It's like that well-known phrase about unstoppable force that meets an immovable object since this can tell us so much that the immovable object will prevail over the forces acted upon it.

Much like that resolute object, we need to be more emotionally available but also more determined. More goal-oriented and focused on our own needs and priorities.

The time has long since passed for being that nervous Nellie who constantly apologizes for things they clearly can't control. In fairness, we all do it.

In fact, it used to be me

Once, I was notoriously walking to school with my friend and a runner ran into her, and somehow in the kerfuffle, I was the one to apologize. I wasn't even relevant to the collision!

This compulsion that everyone – but primarily young women – feel to express apologies in the workplace and public is very telling for a number of reasons.

Primarily, it speaks to a desire to be a people pleaser. To make sure that you can be hospitable and compassionate to your fellow man. In principle, this is great.

However, being the person that constantly has to think about other people above your own needs means that you're living someone else's life in place of your own. But you don't realize until it's too late or when you've already wasted so much time.

Let me be the person today to tell you to stop this!

It's very generous but not necessarily coming from a place of absolute morality. We all want to be loved and liked and validated, after all, and there's a big impulse to cash in on that in making big gestures for people.

If you're always available to be someone's errand boy, you will find that people will either think you're a little artificial or bland, or they will take you for granted. But it won't occur to you to feel resentment, yet it can cause a toxic circle within a friendship.

All relationships and social transactions should be surrounded by a balanced, equal, healthy, and symmetrical relationship. It's all about the give and take. It's one thing for you to be constantly on your phone at their beck and call, but they will not likely be there for you in the same way.

Don't apologize for this, but also, I wouldn't continue these habits

You will start to overcommit and promise things that you either can't control or end up killing yourself while trying to put your promises into action. Neither are workable outcomes and in order to stop breaking your word, you have to stop trying to please everyone.

Take a step back. Don't perform what someone wants to see in another person. We all need conflict. Don't break the bonds of friendship by trying to be a robot or the perfect person.

That's not the person that your friend wants. They want you to be you! You're sacrificing yourself and writing a new personality, breaking the number one rule.

Be yourself!

If you aren't yourself in a relationship, you will never express your own opinions or needs, and therefore you will never have them met. Your thoughts will never be heard. You will break the most sacred of bonds – the one to yourself.

You owe it to yourself to be firm with people. Don't apologize for who you are and don't cover your interests up behind the façade of someone else.

Don't be afraid to be unexpected or unpredictable, or unreachable. Do what you want to do, and stick to your guns. Doing what other people think you will do is boring, anyway.

You have to prioritize yourself by being unapologetically you, uninterrupted

This will ensure that you don't' accidentally break people's hearts by pretending to be someone you're not or breaching their trust because you spilled their secrets to a person whose validation you wanted.

Trying to impress one person will always come at the expense of another, likely, yourself. Making connections under pretenses will only cause you to break your promise to yourself: to be true to your own interests.

Don't waste people's time and make sure that you never apologize for being you. Don't hide behind someone else, and embrace who you truly are. A strong, powerful, interesting human being.