Why Stop People Pleasing
Perhaps you’re thinking to yourself, why would I want to stop people pleasing? As mentioned in my previous post, “Are You A People Pleaser?”, one of the signs of being a people pleaser is feeling resentment. And my question to you would be, why would you want to continue to feel resentment? This is one of the reasons to stop people pleasing; here are some others.
~ To Decrease Your Anxiety and Stress
There’s a lot of anxiety involved when you’re doing things for people’s approval. Because people can be fickle, their approval comes and goes based on their mood, not necessarily what you do or don’t do. It’s also hard to please people if their opinions differ from each other, which creates even more anxiety because you can’t please everyone.
~ To be Authentic
If you are afraid to speak up, you are hiding your true self from others. They may make assumption of who you are when in fact, you are not be this person. This prevents genuine connection with others as you put on a mask to hide yourself. Doing this long enough can lead to confusion of who you really are and your identity.
~ To Improve Your Self-Esteem
It may sound contrary but when you stop people pleasing, you stop relying on the validation and approval of others. You’re allowing yourself to find out who your true friends are and they are the ones who like you for you and not what you can do for them.
How to Stop People Pleasing
Breaking the cycle of people pleasing behavior can take time and be difficult. Underlying issues may arise that need to be address with a professional therapist. In the meantime, here are some strategies to stop being a people pleaser.
~ Increase Self Awareness
I tell my clients, awareness is the beginning of change. If you’re not aware, then you don’t know what to change. But if you become aware, you can start to get to work. You can begin to look at what triggers you and try to understand what motivates you to people please. Are there certain situations where you tend to people please? Do those that you try to please have certain common traits? Etc.
~ Give Yourself Space
This mean before you agree or disagree to anything, give yourself time and space to think about what you really want to do. Space allows you to ask yourself if you are acting from external reasons or internal reasons. Are you agreeing to avoid conflict, receive approval or because you want to. A reply to requests can be, I’ll get back to you. After you’ve thought about it and decided, you can let them know. You must get back to them and not ghost them in order to stop the people pleasing behavior.
~ Start Small
You can start with saying no to small things and gradually work your way up to bigger things. For example, if you don’t want to get Italian for dinner, you can say no and suggest other options. As you build your confidence in saying no, you can move on to bigger thing. Like saying no to people who ask you for money or to coworkers that ask you to do their job duties.
~ Seek Professional Help.
Sometimes it’s necessary to seek the guidance of a therapist. Therapy can often uncover underlying issues that may be making it difficult to stop being a people pleaser. It’s not uncommon to uncover some sort of trauma associated with this type of behavior.