Breaking Bad: People Pleasing

In Breaking Bad, a new series, I explore some of our most problematic unhealthy habits, how they impact us, and how we can break the persistent negative patterns in our lives. In this post, I examine people-pleasing.

People-pleasing may seem out of place on an inventory of problematic habits, but the reality is that, over time, if we routinely put the needs of others ahead of our own, we can end up doing ourselves a great deal of harm.

One of the reasons people-pleasing is so difficult to see as a harmful habit is that, in the course of our lives, we all do it. We are hard-wired to care about, strive to, and find great joy in pleasing others. We find great satisfaction in performing tasks and taking on responsibilities in our personal and professional lives that please people whose opinions and respect we care about.

As children, we learn to please our parents, teachers, and caregivers. We go on to please our employers, our friends, and our romantic partners. Many of us also take on roles in our communities to help others and make valuable and meaningful contributions.

What’s the problem?

People-pleasing, on the surface, may seem harmless, kind, and generous. But people-pleasing becomes problematic when it leaves us suffering from stress, anxiety, physical exhaustion, and burnout. Even though we have volunteered to help someone we care about, we may find ourselves feeling resentful or angry while carrying out these tasks. People-pleasers often find themselves falling behind with their own life tasks and responsibilities or putting their lives and goals on hold while they do things for other people.

Many of us are quick to offer to lend a hand to a friend in need and, often, in doing so, put our plans and responsibilities on hold. In the workplace, people-pleasers abound, often stepping up to help others meet a deadline or volunteering to take on extra work … often without compensation or recognition. On the home front, besides carrying an unequal burden of household, child-care, and elder-care tasks, women also assume the lion’s share of the family and household mental load.

Entrenched patterns of people-pleasing can result in chronic stress, burn-out, intimate-partner conflict and dissatisfaction, and troubling physical symptoms. Furthermore, chronic people-pleasing prevents us from focusing on our goals and often leads to self-sabotaging choices and behaviors, interacting authentically (for example, saying no to a request we do not wish to or do not have the time or energy to take on). Chronic people pleasers often suffer from low self-worth and low self-esteem and end up embroiled in toxic relationships.

The deep roots of people-pleasing

Patterns of people-pleasing can begin at an early age. As children, we observe and learn from our parents and caregivers and often take on roles as a means of self-protection. We learn to people-please to earn the attention or appease others. We often take on the core belief that good and kind people put the needs of others before their own.

Good news and big challenges

The reality about breaking patterns of people-pleasing is that it will be, at times, challenging, overwhelming, and take a lot of courage and determination. But the good news about people-pleasing is that once you recognize that it is a problem in your life, you can begin to make changes that will positively impact your life, both in the short and the long term.

6 steps to help you take control of people-pleasing

1. Take stock of your people-pleasing habits. Change begins with building an awareness of how people-pleasing has negatively impacted your life. Make note of the instances where you have felt resentful while lending a helping hand and of the times when you found yourself saying yes when you wanted to say no. List the negative consequences of these situations.
2. Decide to change. Make a promise to yourself to create meaningful and lasting change around how to prioritize your goals and protect your finite resources of time and energy.
3. Prioritize your goals, authenticity, and preferences. Get back in touch with what you truly want to accomplish, how you prefer to spend your time, and how you wish to interact authentically with others. When you begin to connect with how you want to spend your time and start prioritizing your goals, you will soon find the courage and inspiration to change.
4. Start saying no. This is where you are likely to struggle with resistance and disapproval from others. Remind yourself that good relationships are authentic, rather than transactional, and that prioritizing your needs will serve you throughout your lifetime.
5. Have compassion for yourself. If you’re struggling with saying no, develop strategies that will help you manage moments of conflict. For example, when you’re feeling pressured or overwhelmed, postponing your response and promising to get back to someone later gives you space and time to process your emotions and respond authentically … and say no when you want to.
6. Seek the help of a mental health professional. If you’re struggling to break chronic patterns of people-pleasing, a mental health professional can provide you with life-changing habit-breaking strategies and tools.