How to cope when you're a people pleaser

People-pleasing occurs when we consistently put other people before ourselves. Often people who identify in this way have trouble saying ‘no’ to others, asserting their own opinions, want to avoid conflict at all costs and may put themselves down around others.

Over time people-pleasers often feel resentment and exhaustion, because relationships need to feel relatively equal to thrive.

Sadly, if you are people-pleaser you will often attract others who are used to taking. You may fall into a self-fulfilling prophecy where you are always the ‘giver’ and are surrounded by ‘takers’.

Here are three steps to work on to start to overcome this behaviour:

Step One: Work out where this behaviour originated.

Often this behaviour can develop in children who have sensitive temperaments who are very attuned to how other people are in their family of origin. Think about in what relationships you needed to be cautious of someone else’s mood or causing a fuss growing up? What would happen if they got angry at you? What was it like to say ‘no’ to your caregivers? Were you worried for your physical or emotional safety? Were you worried you’d be left? Would you be given the silent treatment if you weren’t being a ‘good kid’?

Step Two: Listen to your anger.

Is there a part of you that feels angry when this happens? If you’re like most people pleasers, you’ll often feel exhausted, drained, under-appreciated and resentful in some of your interpersonal relationships.

You probably bottle this up to keep the peace. Don’t.  Anger is a signal and it’s telling you that things are not close to being equal. Anger important emotion to tell us if things feel unfair or unbalanced. It is necessarily to have healthy relationships.

Step Three: Start to identify and assert your own preferences and opinions.

Ask yourself ‘If I knew everyone would be fine with whatever I said right now, what would I say? What would I choose?’. Start to be more true to yourself and have less of a gap between what you tell people and how you really feel.

Photo by Jacqueline Munguía on Unsplash