At the 2007 Grammy awards The Dixie Chicks song "I'm Not Ready to Make Nice" won the Grammy for best song.

The storm of controversy that spawned the song is known to many. The hottest selling female country band in music history, the Dixie Chicks, got knocked off a lot of radio stations and suffered significant financial losses when one of them expressed a political viewpoint during a London concert in 2003. Whether you agree with them or not, isn't what I want to focus on in this article.

As the Dixie Chicks worked their way out of the controversy, they wrote an award-winning, powerful song that can be a great guide for all of us.

"I'm not ready to make nice. I'm not ready to back down...I don't have time to go round and round and round...I've paid a price and I'll keep paying... I can't bring myself to do what it is you think I should."

That last line is the key to living your life from a place of freedom, peace and joy. If you try to live your life to please others, or to do what they think you should, you'll never be happy or fulfill your dreams.

People will find all sorts of ways to try to manipulate you into doing things their way. They will give you gifts, promotions, raises, love (well not really, but they say they will), housing, food, and validation. They will act pouty, whiney, controlling, angry or aloof to try to get you to do things their way. And all you have to do is give in, speak, act and do it their way. All you have to do is sell your soul!

Am I being dramatic? Not really. When you live your life by someone else's standards and wishes, you aren't living it according to what feels great for you. And you will never be happy under those circumstances. And it's your life!

As women, many of us were raised to be nice little girls. We were taught that being people pleasers had benefits. After all most of us had moms and dads who validated, rewarded and loved us when we were good.

And that might have been okay when we were small, since we couldn't survive without mom and dad, but now as women it's not good for us.

I'm not implying that you need to be nasty. Kind and firm are appropriate and a great guide for living your life, especially combined with humble and loving.

But if you think that you need people to like you more than you need to honor yourself, then you'll be stuck living your life the way others think you should.

The cost of being nice, of pleasing others, is giving up your dreams, desires, choices, freedom and your joy of life. It might keep you from asking for a raise, taking a dream vacation, living in a favorite city, driving a fun car, having children, or getting an education - just to mention a few things you might sacrifice by being nice and pleasing others.

Other than never making you happy, there's a bigger problem to the nice scenario.

People who want you to do things their way, who want you to make them happy, don't really care about you. They only care about their own feelings and needs. They make terrible partners, friends, co-workers or bosses.

They care about themselves, at your expense. And it's up to you to see the truth about them. They are in the relationship for what they can get out of it, not what they can put into it.

If you stay, you will wake up one day and realize how empty you are. You will realize that you don't know who you are, that you lost yourself.

So do yourself a favor, find a partner, friend or boss who also cares about you. Someone who doesn't manipulate you with gifts, praise, supposed love and other things to get their way.

Find a partner who doesn't get pouty, whiney, controlling, angry or aloof to manipulate you into doing things their way. Especially when it's something you really don't want to do, and know it's not good for you, or doesn't feel right for you.

As the Dixie Chicks learned, there is often a price to be paid for speaking your opinion, your truth. But the price of being nice is far greater than any price you might pay for being true to yourself. Selling your soul to get material or other perceived gains, isn't what your came here to do or be. You came here to live an authentic life. You came here to thrive. You can't thrive when you turn against yourself.

Choose to not back down. Choose not to make nice. Choose to be kind, firm, humble and loving. Choose to listen to your heart. Choose to trust that God Source Creation has great people lined up for you if you make room for them, then trust and stay positive.

Imagine the possibilities...

(c) Carol C. Chanel http://www.carolchanel.com