As human beings, we are naturally inclined to want to make others feel like they belong and also feel a sense of belonging within ourselves. To be kind to and help others with their affairs. Although our intentions are pure, we may have a habit of  putting our boundaries and values on the line. We may often sacrifice ourselves to get praise, love, attention and other intentions from people. Somewhere along our lives, this became a programmed habit.

Today, let’s discover together how we can stop playing small and step up our communication skills.

What is meant by “people pleasing”?

A people pleaser is often someone who always helps and is kind to everyone, often neglecting their own values, boundaries, wants and needs. They are the people who are the first to help someone move, take on extra workload without saying no and listen to anyone’s problems at any hour of the night. They might feel like that work project is already too much for them or that they are sleepy and need to get up for work, but are scared to reject the offer of helping. Deep inside, they put away their own values automatically, often without reflecting on beforehand about the possible side effects.

10 signs that you are a people pleaser

1. You put yourself aside all of the time for literally      EVERYONE

 Yes, even strangers. This can go to the point of even forgetting your own morals or values around people and always agreeing with whatever they bring in the conversation. You may even go to great lengths to avoid conflict or arguments like this.

2. Not being able to say no to anyone

An example of this is when your friends ask to meet up, you immediately say yes, even if you have something special planned that day, you postpone it. In my own personal experience, I still do this to this day. While I tell myself to try to write for my blog for 2 hours a day, which is a prioritized task, anytime a friend or a family member would ask me to do go out, I would immediately say yes and go with them. Afterwards, I always get this sense of guilt and start to self-criticize.

3. You have a hard time putting boundaries or maintaining them

Maybe you ARE good at communicating your boundaries to others, but maintaining them and staying disciplined with them might be difficult for you.

4. Not asking for help when needed & trying to do everything by yourself

You don’t want people to think that you can’t do anything by yourself and feel ashamed to ask help outside of yourself.

5. Always apologizing to everyone

Most of the time, even apologizing for things you didn’t do or in situation/ to people that don’t need an apology. For example spending hours in the kitchen perfecting your husband’s favorite dish and when you serve it to him, and he takes his first bite, you say: “I’m sorry if you don’t like it.”

6. Feeling overly responsible to make others feel comfortable and sacrificing your own comfort

This can manifest itself when meeting up with a toxic person. You might try to please or adapt yourself to the things they are saying in a conversation to feel like you belong or to feel like someone actually listens to you for the first time in a long time. Although you don’t feel comfortable with this person, you still manage to keep the conversation going.

7. Being afraid to reject others wishes 

Examples are: a stranger on the street who begs to you for money or your friend that wants to convince you of taking on that new language class that they’ve been wanting to do for years.

8. Minimizing or hiding needs from others

You may minimise or hide our needs behind care and consideration for others. For example: waiting for the other person to leave the restaurant while you wanted to go home earlier and you ask them: “do you have to go somewhere?” to give them hints to go home so that you can leave or even forming up a lie to get out of the situation instead of saying the truth about how you feel.

9. Often feeling the urge to sleep

You want to take naps often. You feel like you are walking around with depleted energy most of the time that doesn’t fully go away with sleeping. You feel drained more than others after meeting up with anyone or coming back from work.

10. Overexplaining yourself & seeking validation

When you make a certain decision, whether big or small, in life, you explain in details why you made that decision, who is going to be affected by it, trying to reconcile and get others to agree with your ideas and goals. You might do this to seek validation and permission from others.

But… How did I become like this? How do I change the narrative?

How did I become like this?

A lifetime of prioritizing others can bring about physical symptoms such as frequent burn outs, low self-esteem & hating yourself every time you go beyond your boundaries for others, feeling misunderstood and making yourself overly busy, trying to find relief.

Often, people-pleasing habits are rooted in our innermost fears. It may have developed from certain events in your life such as childhood trauma, abuse, bullying, family dysfunction and so on. This habit served well as a coping mechanism or a survival strategy to deal with the dread of abandonment, rejection, shame and the fear of not belonging. You needed to feel safe, to feel like you belong somewhere. It might be that the reason you cultivated people-pleasing is because the trauma taught you that pleasing others minimized angry outburst and threatening situations, so you felt safer pleasing others than yourself.

I found an amazing wording on tumblr that narrows it down in light of childhood trauma:

“Children who feel they cannot engage their parents emotionally often try to strengthen their connection by playing whatever roles they believe their parents want them to. Although this may win them some fleeting approval, it doesn’t yield genuine emotional closeness. Emotionally disconnected parents don’t suddenly develop a capacity for empathy just because a child does something to please them. People who lacked emotional engagement in childhood, men and women alike, often can’t believe that someone would want to have a relationship with them just because of who they are. They believe that if they want closeness, they must play a role that always puts the other person first.”

How can I change the narrative?

If you want to learn to deal with the habit of always pleasing others and constantly putting yourself aside, it is essential to sit with the discomfort instead of reacting. Let me explain: The next time you want to say “no” to a meeting with your friend because you need alone time, and you feel guilty for canceling so you’re thinking about reconsidering it, try to say “no” anyways, without overexplaining. Write or say a short, to-the-point response such as: “I’m sorry, I can’t meet up with you. I need some alone time.” Afterwards, know that it is normal to feel uncomfortable. You were never taught to put boundaries, so this may take some practice.

That feeling of discomfort might come from:

-  The fear of others not being happy with us

-  The realization that other’s happiness isn’t our responsibility anymore and that only our own happiness is

-  Setting boundaries, prioritizing yourself for the first time & having difficult conversations where you have to show your feelings

-  Not being the one who jumps in the second they ask for help anymore, giving them room to handle their own problems by themselves