The Nice Game
How Playing Small Steals Our Agency
I’m not sure I have ever been that nice. This is a blessing, not an admission of guilt. As I’ve shared in previous posts, I have felt myself shrink—my agency diminished—around others. My pattern is to exit (take flight) the situation. Sometimes that’s an okay reaction; still, it would serve me better to stay put with my agency intact.
The Nice Game often appears when we feel diminished or when we have a compulsive drive to please others.
A mentee of mine shared this experience and insight:
“I was at a family dinner when I caught myself doing it again—smiling, nodding, agreeing… even though every cell in my body wanted to speak up. I was playing The Nice Game. Later, driving home, I wondered: how many times have I silenced myself to keep the peace? To be nice? How many times have I given away my agency for the illusion of harmony?”
“Fear is the dark room where the devil takes you to develop your negatives.” I bring up fear because it so often fuels the Nice Game.
Common fears behind the Nice Game
We’re afraid to make others uncomfortable.
We’re afraid to make a fool of ourselves.
We’re afraid others may not like what we have to say.
We’re afraid of our own truth.
We’re afraid to say no.
We’re afraid to set boundaries.
We’re afraid that if we’re not “nice,” we’ll be alone.
Understanding the Nice Game
The Nice Game is the compulsion to be agreeable—to manage others’ comfort over our truth—and, at times, to “win” by pretending to be nice when we feel quite the opposite. It can arise from childhood conditioning, cultural pressures, and trauma patterns. If we continue playing, we lose authenticity, muffle our intuition, and diminish our agency.
We cannot make a lasting positive difference while playing the Nice Game.
Signs you might be caught in the Nice Game
Saying “yes” when your body says “no.”
Numbing anger because it feels “unacceptable.”
Managing others’ emotions before your own.
Leaving conversations wishing you had spoken up.
Pretending to agree when you don’t.
Overdoing for others at the expense of your well-being.
Building regret for an unlived life.
Struggling to set or keep boundaries.
Feeling angry a lot.
Performative niceness shows up in politics and power. House Speaker Mike Johnson often models how “playing nice” functions publicly.
The Link Between Fear, Fawning, and Trauma
Fawning is a trauma response: If I make myself pleasant, safe, invisible… I won’t be hurt. Fawning is a trauma response: If I make myself pleasant, safe, invisible… I won’t be hurt. Fawning can sound like: I’ll be nice so you’re not uncomfortable. In its extremes: I’ll be invisible; I will disappear so you’re not uncomfortable.
Many of us are living with ongoing stressors, and right now, the constant daily assault of threats and actions coming from the Trump regime compounds this. Each headline, each policy, each act of cruelty can feel like another hit to the nervous system. We are carrying more than our individual stories — we are holding a collective weight.
Under these conditions, our nervous systems get pulled again and again into fight, flight, freeze, or fawn (nice game). When these states become chronic, none of them serves us. We can’t always be fighting — or exiting. And yet, without awareness and support, we risk staying trapped in survival mode, disconnected from our agency and our ability to respond with clarity and strength.
Niceness vs. True Kindness
Niceness is a strategy; kindness is a practice.
Niceness is performed to avoid conflict or rejection. Kindness is engagement.
Niceness is motivated by fear; kindness is motivated by compassion.
Kindness is rooted in agency and honesty—sometimes it means setting boundaries or saying “no.”
When we’re stuck being “nice,” we work with a limited range of emotions—mostly fear and hidden anger. Our full emotional spectrum is off-limits, so we can’t tune into the psychophysical messages that help us be true to ourselves in the moment. Even our positive emotions get distorted. Playing the Nice Game makes our inner life monotone and covert.
To keep playing the Nice Game is to lose one’s identity—one’s sovereignty and agency. To fully step into our agency, the Nice Game has to go.
The Collective Consequences
In my view, we are all mentors to someone—and we each have an inner mentor. To be a viable mentor (to self and others), we cannot play the Nice Game. If we repress our anger, we repress our courage. Anger, acknowledged and directed, can lead us into courageous action.
We don’t want to encourage people to “play nice” when the stakes are high. Gavin Newsom, governor of California, offers an example of not playing nice, of speaking strongly and acting decisively without cruelty. And in my opinion, some Democratic leaders in the House are diminished by persistent niceness when speaking loudly and boundary-setting are needed.
Closing Call to Contemplative Action
We don’t reclaim our sovereignty by being nicer. We reclaim it by choosing honesty over appeasement, authenticity over performance—discomfort over comfort.
Let’s retire the Nice Game—not to become cruel, but to become real. Impactful.
Be strong.
Be noisy.
Be kind.
✍️ Writing Prompt
Write about a time when you played the Nice Game. What happened? What might you choose differently to rewrite that story?
🌀 Active Contemplation
Notice the next time you feel the pull to “be nice,” and pause to ask: Who am I trying to protect right now? Whose comfort am I prioritizing over my truth?
“The most radical act of rebellion today is to relearn how to dream and to fight for that dream.”- Nadya Tolokonnikova
Hi Julie, I love reading your insights, and still miss the old writing circles in Sauk. I have found a small writing group here in Baraboo just to keep my hand in and share stories.