DAY 6: PEOPLE PLEASING

Welcome to Day 6. Today we’re talking about people pleasing: why we do it, why it doesn’t serve you or the people you’re trying to please, and how to stop.

You people please when you want to manipulate someone’s perception of you. You want to manipulate someone’s perception of you when you think they’re better off being people-pleased and when you think you’re better off people-pleasing. This is an illusion. The truth is that when you are people pleasing, you are lying, and this helps no one.

You disrespect and invalidate yourself when you people please. You erode your relationship with yourself when you just do all of those “little things” that you don’t actually want to do but you do anyways because you’re trying to accommodate someone else so that they see you in a certain light. You’re chipping away at your relationship with yourself while trying to prop up this completely fabricated relationship with the person you’re trying to accommodate. Why would you want this? Because you think you’re preserving the relationship by doing this, and you’re trying to preserve the relationship because you don’t think you can be happy/secure/okay without that relationship. But I promise you that you are not preserving anything by people pleasing, and I promise you that there is not a single external relationship in your life that you cannot survive without.

You have to honor yourself enough to tell yourself the truth about what you’re doing in your life to accommodate other people AT YOUR OWN EXPENSE, and to decide otherwise.

You may be risking the relationship, but is it a relationship you really want to preserve if it’s based on whether or not you continue to accommodate and serve at your own expense? You have to ask yourself that question and answer it honestly.

When you’re trying to move away from people pleasing, you need to set boundaries WITH yourself, FOR yourself. Don’t overstep your own boundaries and abandon yourself and then act falsely pleasant towards others even though you’re resentful of them for being “the reason” you’re overstepping your own boundaries. Tell the truth: YOU are the one responsible for how you act, not anyone else. Take responsibility for this and let that liberate you and empower you to make more conscious choices about how you live your life.

What happens when we attempt to make others happy, living from the belief system that says that our actions affect other peoples’ happiness, is that we also expect and want other people to do things in order to make US happy. We sit around waiting for that to happen and get resentful, hurt, and angry when they don’t, even though they’ve done nothing wrong. We just think they have because we’ve delegated the job of our happiness to them, which was never going to work in the first place. We give away all of our personal power without a fight, and that is a tragedy. This reason alone should convince you that people pleasing is not the way to go, ever ever ever.

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The Work:

1. In what ways do you find yourself trying to accommodate others so that they think of you positively? Take stock of this for yourself. Examine the things you’re doing to attempt to make others happy.

2. What consequences are you afraid will happen if you don’t comply with your own ways of people pleasing these individuals? Why do these potential consequences make you so uncomfortable that you’re going to such great lengths to prevent them? How can you neutralize the threat in your mind of these consequences and in so doing give yourself space to opt out of being over-accommodating?

3. In what areas do you wish people would take responsibility for your emotions? How can you step up for yourself in this area instead, taking ownership for your own wellbeing and freeing other people from the expectation of taking care of your emotional wellbeing at the same time?

4. Make a plan: the next time you feel the urge to people please, what is your strategy? Will you take a breath before blurting out a promise to over-deliver far beyond what is necessary? Will you tell someone that you’ll get back to them in a couple of hours so that you can get in touch with yourself and decide whether or not you want to comply with a request? Will you practice saying “no“ quietly to yourself so that you feel safe saying “no” in conversation with others? Practice, make a plan, have your own back. You can do this.

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Tomorrow in Day 7 I’ll address the all-important topic of CONFIDENCE: where it comes from, why it matters, and how to get more of it. Stay tuned, my love!

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