Being a people-pleaser and how to change it
Do you look after everyone’s around you happiness? Do you put others’ needs above yours? Try to avoid conflicts at all times? Do you crave compliments and cannot stand criticism?
Well nice to meet you, I am a people pleaser myself.
You will think, what’s wrong with being positive & nice to everyone? As long as you are conscious of that, it’s all fine. However, once it becomes an addiction, there are several cons of living a life as a people-pleaser.
From my personal experience, I can tell, that sometimes pleasing others and living up to their expectations might be an as necessary part of your daily life as simply breathing the oxygen.
And that’s when it’s time to reflect on your daily choices and actions.
Start by saying ‘no’
Rejecting even the tiniest favours will help you to develop a character and confidence in being able to choose what do you want. By this, I don’t mean that you should become a “mean girl” (or a guy) and start rejecting everything. Start by simply asking yourself if you want to do one and or another, and if you don’t fancy it, you shall not come up with excuses, just politely say ‘no’.
Know your priorities
Just by simply evaluating the energy and efforts you allocate every day might help you to have more time for yourself and for people you truly care about.
Repeat after me ‘I matter’
I just want to tell you, YOU MATTER. Your opinion matters, your dreams and personality matter. You don’t need outside validation to know that. You don’t need others approval to feel worthy. Express that self-love freely!
Understand that you are not responsible for everyone
Realising that every person has different needs and experiences they hold can help you a lot. It’s simply useless to keep adapting your approach specifically to every single person you meet. Stick to your values and future goals, to save time on helping yourself out in the first place.
Concluding, truly wanting to cheer others up and provide help are tremendous personality traits, do not feel embarrassed about being a nice person. However, knowing your limits and boundaries once it comes to realising others’ needs, might be very useful to have a balanced lifestyle between serving other human beings and looking after yourself at the same time.
People pleasing is a learned behaviour. The good news is that we can unlearn it.
Learn to express your needs and wishes out loud. It will make such a huge difference between being a push-over and a strong individual in terms of pleasing people.
Truly Yours
P.S. People pleasing topic is closely related to the previous topics I have discussed a while ago. Check them out ;)
https://medium.com/@aistkurkulyt/i-have-something-important-to-tell-you-ef71a36ede70
Adapted from Newman, S. (2017). The Book of No: 365 Ways to Say it and Mean it―and Stop People-Pleasing Forever. New York: Turner publishing company.