About This Episode

This episode is about acquiring a healthy relationship between giving and receiving. Sometimes we give too much to everyone except ourselves. And here, we’ll look at how you can fill up your cup before helping others, how to stop the people-pleasing, and the importance to reconnect to your authentic self.

Here’s the thing, we cannot give and give and then expect to feel great. It is good to help people but from a full cup. Otherwise, we deplete ourselves and try to make ourselves feel better through others. And this does not work.

Anyone who uses others but does not give to themselves will not feel worthy. People pleasers and over-givers never feel worthy because they give too much. You have to be able to receive from yourself and others to feel empathy. You can give, but you need to be supported as well. When you have healthy boundaries, and a lot of support, and are checking with your intuition, you can help and serve others from a full cup. You won’t feel like an imposter because you feel that you are practising what you’re preaching.

People pleasers are known for doing whatever it takes to make other people happy. While being kind and helpful is generally a good thing, going too far to please others can leave you feeling emotionally depleted, stressed and anxious.

What is People Pleasing?

People pleasing involves putting someone else’s needs ahead of your own. People pleasers are highly attuned to others and are often seen as agreeable, helpful and kind. However, people-pleasers may have trouble advocating for themselves, leading to a harmful pattern of self-sacrifice or self-neglect.

There are several characteristics that people-pleasers tend to share. And here are some signs that you might be a people pleaser too.

Signs You Might Be A People-Pleaser

1. You have a difficult time saying “no”.
2. You are preoccupied with what other people might think you feel guilty about when you do not.
3. You feel guilty when you do tell people “No”.
4. You feel that turning people down will make them think you are mean or selfish.
5. You agree to things you don’t like or do something you don’t want to do.
6. You struggle with feelings of low self-esteem.
7. You want people to like you and feel that doing things for them will earn their approval.
8. You’re always telling people you’re sorry.
9. You take the blame, even when something isn’t your fault.
10. You never have any free time because you are always doing things for other people.
11. You neglect your own needs to do things for others, and you pretend to agree with people.

While people might often describe you as a giver or a generous person, all of this work to keep others happy usually leaves you feeling drained and stressed out. For you to stop people-pleasing, you need to know some of the reasons why you might be engaging in this kind of behaviour.

The Causes of People-Pleasing Behaviour

Lack of Self-Confidence

Sometimes people engage in people-pleasing behaviour because they don’t value their desires and needs. Due to a lack of self-confidence, people-pleasers need external validation. Indeed, they may feel that doing things for others will lead to approval and acceptance.

Insecurity

In other cases, you might be a people pleaser because you want people to like you if you’re insecure. Because you worried that if you don’t make other people happy, they won’t like you anymore.

Perfectionism

Next, if you are a perfectionist, sometimes you tend to please people because you want everything to be perfect.

Due to Past Trauma

And lastly, you might be a people pleaser because of your past experiences. Painful, challenging or traumatic experiences may also play a role. People who have experienced abuse, for example, may try to please others and be agreeable as much as possible to avoid triggering abusive behaviours in others.

You see, people-pleasing isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Being a constant and caring person is an important part of maintaining healthy relationships with loved ones. However, it becomes a problem if you’re trying to win approval to make up for your weak self-esteem. Or if you’re pursuing the happiness of others at the expense of your emotional well being.

The consequence of this is that while you might sometimes actually enjoy helping, you also might be experiencing frustration when doing things reluctantly or out of obligation. And this can lead to a cycle of helping someone, feeling mad at them for taking advantage and then feeling regretful or sorry for yourself. And then, the process continues over and over again.

Efforts to keep other people happy can also stretch your own physical and mental resources too thin. If you’re trying to manage everything, it can lead to stress and anxiety, affecting your health. Although helping other people can have several mental health benefits, leaving no time for yourself means that you end up experiencing negative health consequences, and you’ll have excessive stress.

People-pleasers will often hide their own need and preferences to accommodate other people. And this can make you feel as if you are not living your life authentically. And if you keep up doing like this, it may even leave you feeling as if you don’t know yourself at all. Hiding your true feelings also make it difficult for other people to get to know the real you. And it is essential in any close relationship, and it’s not something you can continue doing for the rest of your life. You will lose your authentic self.

Finding True Belonging

Lack of authenticity is one of the effects if you keep on people-pleasing. People-pleasers will often hide their own needs and preferences to accommodate other people. And this can make it feel as if you are not living your life authentically. And consequently, you feel like you don’t know yourself at all.

In her book, “Braving the Wilderness”, Dr Brene Brown describes,

“True belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world. And our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance”.

She describes in her book that being ourselves means having to find the courage to stand alone and alone. You may think that “belonging” requires something external to us, something we secured by showing up in a real way and needing an experience that involved others. But as she dug deeper into true belonging, she found that true belonging is not something we achieve or accomplish with others. It’s something we carry in our hearts. Once we belong thoroughly to ourselves and believe thoroughly in ourselves, true belonging is ours. Therefore, although you think that you might be people-pleasing to belong to a particular group, membership or specific society, true belonging is what you carry in your heart and can only be achieved if you find the courage to stand alone. So again, true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world. And also, the sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-confidence.

Keys to Stop People-Pleasing

Fortunately, there are some steps that you can take to stop being a people pleaser and learn how to balance your desire to make others happy, without sacrifice without sacrificing your own. Some key actions that you can take include the following:

1) Establishing Boundaries

It’s important to know your limits and establish clear boundaries and then communicate those limits. Ask yourself,

Did I respect my own boundary?

Was I clear about what’s okay and what’s not okay?

You might also explain that you are only available for a specified time. And this can be helpful because it ensures that you have control now. Not only what you are willing to do, but also when you are willing to do it.

2) Start Small

It can be hard to make sudden changes. Meaning that if you have had these behavioural patterns, it can be challenging to change. In many cases, you not only have to retrain yourself, but you also have to work on teaching the people around you to understand your limits. Therefore, it can be helpful to start taking small steps that help you work your way to being less of a people pleaser. Start by saying no to more minor requests. Try to express your opinion about something small or ask for something that you need.

3) Set Your Goals & Priorities

You also have to set your goals and priorities. Consider this:

Where do you want to spend your time?

Who do you want to help?

What goals are you trying to accomplish?

Knowing your priorities can help you determine whether or not you have the time and energy to devote to something in your life. If something is taking your energy and time too much, take steps to address the problem, set boundaries, and say no to things you don’t want to do. And you’ll find that you have more time to devote to things that are important to you.

4) People Taking Advantage

Another step toward overcoming being a people-pleaser is to look for signs that other people are trying to take advantage of your generosity. Other people always seem to want something for you but are suddenly unavailable if you need them to return the favour. If it feels like you are being manipulated into doing things, take some time to assess the situation and decide how to handle the requests.

5) Give and Take

You also have to remember that relationships require us to give and take. A strong healthy relationship involves a certain degree of giving and take. If one person is always giving and the other is always taking, it often means that one person needs to ensure that the other person has what they want.

6) The Intention

You don’t need to give up being kind and thoughtful. Those are desirable qualities that can contribute to a strong, lasting relationship with others. But the key here is to examine your motivations and intentions. Don’t do things only because you fear rejection or want to gain the approval of others. You can keep doing good things but on your terms. Kindness doesn’t demand attention or rewards. It simply requires a desire to make things better for another person.

7) Get Help

Lastly, if being a people pleaser makes it difficult for you to pursue your happiness, pursue your own goals, and pursue whatever things you want to do in your life, it’s important to find ways to set boundaries and take back your own time. Remember that you cannot please everyone if people-pleasing is something that you want to work on. You can also talk to me; I have a free Discovery Call for 30 minutes. We’ll go through things that you can do to help you manage your time, attention and energy and set goals and priorities so that you have the plans and concrete action steps to take you from what you are feeling right now to what you dream of being.

Over to You

Some of the ways to also reflect on whether you are a people pleaser ask yourself these questions:

Do you have resistance or laziness when it comes to doing things that are just for you or doing something outside the realm of your typical day-to-day activities?

Did you grow up in a house where you do didn’t feel seen?

Do you often dread doing something because you’re afraid you’re going to disappoint other people?

When it comes to serving others, are you doing it because you feel good or because that’s the way you live yourself?

In short, you have to receive from yourself and others that you can help and give, but you need to be supported. And remember that instead of judging and analysing yourself, observe yourself naturally and connect with your intuition and stop people-pleasing and make your life priorities starting now.

If you like this episode, check out this next: “How to Implement Daily Self-Care”.

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