People Pleasing
Do you feel mentally, emotionally, even physically safer when those around you are happy?
What it is:
People pleasing is:
Feeling compelled to give more than you receive in relationships
A default inner question of “what can I do to make the people around me happy?”
A pattern where you establish yourself as the giver, don’t ask much back, and others accept that arrangement, often without thinking
The Cause:
Coming from an unstable home environment. For example perhaps you had a parent/caretaker who was an alcoholic or who “regularly came home in an angry mood”
Growing up feeling like “I never knew which version of my father/mother would show up,” and learning early that pleasing the adult could help avoid getting hurt
A healthy adaptation at first that becomes a default adult relationship style. How a child learns to relate to the people around them becomes how an adult relates to the people around them, because turning 18 doesn’t automatically change our underlying beliefs
The Cost:
People-pleasing tends to create inequality in relationships. You may think ‘I give so much to others and they give so little in return, when is it gonna be my turn?’
In the workplace it often means more work for not a lot of pay, difficulty saying no, and being liable to burn out more quickly. You may be less likely to ask for raises or promotions
Long-term it can leave someone depressed, anxious, and resentful. You could feel like the sad clown: smiling on the outside while crying on the inside
The Way Out:
My mentor once said “when you first set boundaries with people, expect it to get worse before it gets better”
Often the people who got used to it being the way they wanted with you will push back hard. They expect you to fold and go back to their vision of how things should be. The challenge is to force your way through the discomfort and stick to the boundary
Yet more often than we think, people will quickly accept the renegotiated boundaries more easily than we expected. This will help teach you that this work can indeed be done
Either way, sticking to your boundaries shows people that things have changed and that they need to adapt to the new arrangement