3 Ways To Stop Being A People Pleaser

In this talk, I share 3 practical tips to break free from people-pleasing so you can protect yourself from manipulative or predatory individuals. I’ll cover the key behaviors to stop and the powerful habits to build that help you stand in your power. These shifts have made a real difference in my own life — I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

Transcript

This is Ish and in today's talk I'll be going over some practical advice for people that may label themselves as people pleasers and how you can,

As a people pleaser,

Protect yourself from more predatory people that don't have your best intentions in mind.

Now what is interesting is that when psychopaths and people that are more predatory by nature were interviewed,

They oftentimes cite that they can often tell who their victims are just by their demeanor,

How they carry themselves,

How they walk,

And their overall presence.

And this may not be something that you have given conscious attention to,

But by noticing how you carry yourself,

You can actually make these small tweaks that I'm going to describe here to actually block out all these predatory people from your won't even approach you.

So how does this work?

Well there are a couple things you can do and the first thing is to drop your fake nice persona that you may have when you're meeting people,

Especially new people.

So you can see this when someone is talking to another person and they'll put on this fake caricature where they're overly friendly or overly accommodating,

Overly nice.

They may say hey how's it going and it's like a fake smile that they plaster on.

And this isn't actually a bad thing because we want to be friendly to other people to make them feel welcome and invited in whatever space that we're in.

But unfortunately this fake niceness comes off as a bit too agreeable and this is what predatory people look at when they're interacting with other people.

And this isn't your fault if you do express some of these behaviors because a lot of this is due to our conditioning.

So society can condition us to be overly agreeable or nice.

So a lot of women are trained to adopt this behavior and also culture plays a big part as well.

So coming from the East Coast in the US and moving to the South,

I've actually noticed this conditioning where a lot of people in the South are trained to be overly polite.

We call it Southern hospitality and this is just a part of the conditioning of the culture.

But one thing to keep in mind is that when you're overly agreeable or overly nice or trying too hard to appease another person,

This can come off as weakness to a predatory person.

So one thing you can do is to think about how would you talk or present yourself when you're with a close buddy.

So someone you know very well,

Maybe a close family member that you feel comfortable with and behave in that manner.

And you'll notice that when you're with someone that you feel comfortable with,

You're probably naturally a bit more relaxed,

More calm and you don't really need to put on this front of this very warm and bubbly person that's overly friendly.

So smiling a bit less can also help but again you don't want to consciously control every single one of your actions.

That's a bit paranoid and a bit too rigid.

But just try to see if you can be more relaxed and smile with intention if you can.

Now the next tip is to notice your posture and one thing to do less of is to fidget less.

And fidgeting implies a lack of control in your own body.

It is a restless or anxious energy and it is often indicative of prey animals.

You'll notice that say a rabbit for example will twitch a lot and move make fast jerky movements.

And a animal that is a predator animal like a lion or tiger displays a lot of relaxed low movements because they don't have to be scared or nervous.

So in the same way we can learn to relax our bodies to not make any unnecessary movements.

So a very common body language posture that signifies nervousness is when people tap their heels up and down over and over again.

This is something that I can notice a lot.

Or playing with jewelry and fidgeting moving a lot and moving their hands.

A very common thing nowadays is people open up their phones,

Doom scroll,

Not really check anything in particular and then lock their phone and put it away.

So again we want to bring this quality of intentionality and really make movements because you want to not because you're responding due to unconscious habits or because you're nervous or anxious.

You want to reduce these things.

And then at the same time you want to add certain body language postures that signify that you're in control,

That you're calm,

That you're relaxed,

That you're not really afraid of the environment.

Because again fidgeting implies that you're not very comfortable.

So how can we do this?

We want to slow everything down in both our physiology and also our posture and body language as well.

So something that I've covered in my course on confidence is slowing down and making your body more still.

You'll notice this in a lot of movies for example when a character is playing a very powerful character or a confident character,

You'll notice that their movements are very minimal.

They are still,

They're calm,

They're composed.

And you can actually practice these behaviors by simply slowing everything down.

Both in your voice,

In your postures and movements like we've discussed,

And you can also take up more space.

So taking up space in your environment is a big signal to show to others that you're actually in control of your environment and yourself and that you have this certain strength about you.

And this can be done through various ways.

So one of them is through splays as it's called.

And this is where you just simply sprawl your limbs out and you're comfortable taking space in the room.

So you're not closing yourself off.

Another body language tip is to drape more.

So this is where you take your limbs and place it across say an object.

So if you're sitting at a table,

You can rest your arm on the table and kind of lean back into your chair.

So you're taking up more space with your body language itself implies that you feel powerful and comfortable with yourself and the world all around you.

So you don't feel the need to shrink up.

You feel expansive.

So that's one good way to remember this.

And I thought I'd add one last bonus tip here.

So I've covered three.

So the last step would be to be more non-reactive.

So one of the unfortunate things that people that pupilies a lot do is that they are overly accommodating.

And as a result,

They react very fast.

They're like,

Oh,

What?

And this implies a lack of control over yourself and that you're moved by other people.

So instead,

You want to be an anchor in the room,

Or you have a certain sense of gravitas around you.

And how do you do this?

Well,

You can practice taking more pauses,

Slowing down,

Which we covered earlier,

But also taking the time to respond at your own pace.

So you're setting your own rhythm and your own pace compared to responding to the whims of other people.

So you take your time.

And this signifies that you have control over your space and how you are going to choose to respond.

So it's all about proactivity,

Rather than reactivity.

So I hope you liked this talk on how to protect yourself as a pupil pleaser.

And when you practice these tips,

You'll actually practically notice that you take yourself off the radar of these very predatory people.

Just do these tweaks of your body language,

Your mindset,

Your physiology,

How you carry yourself.

And from a personal note,

I actually noticed this myself in my own life,

Where during my childhood,

And also my teenage years,

Even my 20s,

I attracted a lot of predatory people.

And being someone who is just naturally just a bit more sensitive in temperament,

A bit more gentle,

And just,

You know,

Like being with people and wanted to be helpful and accommodating,

I found that these qualities of myself actually got exploited a lot by people that were able to pick up on these pupil pleasing tendencies.

And I didn't really drastically change my personality or anything.

I'm not this,

You know,

Big tough guy or anything.

But I noticed that these tweaks of simply being comfortable in my space,

Not being overly agreeable and polite by,

You know,

Putting on this fake smile and being,

Hey,

How's it going?

And actually just being myself,

Being more authentic,

Slowing down,

Being okay with being powerful in my body.

I've noticed by making these shifts,

Actually got completely off these,

The radar of a lot of these people that didn't have the best intentions for me.

And it is interesting because I don't have to say anything,

But rather it's implied and they can just walk away.

They don't really bother to engage me.

And this is a gradual journey in your life.

But you do have the power and I do have the confidence that you'll,

You're able to do this.

It just takes some practice and awareness of these behaviors.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Reviews

This was eye opening. Some of these body language cues I have become aware of as I have started my journey. And others I am realizing, that even if it was never specifically said it has been implied, that women should exhibit some of these traits. Like the over accommodating, fake happy persona, and taking up space. This was super helpful for me.