Overcoming The Need To Please

So many of us fall into the people-pleasing trap without even knowing it - all you know is that you're tired, drained, and starting to feel resentful because you do everything for everyone else but nobody is taking care of you.

In this episode, I address: How the need to please can sometimes get out of control. The number one reason for people-pleasing behaviour. How people pleasing disconnects you from your own identity. The 3 steps to break free from being a people pleaser.

Transcript

Your self-worth is a really big deal.

It plays a crucial role in almost every aspect of your life and is the most valuable thing you can possess.

It's the one thing that will have a lifelong effect on everything you think,

Everything you feel and everything you do.

I'm your host,

Patricia Pisano,

Resilience coach and emotional wellness educator,

And I created this podcast to support you by sharing powerful insights as well as actionable steps and practices which you can implement in your everyday life,

Giving you the tools to overcome self-doubt and the feelings of being stuck.

By connecting and strengthening the relationship you have with yourself,

You become empowered to show up as the amazing person you are and attract healthier relationships,

A better career,

More money,

And generally feel better about yourself and your life.

Hey everyone,

And welcome to the Reclaim Your Worth podcast.

I'm your host,

Patricia Pisano,

And this week's episode is all about people pleasing.

I'm not really fussed.

You choose.

I'm easy.

What do you want to do?

I don't mind.

I'm really flexible.

Sound familiar?

See,

These words have been my mantra for most of my life.

This might not sound like a bad thing on paper,

Right?

You know,

I was taught from a very young age that it's important to be polite.

There's nothing wrong with that in itself,

And I agree that we should be teaching our children how to be polite.

But when this politeness shows up because you don't want to disappoint anyone,

The need to please really gets out of control and we become self-sacrificing martyrs instead of well-balanced adults.

I know it's the most human and normal thing in the world to want to be liked and accepted,

But for some of us,

The need to please is so strong that we lose our own identities.

We lose touch with our own needs,

Our own desires,

All of this just to be accepted.

Of course,

We should think about other people and care about their feelings and needs.

I'm not saying that,

But what I've discovered along my own journey is that you can only truly care for others in an authentic way if you care about yourself and your needs alongside other people's.

See,

My people-pleasing journey began really early.

As a six-year-old girl whose father walked out and disappeared from her life with no explanations,

I entered primary school with an extra dose of insecurity.

Add to the mix the fact that I was a super sensitive child who didn't cope well with making any mistakes,

However normal it is to make them,

And who didn't know how to deal with even the mildest disapproval,

I quickly learned the art of numbing my emotions and zoning out.

I simply buried my emotions so often and so deeply that I didn't even know what to name them.

I was so anxious to make others happy for fear of being judged or criticised,

Ridiculed and rejected,

That I consistently suppressed my own feelings.

And if you ignore them long enough,

You no longer recognise them.

So what did I do?

I relied on the feelings of others for so many years that I was actually incapable of knowing or understanding what I truly felt.

So thinking about how I relied on the feelings of others for so many years,

I'm reminded of one of my favourite quotes from Shakespeare.

All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players.

And guess what?

The role I developed on this worldly stage was one of a background character in other people's stories.

Why?

Because I was too scared,

For good reason,

To show up in my own story.

It felt too risky to be emotionally vulnerable and to set boundaries or assert my needs or opinions.

You see,

This is a common problem among people pleasers.

And if you're anything like I was,

You probably have a deep rooted belief that you shouldn't have any needs or you pretend you don't need anything.

You want to be easy going,

Low maintenance and agreeable.

Not that there's anything wrong with being agreeable.

But as I said before,

It's just not realistic to think that your needs,

Your opinions,

Your interests and values will always be commensurate with others.

Sometimes you will have conflicts when dealing with people.

And that's okay.

If a relationship is a healthy one,

It can tolerate disagreements and resolve conflicts.

Only caring about others and minimising,

Suppressing and burying your own emotions and wants can lead to dangerous waters.

You see,

When you spend years saying yes to every request,

You probably experience frequent frustration and anger.

And although this anger and frustration isn't expressed externally,

The emotional turmoil rages within you without an outlet.

And when you consistently balance the needs,

Wants and expectations of others,

You lose your own identity and become a stranger to your own self,

Not knowing who you really are.

And your relationships get stained with this underlying bitterness and resentment.

You get worn out,

Physically exhausted,

Sick,

Irritable,

Discouraged or hopeless.

You feel emotionally drained,

Which in the long run can lead to depression and anxiety.

So how do you break free from being a people pleaser?

Let me share with you my top three tips.

Number one,

Awareness.

So much of what we do and think is based on unconscious beliefs and deep rooted behaviour patterns,

Which very often stem from childhood.

So awareness is the first step.

By becoming aware of your actions and why you're taking them,

You can start exploring different ways of thinking and acting.

So when you notice yourself playing the people pleaser role,

Ask yourself some of these questions to see if you can make different choices based on your authenticity.

Am I meeting my own needs?

Am I being true to myself?

Am I doing this out of obligation or desire?

What do I want or need?

What feels right to me?

Can I cope with having someone be disappointed or upset with me?

Will people hate me,

Reject me or criticise me if I stand up for myself?

Or am I imagining the worst?

What do I believe in?

What matters to me?

Tip number two,

Identify your emotions.

So as you become more aware,

You can start to work on overcoming people pleasing tendencies,

Finding a balance between pleasing others,

Meeting their needs and pleasing yourself,

Meeting your own needs.

I really strongly recommend you can start doing this by doing some inner work to re identify your emotions.

Allow yourself to feel,

Allow yourself to express and to experience emotions you've buried deep within you.

Yes,

All of them.

I've actually put together some reflective questions which you can use as journal prompts to help you as you embark on your self discovery journey.

So just click the link in this episode show notes to download your free journal prompts to help you reacquaint yourself with you and get to know yourself at a much deeper level.

Tip number three,

Set boundaries alongside reacquainting yourself with yourself.

Recognise that you are just as important as everybody else.

Setting boundaries without guilt would be the next step and I covered this topic in my last post so you can listen to that episode again if you need a reminder.

That's episode three and remember that you are deserving of having your own needs met by living authentically.

Your relationships will gain far more than they would ever receive from simply accommodating their every request for fear of disappointing them.

So there you have it.

My top three tips to stop being a people pleaser.

How do I know if I'm a people pleaser?

I hear some of you asking.

Well,

If you're not sure if you're a people pleaser,

I've created a free quiz,

So just click on the link in this episode show notes so you can find out now.

And if you know that you've been saying yes when you mean no for most of your life,

I've created a free resource just for you in which I share my top 10 tips to help you break free from people pleasing.

You've got it.

Click the link in the show notes to download your free copy.

If you enjoyed this episode,

I'd really appreciate if you would leave a review so I can continue to bring you great content.

And if you found this episode helpful,

And you know someone who might benefit from hearing it,

Please go ahead and share it.

So until next week,

Take care and remember,

You are enough.

Reviews

Bullseye my Achilles heel. This needs to be a core challenge to overcome

Excellent— very needed!! Thank you🙏🏽❤️ there are no show notes to click on for what you shared at the end though…🤷‍♀️

Spot on.

Great information. Please Cut the music, it feels discordant with the message.

Amazing! You described the old me perfectly. I am still a work in progress. Thank you for this talk.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Very interesting. Where can I find the journal prompts on Insight Timer?

Thank you so much. I have started to apply some of these not long ago... Late in life...but it feels good.

Oh yes. All of this. What a fab podcast! Feels like you have been reading my mind! Just what I needed right now. There are references to the shownotes for the podcast (which might not be on here) but I'm sure they are possible to find elsewhere. But a great resource! I will check out the materials and the other podcasts in the series. Thank you

Thank you 🙏🏽 very practical and important advice.