What is People-Pleasing and How to Recover From It

People-pleasing is when we prioritise other people’s needs above our own. Overtime this can build resentment towards others, end relationships, and cause you to feel isolated and neglected. This has potential severe implications for your overall wellbeing and mental health.

As a society we are not taught how to acknowledge and understand our emotions, our emotional needs or communicating this to others. If you have been a people-pleaser for a long time, this can result in struggling to acknowledge and understand your emotions and needs. For some, this impacts their ability to ask for support.

Learning to overcome people-pleasing takes time to adjust to and comes with its own set of emotional challenges. To start with, exploring your people-pleasing behaviours helps you prioritise your own needs in the long term.

People-pleasing personality types

Saying no is hard for people-pleasers

Saying no to others often brings up feelings of guilt and shame for people-pleasers. This is because people-pleasers take on personal responsibility for other people’s feelings and wellbeing. This responsibility can feel heavy and challenging to overcome. This means having clear boundaries is key for people-pleasers.

Saying sorry is a default response

Apologising for other people’s behaviour or apologising for not meeting other people’s needs or expectations is common for people-pleasers. Even when the other person has not communicated their needs or expectations.

A core belief other people’s needs are more important

This belief may stem from your emotional needs not being met as a child. As an adult this can be expressed through ignoring your own needs.

Saying yes when you want to say no

You might agree to dinner plans with an old friend when you want to spend time at home and rest, but saying yes feels easier in the moment, as it avoids potentially upsetting others.

Conflict avoidant

For many people pleasers, they are worried about losing loved ones if they communicate how they feel. They might be consumed by negative thoughts about the other person, such as “they won’t like me anymore” or “they will stop speaking to me”. It can be a people-pleaser’s lack of confidence in themselves to manage conflict in a healthy way, and so it feels easier in the moment to agree with others and suppress your own needs than it is to engage in difficult conversations.

Feeling a need to be in control

It may sound contradicting, however, often people pleasers feel more in control of relationships and their emotional safety when pleasing others. This keeps consistency of the other person being happy, compared to the unknown of how someone would react if they did not meet someone’s needs.

Perfectionism

Perfectionism and people-pleasing are often interlinked. For example, many people-pleasers will assume they are being a ‘bad’ friend or ‘not good enough’ if they express and meet their own needs. They may assume their friend would be disappointed or upset with them after sharing a boundary, or not being the ‘perfect’ friend.

Not understanding your limits

People-pleasers often do not understand their personal limits. This can be because of setting high standards for yourself at work, with hobbies or socialising. This often can result in burn out and emotional dysregulation.

Boundaries when recovering from people-pleasing

Learn your own needs

The first step of having boundaries is learning to understand your own needs, values and what is important to you. Next time you agree to social plans, an opinion, or apologise for someone else’s behaviour, ask yourself, how am I feeling in myself? What emotions are coming for me? Is agreeing to this consistent with my current capacity and personal values?

Prepare to feel uncomfortable

Setting boundaries takes time to adjust to. At first, it often feels unsettling, scary and uncomfortable for people pleasers. Before and after expressing a boundary, remind yourself ‘I deserve to acknowledge my emotions and meet my own needs’, ‘If they do not respect my boundary, it is a reflection of them as a person, rather than wrongdoing on my part’. This helps lighten the anxiety and guilt of expressing a boundary.

Accept some people might not accept your boundaries

Often people-pleasers are drawn towards people who neglect other people’s needs and prioritise themselves at all costs. This means, you may find some people who try to violate your boundaries. When this happens, do not retract your boundary and remind yourself this is an adjustment for you and the other person.

Boundary violations

Boundary violations in the simplest form are when you express how you feel, and this is ignored or minimised. For example, you tell someone you want to talk about how you feel, and they talk over you, ignore your feelings or make you feel you’re wrong for feeling this way. They may pressure you to act/ feel what they think is ‘right’, or tell you are ‘sensitive’ or ‘overthinking’. However, holding boundaries is essential for your wellbeing in these moments.

Understand boundary violation impact

You may not understand a boundary violation at first. When a boundary violation happens, you will feel physically uncomfortable. This may be a racing heartbeat, increased body temperature, a knot in your stomach, feel a need to escape the situation, you may struggle to concentrate, have racing thoughts or feel unsettled and unable to make decisions you normally feel comfortable making. This means you feel unsafe, and the boundary has been crossed. Unfortunately for many people-pleasers, they blame themselves for feeling this way.

Assert yourself

Asserting yourself by reminding them of the boundary, how the boundary crossing is making you feel, and a consequence for not respecting the boundary. For example, if your boundary is ‘I am no longer answering my phone after 10pm to prioritise my sleep’ and this boundary is crossed. Remind them of your boundary by saying, ‘You seem to have forgotten I need to prioritise my sleep to feel better in myself. If you call me after this time, I will not answer my phone’.

What if they take the boundary as rejection

If someone is upset with you for expressing a boundary, it’s important to remind yourself that difficult conversations are a natural part of all healthy relationships. Remind them boundaries are good for your relationship. For example, “I understand you feel hurt because _________ but my boundary is not set to hurt you, it is to help me manage my mental health and strength our relationship.”

Distance yourself or remove yourself from them if they continue to cross boundaries

If someone is continuously ignoring your boundaries, protect your wellbeing by distancing yourself from person and reduce or stop contact.

Journal prompts for recovering from people-pleasing

• How am I feeling right now? What emotions are coming up for me? How does this emotion feel in my body?

• What are my top 3 values?

• Can I think of times when I was in a situation that was not consistent with my values?

• How did this make me feel?

• What beliefs do I have about myself that influence my need to please others?

• What are the signs I am becoming burnt out from neglecting my own needs?

• What helps me unwind and switch off?

• What self-care do I enjoy?

• Are there any hobbies or self-care I have avoided, in fear of being judged or upsetting others?

• What boundaries do I need in my relationships to prevent feeling burnt out? Consider past situations where you felt your boundaries were crossed and ask yourself how did this make me feel? What boundary can I put in place to protect my mental health from now on?

After reflecting on people-pleasing, this can bring up grief for how we have neglected our own needs in the past and this can feel heavy to sit with. Remind yourself you have never been taught how to acknowledge your feelings and this is an adjustment in how you relate to others to benefit your mental health in the long term.