Letting Go Of People-Pleasing

In this episode you’ll learn where people-pleasing stems from, how to explore and understand it better, and how to let go of it. I’ll share with you effective strategies that can help you such as learning how to self-validate, how to accept yourself, how to meet your own needs, and the important role of boundaries. I’ll also share with you questions for self-reflection that you can journal on and dig a little bit deeper.

Transcript

Hey,

You're listening to the Ina Carlin Podcast with your host,

Anika Spuddin.

Hello and welcome everyone.

Thank you so much for listening.

I had some time off from recording new episodes and now if you're ready to get back to it and connect with you all,

Thank you for your patience.

I really appreciate it.

In this episode,

I'll talk about people-pleasing,

What its nature,

How to explore it,

Where it stems from,

How to understand it better and how to let go of it.

I'll share with you strategies that can help you,

Such as learning how to self-validate,

How to accept yourself and how to meet your own needs and the important role of boundaries.

I'll also share with you questions for self-reflection that you can journal on and dig a little bit deeper.

People-pleasing is a coping mechanism that we've adopted early on often as children.

It's not something that we as adults now intentionally chose to adopt.

So for those of us who had a very critical parent,

Learning to anticipate their needs,

Meeting their expectations and behaving in a way that pleases them is our way of ensuring their approval,

Acceptance and love.

And of course,

Our own survival because as young children,

We are dependent on our parents for survival.

And later on,

We've continued to use this mechanism as a way of protecting ourselves from rejection and hurt.

If you're still finding yourself trying to please others,

It's probably because you've learned it from a younger age and learned that applying the strategy benefits you.

It might not be positively serving you,

But it still serves you in some way or another.

If it hasn't,

Then you wouldn't continue to practice it.

We adopt a range of different behavior patterns that may not benefit us in a healthy way,

But we still display that behavior because we gain something from it in return.

So,

We're not going to be able to do anything with people pleasing.

Perhaps when you meet other people's expectations,

You feel worthy or you feel good about yourself.

Perhaps you do it because you don't want to feel hurt or rejected or because you know that this way there will be no conflicts or disagreements.

Anyway,

One of the first things that I would invite you to do if you want to let go of this behavior is to explore it and dig a little bit deeper.

Now I'm going to give you a couple of questions for you to reflect on.

I would usually ask them in a session with my clients and explore this in depth,

But in this case you can answer them in your own timing.

Just make sure that you're not rushing the answers and give yourself plenty of time to reflect.

So take some time to ask yourself what do I gain from pleasing others?

How is this behavior serving me?

As I said,

It doesn't have to serve you in a positive or a healthy way,

So allow yourself to be completely honest and open with the answer.

Can you pinpoint the time when you've adopted this behavior?

How old were you?

Who were you trying to please or impress the most growing up?

Whose approval and acceptance were you seeking the most?

This could be anyone,

A parent,

Family member,

A teacher or your friends.

I know that it might not be exactly easy or comfortable to explore this at first,

So please take as much time as you need and be gentle with yourself.

It might be best if you reflect on these questions after a meditation,

A nap or a bath when you're feeling more relaxed and your subconsciousness is easier to access.

And then ask yourself what is this behavior costing me?

Here you can explore anything that you've experienced when you find yourself pleasing others and this answer will become one of your biggest incentives to let go of this pattern.

How is pleasing others affecting the way you feel about yourself?

How is it affecting the way you think about yourself?

How is it affecting your life?

You might have also started pleasing others as a way of coping with shame.

When we felt ashamed,

We learned to please others as a way of navigating the pain of shame.

For example,

As a child you might have felt ashamed of your clothes or the way you look because other kids made fun of you.

So one of the ways of coping with these painful feelings of shame is by trying to fit in changing your clothes,

Your hair,

The way you carry yourself in order to seek their approval and acceptance.

So adopting this coping strategy had helped you in some way to navigate painful social situations and protect yourself from shame.

I want to share something really important here.

People pleasing isn't bad or wrong.

Let me just say this.

I know that if you're listening to this episode,

You are here to learn how to let go of people pleasing.

But the first thing to do is to understand where this pattern comes from and yes,

To accept it.

The more we resist it,

The more it will persist and the more triggered we feel when it pops up.

There are no parts of us that are bad or wrong.

For those of you who already know about my work on self-acceptance,

You won't be surprised when I say this.

But if you're listening to me for the very first time,

Let me just explain this a little bit more.

If you've rejected this part of yourself because you believe that it's bad or negative or unacceptable,

Then you won't really relearn this behavior.

You just keep judging yourself for it.

So when I talk about self-acceptance,

I believe that there are no parts of us that are bad or wrong or unworthy of love and acceptance.

We all have similar personality traits,

Behaviors,

Thoughts and feelings.

That's what makes us human.

We adopt coping mechanisms because we are responding to our environment in the best way we can at that time,

Adapting to the people around us.

And we all want to feel loved and accepted.

It's the human thing to do.

We all do it.

We are all people pleasers.

It's nothing to feel ashamed of.

So if you reject the people pleaser within you,

You're only giving it power and you stay in its control.

If however you own it and accept it,

Then you can work on releasing it.

It's not about fixing or changing who we are.

It's about learning new strategies that can actually benefit us in a healthier way.

People pleasing might have helped you before,

But now as an adult you can relearn this behavior and adopt a new one.

Because now you are responsible for your own survival.

You no longer need to rely on other people's approval and acceptance.

You can give it to yourself.

So another thing that can really help you with this is learning to self-validate.

When you receive validation from yourself,

Rather than looking to find it in other people,

You won't have the need to please others.

The more you give yourself everything you need,

The less you'll be focused on what other people need.

When you start meeting your own needs first,

And no that's not selfish,

You'll be less focused on making others happy in order to receive their love and acceptance.

Now as an adult you can give yourself everything you need.

You can meet your own needs.

You don't need to rely on others to keep you safe and healthy anymore.

So it's just a matter of learning how to do this and practicing it.

The more you accept and love who you are,

The less you need to receive it from others.

Pleasing others shouldn't be on the expense of your own well-being.

Your needs are valid.

Your feelings are valid.

And your needs matter.

So don't shy away from giving yourself what you need and deserve.

You are perfectly capable of doing so on your own.

So whether others approve of you,

Whether they like you or not,

It won't matter anymore.

The more you accept yourself as a whole as the wonderful human being you are,

The more you feel enough and won't need to please others.

And if you need any help with this,

You know where to find me.

I've mentioned something very briefly earlier.

If one of the reasons for pleasing others is because it makes you feel worthy and deserving,

Let's say that you want to go to the cinema but your friends want you to go to a cafe instead and you'd rather watch the movie rather than drink coffee.

I'm just making this up,

My example is pretty basic.

And you agree to go to the cafe and not go to the cinema,

You ignore your needs and you do what your friends want to because you want to make them happy.

And making them happy makes you feel worthy and like you're a good person who deserves good things in life.

In this case,

If your self-worth is deeply linked with pleasing others,

You need to do some untangling and unpeeling of these layers.

Because your worthiness is innate,

You are born worthy no matter what you do or don't do.

And if you always try to earn that worthiness by doing what everyone else wants from you,

You'll never keep up.

You'll never reach a point where you'll be like,

Ok,

I've done everything people want from me,

I've made everyone happy in my lifetime and now I'm finally free to just be.

It's a behavioural pattern that you keep repeating until you unlearn it.

So one of the things I would really encourage you to do is take a quick inventory of all the things that you do because they make you feel worthy and deserving.

And see what the pattern is.

See what realisations will come up to you and see how you can unpack these.

And I just want to add a quick note here in case some of you may still feel a pang of guilt when it comes to this.

Honouring your needs is not selfish.

People pleasing doesn't make you a good person.

Just like not doing it,

It doesn't make you a bad person.

It's all about being good or bad.

You might find resistance in releasing this behaviour.

You might feel guilty and say to yourself that it's selfish to even think of yourself first.

But this is just the voice of all of these years of programming talking.

It's your ego.

It's not the core of who you are.

You don't need to please others in order to feel good about yourself.

Allow yourself to let go of this coping mechanism and adopt a brand new one.

Believe me,

It's going to change your life.

A lot of us take on the responsibility of making others happy without realising that their happiness is not our responsibility.

Pleasing others is not your responsibility.

It might have been in the past when you were young and had the role of the peacemaker in your family or the role of the caregiver or used it as a way of navigating your parents' narcissism,

High demands and expectations of you.

But now as an adult,

You can take this off your shoulders and let go of this responsibility.

Something that can also help you tremendously in relearning this behaviour is boundaries.

You might have heard me talking about boundaries before.

There is a whole episode called Setting Healthy Boundaries where you can hear me talk about it and you can learn about my step by step process that I share in depth over there.

So head over and find that episode because I won't have the time to talk about boundaries in this one.

It's a very big topic.

Learning to set boundaries can help you let go of people pleasing because you have them,

In place to navigate this behaviour.

Anytime you feel the urge to just go along and do what everyone else says,

You'll be able to communicate your needs clearly instead of feeling afraid of hurting or disappointing others.

And boundaries can help you do all this and more.

I really hope this episode helped you to learn more about yourself and how to let go of pleasing others.

I hope it gave you the realizations you need to move forward.

And if you need help with accepting and loving yourself,

I can help you.

My process is different.

It blends a coaching framework with core psychology concepts so there is no bypassing or surface level guidance.

You can find me on my website at www.

Angospodin.

Com.

The link is in my bio.

Thank you so,

So much for listening and see you soon.

Reviews

Nameste 🙏

Good advice. Will repeat listening with a notebook next time.

Loved that! So true!

Resonates with me and presented in a clear concise manner ....

Very informative and interesting. Thank you!

Very enlightening
Thx Anny

Thank you so very much for this! I very much needed to hear this & start my journey to accepting & loving myself & letting go of people pleasing. Looking forward to “unlearning” & creating boundaries moving forward. This really, really resonated for me ♥️🙏

Very good 😊

Very helpful explanation of the roots of people pleasing behaviors and how they become so habitual. Really like the self-reflection questions that encourage digging deeper and making a connection between expectations in childhood and the ones we self-impose later. Great talk!

Very useful to understanding and practical steps to take to de program. Still lots to unpack but greatly encouraging word here.

Very helpful! Thank you

This was beautifully clear and made links between some of my struggles in a way I’d never thought of before. I also really appreciated the message about self-acceptance about changing patterns of behaviour, not who I am. Very reassuring and validating.

Really insightful.
I would love you to do a short meditation of the
affirmations you suggest to help with this people pleasing issue.

Love this and will come back to others in your series!

I sure needed to hear this and unpack the role of people pleasing in my life. I’ll be reflecting and journaling on this for some time. Thank you! ☺️🦋💗

Very helpful, thank you!

I am so genuinely thankful for this eye opening service of yours. Blessed we are 🙏🏼

Really interesting. Thank you 💜 x

This was very enlightening. I can clearly see where this behavior benefited me in the past and no longer serves my best interests. Also, the link between people pleasing and boundary issues is helpful. Thank you!

Thought provoking guidance on identifying the source of people pleasing behavior and overview of healthy alternatives.