Are you a people pleaser?
Do people consider you to be a shoulder to cry on? Are you always there in times of crisis? Perhaps you spend every day avoiding conflict and trying not to let people down.
Does this make you happy?
If you are feeling frustrated about your current situation, you may have fallen into a People Pleasing Trap. A place that feels like it may be filled with hope but, once entered, you quickly become desperate to escape.
It can feel so disheartening when you spend your day lightening the load for others to find your own emotional and physical load overwhelming. Perhaps you are getting to the point where you are fed up of putting everything in to get nothing back in return. It’s ok to feel frustrated; this is a little alarm bell telling you that your needs are being ignored.
It can feel hard to consider your own needs without feeling selfish sometimes, particularly when your own needs have been neglected for so long. It can feel hard to let others help you, even when you do need it. As a people pleaser, you are happy when others are happy but when you are so reliant on the happiness of others, eventually you can become disheartened.
There are three distinct type of people pleaser. Have a read and find out which one you are:
The Supporter
You are the strong one, everyone’s rock and super hero. You are skilled at staying calm in a crisis but find it very difficult to ask for anything in return; in fact, you pride yourself on how little you need from others. You hate people fussing. Delegation is something you find difficult; it feels selfish to put yourself first. At some point in your life you decided that all you needed to feel content, was for everyone else to be happy. That’s true altruism right?
Unfortunately, in reality, you can’t please everyone and people just aren’t happy all of the time. That’s not a bad thing either: a world without discontent would be one with no desire for positive change. Despite this, making people happy is what drives you and the more you strive for this impossible target and fail, the more your self esteem suffers. You berate yourself, convinced that you will succeed if you do better or work harder. This cycle repeats itself until you grind yourself down into an emotional well of frustration.
The Reserve
Why is it that, even though you dedicate every day supporting, motivating and encouraging the other players on your team, you are repeatedly left on the bench come match day? It’s because you have found yourself in the unfortunate role of ‘The Reserve’. While you make it a daily mission to show kindness to your friends, offer to organise the birthday collection for every member of the office and your shoulder is wet from everyone’s tears, the time you need a friend is the time everyone seems too busy.
You can feel unappreciated and like you are on the outside of a selfish world looking in. This in itself feels unpleasant but the uncomfortable feeling is made worse if part of you thinks it is your fault. You often ask yourself ‘What am I doing wrong?’ This feeling of ‘not being good enough’ drives you to people please once again, in the hope that this time things will be different. They rarely are.
The Super Fan
You play Liam Gallagher’s new album in the car, when you actual prefer Beyonce. Your friends tell you they love camping, you dash straight to Mountain Warehouse to purchase a new tent and wellies, even though you hate the great outdoors. Eventually, you find yourself stood in the middle of a soggy field at Glastonbury, muddy and miserable, questioning why you were made to go there in the first place.
You like to be part of the crowd and to feel included. At times this is so important that you will bend over backwards to make this happen. You are agreeable to everyone and consider yourself to be a ‘yes’ person. However, the people pleasing takes over when you begin to outwardly agree with people, even when deep down you actually don’t. You start doing things for others even when you have little time or inclination to do it. This act of self denial can leave you feeling angry.
When you are so good at fitting in, the people around you don’t even realise that you have lost yourself. They can’t see your unhappiness; they are now so used to seeing the laid back friend who doesn't want anything. To them, you are just that easy-going person who doesn’t need much to feel happy. So, ‘not much’, is exactly what you end up with.
So why do it?
You probably learnt the benefits of people pleasing at a young age because it would have been either beneficial or essential. A role developed at an early age, you realised that if you were ‘well behaved’, ‘socially adaptable’ or ‘helpful’, you received a greater level of love and acceptance from those who you relied upon.
Alternatively, however, you may have come to realise that if you were considered to be ‘selfish’ or ‘attention seeking’ you were chastised or shamed. As a result, you began to deny your needs and pressed the mute button on your true self permanently. The need to people please is hardwired into your very being.
Why change now?
Now, as an adult, you habitually accept poor treatment from others, fearing that you will be rejected or abandoned by others in the same way you felt abandoned and rejected in the past. While it feels like you are protecting yourself, you are placing your happiness in the hands of others with the likelihood that they will not take care of you in the way that you deserve, taking advantage of your trusting nature. You deserve better than that.
Four steps to a happier you
1. Express your true self
Share your ideas with others. Start respectfully disagreeing with people if you feel strongly about something. At first it might feel like confrontation and it is likely that you prefer to avoid conflict, so start with a trusted person, with small things and go from there. There is a richness in diversity, explore it.
2. Say no, when you mean it
This doesn’t have to be aggressive or forceful. As soon as you create boundaries for yourself and others, you will find that frustration subsides and the right people will respect you for it.
3. Rediscover who you really are
Remind yourself of what you love doing and spend more time doing it. You may, at first, struggle to get in touch with that part of you as it has been ignored for so long, but take it each day at a time and have fun with it. If you find true contentment in your own pursuits, you will become less reliant on the positive affirmations of others.
4. Strike a balance in your relationships
Healthy relationships are created when the needs of each party are acknowledged and met in equal measure. It’s easy to confuse being supportive of someone with serving them. When there is mutual respect, care and support in a relationship then you will find yourself on a shared path to happiness.
What are you waiting for?
Start pleasing yourself today and if you’d like a little support in discovering the wonderful person that you are, then please do get in touch. I can’t wait to meet you.
