Is life hard for you? On the surface you look calm and serene while underneath you’re paddling for dear life, turning yourself inside out trying to keep everyone happy and not sure you can keep it up. Do you try to be really friendly, helpful and supportive of others, always the one who says, “I’ll do the dishes”? Are you the person everyone relies on because they know you will put up your hand to volunteer?
Many people think you’re terrific. You’re such a nice person: always organised, so dependable. But despite this, are you exhausted, fearful that if you don’t keep it up, you won’t be good enough or people won’t like you? Do you feel guilty if you don’t volunteer your time or do the extra work? Do you find it almost impossible to say no?
You may notice that not only do you want people to like you, it’s also very important that they approve of you: your haircut, your new dress, how you have done your work. When you don’t get that approval, it’s awful. You feel rejected and not good enough.
If this sounds familiar, it may be that you’re a people pleaser. Clinical psychologist Dr Anna-Marie Taylor says your fearful reactions are a good way to tell if you fit this mould: “If you often feel fear, anxiety or agitation around a lot of people and feel a sense that you want to do what they say, then chances are you are a people pleaser.”
Where does it start?
Childhood experiences almost always play a part in how people behave as adults. “People pleasers often have experienced a lack of loving attention from their parents or have come out of environments that have been physically, emotionally or sexually abusive,” says Dr Taylor.
Physical and sexual abuse is readily understood but there are other more subtle ways in which a child’s confidence and self-trust can be undermined. Sometimes parents say and do things without realising the effect it is having on the child.
It may be as simple as a parent frequently saying “Don’t be stupid” or “I’m disappointed in you” and the child learns to believe that they have to try harder to be acceptable and lovable. Life is busy and if parents are unable to effectively balance work and family, some children learn that the only way to receive love and approval is to get attention by being very good.
Sadly, for others, abuse is a part of their childhood and a lack of self-esteem and confidence are often the outcome. “As a result of their experiences,” says Dr Taylor, “these people lack the confidence to trust their own feelings, intuitions and thoughts and look to other people to validate them.”
Costs of being a people pleaser
When you invest an enormous amount of energy in pleasing other people, what is left for yourself? You expend physical energy trying to meet the commitments you have made and there is also an emotional cost to you as you go through life feeling unable to say no. People pleasers find that their own physical and emotional needs are not met because they usually put everyone else before themselves.
Feelings of guilt may be something you are familiar with, or you may just feel very uncomfortable if you are not making sure that everyone else is all right or saying, “I’ll do it”. The things learnt in childhood often continue to affect behaviour in adult life. If you were brought up to be a “good” girl or boy, to please or look after others and not yourself, then chances are you are still doing that today.
The fear of having someone disapprove of you is why feelings of guilt prevent you repeating displeasing behaviour. This is why you may feel guilty when you do try to say no. “People pleasers keep putting aside their own thoughts, wishes and feelings and put other people ahead of themselves and their own needs,” says Dr Taylor. “They keep reinforcing that sense of ‘I am not important’ in how they treat themselves.”
Look after yourself
You are the best person to treat yourself well. We all love to be a little spoilt by someone we love, to feel nurtured and cherished, but you are the only one who can take care of the essential you.
Only you know when you are tired, hungry or overwhelmed. Unfortunately, because of how you learnt to behave as a child, you may not only ignore these messages, you may not even be aware of them. “Our unconscious messages — non-verbal behaviour, tone of voice or stance — all signal to other people how we feel about ourselves and other people may use that as a guide to how they treat you,” says Dr Taylor. Putting yourself second to other people could lead to them treating you as if you don’t matter, and even to bullying in the workplace, at school and relationships.
Bullying is well recognised as a problem across society today. If you are treating yourself as less important, some people may take advantage of it. You may find yourself excluded from some activities or have greater demands made of you. This could also occur within a relationship where you find that your partner does not consider your needs and feelings or give you the approval you crave, leading you to try even harder to please.
The feelings that you may have deep inside, the ones that make you feel bad, that you hide and don’t acknowledge, are also an emotional cost to you. “It’s almost inevitable that a people pleaser will experience feelings of anger and resentment towards other people,” Dr Taylor says. When you put in so much effort, you may wonder why other people are not helping. You are so tired but still feel compelled to take on more; why don’t others check to see if you’re OK? Why doesn’t someone realise how tired you are and take care of you? According to Dr Taylor, you’ll get angry because you don’t realise that the driver for your behaviour is coming from within you, not from the demands of other people.
Dr Taylor also identifies strong feelings of frustration as you try to fill that need for approval within yourself but, she says, “You’ll never get enough approval from other people to fill that gap inside; it has to come from within yourself.”
Learning how to make different choices is a part of changing people-pleasing behaviour. Developing self-esteem, confidence and an understanding of emotional boundaries will all give you the tools to start to make different choices.
Emotional boundaries
What are emotional boundaries? The Macquarie Concise Dictionary defines a boundary as “something that indicates bounds or limits; a limiting or bounding line”. Sounds fairly commonsense, but when you grow up in a home without learning effective boundaries, how do you know where to draw the line?
If you’re a people pleaser, you won’t know where to draw that line. Dr Taylor says that when you try hard to please others, it usually means you don’t set limits for yourself. It could be not setting limits on doing extra hours at work and as a result your family time is reduced and you feel resentful — even though you agreed to take on the workload.
You may be on a committee that is doing a fundraiser. You volunteer to make more cakes even though your weekend is already committed and you end up staying up until 2am to finish the cakes. You feel tired and angry; your weekend is ruined because you’re too tired to enjoy it. You’re trying to keep everyone happy and sometimes you also try to fix it when someone else is unhappy.
You feel guilty and anxious when you are around someone who is not in a good mood. You may question yourself and be concerned that you are the cause of their unhappiness. It may be that they had a fight with their partner, lost their keys or just woke up tired and grumpy. Yet you find their unhappiness extremely uncomfortable and, because their approval is so important, tend think that they’re unhappy with you for some reason. You try hard to fix it and make them feel better, causing yourself further anxiety and distress.
Healthy emotional boundaries mean that people are able to ask themselves if they are responsible for what is happening to another person. If the answer is no, they can allow that person to take responsibility for their own feelings. When a person with healthy boundaries is asked to do something, they are able to say no if they don’t feel they can, without feeling guilty or responsible for the other person’s happiness.
Strategies for change
A good starting point for healing your people-pleasing ways is recognising that you are a people pleaser. The way you learnt to do things as a child does not mean it’s necessary for you to continue to do things the same way in adult life. This realisation is the first step towards change.
Sometimes, however, it’s difficult to see what actions are causing you distress. How do you recognise your unconscious behaviour, the things you do without even realising that you are doing them? You may have acknowledged something is not right but how do you go about fixing it?
“It’s like a computer,” Dr Taylor says. “You know there’s something wrong on the screen but don’t know how to fix it. You need to find out how to get into the operating system to fix the problem or find someone who does know.”
Dr Taylor provides a list of strategies as a place to start making change. She says it’s important to do things that show that you value yourself, including:
- Notice when you’re tired.
- Take small breaks.
- Eat when you’re hungry and on a regular basis.
- Go to the toilet when you need to.
- Get enough rest.
- Get enough exercise.
- Identify the things you like to do and start making time to do them.
- Treat yourself the same way you would treat your best friend.
Learning how to say no to other people is also an important step and Dr Taylor makes the following suggestions:
- Practise saying the word “no”. Stand in front of the mirror and say it to yourself.
- When you’re asked to do something, instead of immediately responding “Yes” say, “Let me think about it”. This will give you time and space to decide if you really want to do it.
- Go away and do a pros and cons list.
- Ask a friend for their input.
These strategies will help you build your self-esteem and trust yourself and by practising them you will start to make changes to your unconscious behaviour. “Acting as if you’re more important will help you to believe you’re more important,” says Dr Taylor.
Learning to be more assertive around people is another useful strategy. Developing assertiveness skills will help build the confidence to say no and teach you how to ask for the things that you want. This may include asking for assistance or even advising someone you are no longer available to do certain work. Assertiveness training courses are often available through local health centres or can be found on the internet.
It will take time to make changes but the small, baby steps you take every day will help you to move toward a bigger, overall change.
“Change happens slowly,” says Dr Taylor, “but if the self-help tools are not working, don’t get disheartened — get help.”
Nanette Irvine is a retired psychologist and a freelance writer with an interest in self-development. Email her at nirvine54@hotmail.com.
