Crap, I’m a People Pleaser
And this is (maybe) why it’s keeping me from reaching my goals…
Last night I saw a post that changed the way I lied to myself.
That’s a pretty powerful thing. And incredibly annoying too, because for so long I thought I was immune to the “recovering people pleaser” trend that has been ravaging it’s way through the online self-care community.
“I am not a people pleaser” I’d heard myself say out loud at least a dozen times in conversations with introspective, big-hearted friends.“I have no problem disappointing other people, and definitely don’t need other people to like me”.
A mental checklist went off in my head for all the times I could remember responding to the ‘penetrating needs’ of peer pressure, guilt trips, sob stories and even the swirling sense of authority that sometimes comes with being asked to do something that doesn’t align with my core beliefs:
- “no, that’s stupid”
- “no, I won’t do that”
- “no thanks, I’m good”
From what I understand, people pleasers say YES to that kind of stuff even though they don’t want to. They can’t help themselves. They’re immediate response is to say yes, please the other person and avoid disappointing them.
Screw that.
We don’t need to do what others want
From a very young age I remember tuning in to the social dynamics happening around me and wondering “why the heck are people acting like that?”
I could see the way that some kids flocked to other kids during group activities — and I wondered “what are they doing that others aren’t that other kids aren’t?”
Patterns of charisma and confidence started to emerge as I watched the kids who were ‘just really comfortable doing their own thing’ (focused on their own work, something they were interested in or not afraid of whether or not they would get a partner or not) — draw in the nervous and anxious energy of kids who would break into sweat and tears if they were left un-partnered.
I started to notice how ‘desperate’ these people were to not be alone, to feel included and to do whatever they had to do to SECURE themselves as “the opposite of how they must really feel inside”. Now to be clear, I have totally been that kid (or that person) one both sides of the spectrum at one point or another.
Even those of us that now how “security” (confidence) and “insecurities” work, can still find ourselves in the throes of socially charged situations where we act out of character (in almost ‘trance like ways’) and find ourselves behaving in ways that don’t line up with who we thought we knew ourselves to be.
So am I really a people pleaser?
I was SO sure I wasn’t a people pleasure. For nearly my entire life I’d been regularly reminded how “defiant” I was by teachers, bosses and men who tried to date me. Friends and family regularly referred to how “outspoken” I was, both an ‘endearing’ and ‘frustrating’ part of my personality.
One of my favourite business coaches once ended a session with me saying “honestly Mel, no matter what you do, you’ll be successful because you’d rate very high on the ‘disagreeable’ scale — which is exactly what most top performing CEO’s have in common”.
Before I could even catch myself I found the words falling out of my mouth “I’m not disagreeable, I’m just…”. Oh. Crap. Yeah, I guess I am.
Sidenote: I looked into this ‘agreeability-disagreeablity’ scale thing and while yes, in social situations agreeability is a trait that usually makes others like you more; in professional situations it’s one that usually leads you ‘being the one everyone else asks or expects to do things that nobody else wants to do’.
Even more interesting is that, according to Jordan Peterson, it’s a biological trait for women to be agreeable, to avoid confrontation, in helping to care for themselves and their offspring. It’s become heavy handed in the workplace where it’s now widespread knowledge that “if you want something done, you ask a middle aged woman and she will almost always say yes” — versus their male counterpart, who’s ‘evolutionary survival technique’ was to be disagreeable, challenge authority and assert themselves; which tends to highlight their “strengths” as leaders, innovators and yes, more often than not, successful CEO’s.
— Knowing that, I suddenly wasn’t as offended at the idea of being characterized as being “disagreeable”. Obviously it’s not a trait I want to keep developing. And in the years since I’ve been given that feedback I’ve tried to catch myself ‘being disagreeable’ and curtailed it into more neutral statements like “interesting” and “okay” (rather than “no you’re wrong” or “that’s stupid” and “yeah but…”) — — it’s a work in progress lol.
Okay so back to the People Pleasing thing…
Are you already ahead of the game?
There’s a good chance that those of you reading this might not be able to relate with the “defiance or disagreeability” trait (especially if most of what I think is my ‘audience’ or ‘network’ is middle aged women in the health, healing and wellness spaces) — I’m willing to be wrong on this one though.
Chances are most of you *do* identify as people pleasers; and knowing that about yourselves has (probably, hopefully) helped cultivate years of being MORE aware of your boundaries and needs in contrast to others around you. Chances are you have read oodles of articles, watched dozens of videos and repeated many self mantras in an effort to reverse, or stop the effects of toxic-people pleasing from seeping into the more important parts of your life, like work and relationshps.
And to that I say “good for you”.
I think I’ve got some catching up to do
Because as of last night I realized there’s a good chance that I’ve been delaying the learning in these areas because I was fairly certain “I wasn’t a people pleaser.” But I guess that’s because I’d only ever taken that term as face value. I don’t inherently feel the need to ‘please people’, I don’t mind disappointing. As described above, when I play this “truth” through my head, I see countless conversations where I have no problem speaking up and disagreeing, or refusing.
But what I didn’t see in my head in conjunction with “people pleasing” is the invisible ways it seeps into my work and exhausts my social battery by showing up 120–180% in nearly every situation because of some core need that suggests “if I do this really, really well then you won’t lash out at me or pull away from me”.
Crap. I’m a closet people pleaser.
I didn’t realize that my desire to show up for others in a way “I’d want others to show up for me” was maybe a round about way of over-exemplifying the deep, unmet needs I had for other people to show up *more* for me.
In every single situation I put myself into I ask “how would I want others to treat someone I love” — and I treat total strangers, clients and prospects exactly like that.
I have gone laughably out of my way to help others, not because I felt like I ‘had to’ (was pressured to by guilt or pity or shame) but because “this is the kind of world I want to live in, one where we help others, and are there for each other”. I thought I was being pragmadic, and an example of the good I wanted to see more of in the world.
And to a degree, that’s still exactly what it is (I hope, unless you’ve got another blind-spot AHA moment waiting for me). But in another way, it’s also an example of me doing things because I’m afraid of “people being hurt”.
My reactiveness isn’t to making people happy. It’s to avoid them being ANGRY…
Do our families make us people pleasers?
An older brother with a wild temper gave me models of what would happen if you weren’t hyperaware of what you were doing at all times (right down to how you were breathing, chewing and for the most part, kind of just ‘existing’). It never really bothered me, it just became a natural view of the world: “some people get (really) upset really easy; it’s not their fault, they have their own thing going on; just do what I can to not piss them off or do what I can do prevent them from being pissed off”
— that might’ve accidentally morphed into a (what I know now was a super imbalanced, toxic) relationship with someone I loved dearly, but who couldn’t manage his emotions or keep me safe from his bouts of paranoia and jealousy.
An industrious, ambitious and successful father who was “fast to act” once he made his mind up about something gave me models of ‘how to prepare to help/support someone when they suddenly want something done’.
That man moved mountain and often made the impossible come together at break-neck speeds with the help of his farm staff and family around him. It DID bother me that we were always seemingly running around from one project the next, with very little notice and very little room for discussion or contribution. He was well tempered but nearly everyone working around him would get frustrated because his “move fast” mentality didn’t keep up, or synch up, with their “attention to detail, done right, good planning” preferences and personality defaults.
— that definitely DID morph into my ability to meet my clients needs/whims at at the drop of a hat and accomplish incredible feats with small budgets and late nights. I never questioned this, it was simply the way the world around me had been modelled, and thus, the way I operated.
I KNEW better. I’ve worked with coaches and surveyed how other companies are producing results and profit alongside client expectations (and boundaries). And yet I couldn’t find myself DOING better.
Does work make us people pleasers?
When it comes to my professional work, the hours I’d allocate and the boundaries I’d set would wash away as I found myself consumed in the needs of my clients, wanting the best for them, knowing it was possible and feverishly collapsing my own needs. And really, that’s not so much “people pleasing” as much as it is “perfectionism” and a commitment to quality on my end — but where this does trail back to people pleasing is the PRICING I put on it.
With nearly all my clients I’m quite convinced they would have been happy with the first 2 drafts, and the latter 8–10 drafts were my own ‘unmet needs’ for perfection, and I rarely (correction: NEVER) bill for those last ~6–8 drafts, because I’ve long felt that someone else shouldn’t pay the price for what I deemed ‘my perfectionism’.
And I guess that’s what’s been keeping me stuck in a cycle of overdelivering and undercharging (versus just healthy delivering and healthy charging, or giving someone the option to over-deliver and charge accordingly).
— it’s also what’s probably contributed to me taking 180x as long to write this as I’d originally intended (totally throwing off my morning routine).
Crap, how can I not be a people pleaser?
At the risk of this ‘article’ taking another 180x as long to finish, I’ll wrap up by saying this (in a way that probably won’t please you)
- My intention with this was to share an personal insight I thought others might be able to relate to.
- I was also trying to put “two goals in one”: ONE where I meet my goal of writing and sharing my work more frequently, and ONE where I have a chance to journal/reflect and explore these ideas so I can see how they shift the way I show up in my own life)
As it stands I feel like I’ve let both myself and others down. Failing at both/all my intentions– and definitely not people pleasing. Crap am I secretly trying to please myself too? Oh geeze, where does this end??
The truth is I kind of just need to move on with this. I won’t accomplish perfection in the same stroke and breath as discovery and realization.
“I’ll learn to say no more often and set different boundaries” and right now that boundary is starting with the parts of me that “want this to be good” and the parts of me that “know progress is better than pleasing everyone”…
*mic drop, feels a rush of anxiety as she goes to hit publish*
Does it anyways…
[Authors note: Part of my goal in the coming weeks/months is to write more and start sharing on social media. I’ve had ‘intense’ experiences that have made me a bit of an online ‘hermit’ in the last few years, and this is my attempt at moving past those fears and “Just doing it”.
I feel embarrassed publishing something that’s messy and not done, and definitely trailed off at the end. I’m embarrassed that it took me so long to write. I just kept rewriting and rewriting. “It’s the editing that takes long, not so much the content”.
I have million other reasons/excuses I have for why “this isn’t any good, worth someone reading or a complete waste of time” — but I’m committed to the parts of myself that want more than “to just please others, or not make them mad”. This very messy, embarrassing draft is me making a promise to myself to keep going, even when things don’t make sense (take 200x as long) and are probably hard for others to watch too lol.
But one day I’ll write an article that will make of this stuff make more sense. I’ll meet someone who will make all the fear mean nothing anymore. And I’ll work with people who can’t wait to give me the time, energy, resources and support to get those 150% results directly in line with their vision and expectations too.
In the meantime, if you made it this far and there’s any (lovingly) constructive feedback you want to give me, or wisdom that helped you overcome something you see me struggling with, feel free to comment or send me an email at: melanie@thedigitalmuse.ca xo
