not be afraid of losing those who take advantage of you from your life.
What’s the top tip you can give for stopping people from taking advantage of you?
We all deserve to be given things, even if it’s just thanks for the things we do for others. We all deserve it, and the best way to get it is by never being afraid to not only expect it, but to call out those who don’t give it.
This is why one of the top tips I can give to stop people from taking advantage is not only learning to say no when people ask you for things if you don’t think you’ll get value in return, but remembering that it’s okay to ask others for things, even if just a thanks.
Most people will by default give these things, but to stop people from taking advantage of you, it’s imperative to remember that it’s okay to remind those who don’t that nothing in this world is free, and you are worth more than the value they are assigning to you.
What I’m saying is a top way to stop people from taking advantage of you is identifying your worth and reminding people of it if they forget it.
How do you remind people of your worth?
It’s not always the easiest thing to do, but you must always think before giving anything: What do I expect in return?
It can feel weird doing this, almost transactional, but it’s something you absolutely deserve to do. After all, if you expect nothing in return, and you know that, then when you get nothing in return, it will not be a problem.
But if you do expect something, and you thought about that beforehand, and then you don’t get it, it’s much easier to find the power to remind people you are worth more than they are giving.
And that’s how you remind people of your worth, by actually identifying it and reminding people of it when it’s not given.
To put it more bluntly, the way to remind people of your worth is by expecting your worth in return for doing things for other people, and acting accordingly if it isn’t given i.e. calling them out.
How do people actually trap you in doing things for nothing loops?
Imagine there’s a guy at the office who has made a mess, and he asks you to clean up for him, and you do it and ask for nothing in return. Now you’ve done it for nothing in return, he will keep expecting you to do it for nothing in return. Here’s why: because you’ve told him you are happy with that.
Imagine there’s a girl at the office, one who keeps being late, and she asks you to cover up for her, and you do it and ask for nothing in return. Now you’ve done it for nothing in return, she will keep expecting you to do it for nothing. Again, why? Because you’ve told her you are happy with that.
I give you the path to doing things for nothing loops. When you do this, a person is going to feel extremely hard done by if you suddenly start asking for something in return.
This is because you have put at the heart of your relationship a willingness to do something for nothing, and people don’t like it when relationships change, especially ones they are happy with.
This of course makes altering one-sided relationships extremely difficult, because you’re gonna have to make that person change something they don’t want changed, which can be difficult. Impossible even. It can be really hard to even highlight that there needs to be change.
This is because all human relationships, whether they be friendship-based ones, romantic-based ones, family-based ones, workplace-based ones, whatever, are bound by one desire: to keep the peace.
If you know somebody doesn’t want to change the status quo of your relationship, then you will have to break the peace to change it.
Because it is so hard to do this, inevitably, escaping doing for nothing loops can be really difficult, something that people who wilfully take advantage of others use to their advantage.
Why is it so hard to break the peace to stop somebody taking advantage of you?
Imagine paying £20 a month for your phone contract, and believing that to be the fair value of the contract, but then out of the blue your phone company demands that you pay them £100 a month to keep the same terms, and they demand you pay them the deficit from the previous months as well as that was the rate you should always have been paying, how would you feel?
Perhaps aggrieved, but if you want the phone, you are probably going to pay the difference and keep the contract.
Now consider this, if you had the phone contract for only a few months, and the standard rate for a typical phone contract of the type you had taken out was £100 and not £20, how are you going to feel in comparison to if you had had the phone contract for a few years?
You’re probably going to cancel the contract rather than keep it, as you’re going to find it very difficult to suddenly pay £100 for something you have been paying £20 for for so long.
This is why it is so hard to break the peace and stop somebody from taking advantage of you. Normally, the advantage taking has built up over years, and just like that person who feels hard done by when the phone company has caught them out for getting something for far less than they should have been, that person you are challenging is gonna feel hard done by.
How could they not? For so long, they will have been getting something for very low cost that should have been costing a lot more, and they will have got so used to it that it will be hard for them to accept paying a lot more.
This is why it’s so important at the beginning of any relationship, whether it be a romantic-based one, a friendship-based one, a workplace-based one, whatever, that you set solid boundaries and make clear that if you’re going to give something, you expect something in return.
Even if that something is a thank you, you must make clear that it is expected, because if you don’t, you are massively increasing the effort required from you to break the peace and restore equilibrium.
To put it more bluntly, the longer you allow somebody to take advantage of you, the more you have to break the peace to stop them, which is why it can be so hard to break the peace to stop somebody taking advantage of you.
Final words
All in all, a good thing to remember is that you are worth just as much as everyone. The best people in your life to have are those who know this fact.
The Knowledge of Freedom 