Keeping other people happy sounds great… so why might it bad for me?
The act of people-pleasing is trying to satisfy others, even at the expense of one’s own needs or desires.
People-pleasing isn’t inherently bad. It absolutely has a function in human interaction and can be useful. If it only ever resulted in negative outcomes then we wouldn’t do it!
Trying to appease another person in order to reap a positive result makes sense. We can people-please in order to:
Seek approval/acceptance/love/interest from another person
Avoid conflict
Reduce another person’s distress
Gain something from another person
There are lots of scenarios where people-pleasing might be used and would be helpful and not harmful.
However, the problem arises when people-pleasing becomes a habitual way of interacting with others and/or is done at the expense of, or in direct conflict with, your own personal needs and desires.
It can be easier to sacrifice what we personally want, than be exposed to another person’s displeasure/upset/dissatisfaction/disappointment.
Habitual people-pleasing can be unhelpful because:
It steers us away from our true selves – some acts of people-pleasing may coincidentally align with our true values, but this is unlikely to always be the case. Behaving repeatedly in ways that don’t align with our true selves can lead to discontentment within. See the last blog post for more info on this.
Whilst regular people-pleasing can reflect an individual’s empathy, care, compassion, and a desire for connection… it can also reflect low self-esteem, lack of confidence, difficulty trusting others, fear of abandonment… and people-pleasing can feed into these personal attributes and perpetuate them.
An act of people-pleasing only leads to temporary happiness of the other person in the moment (and temporary satisfaction for you by having pleased them). Ultimately you can’t control others, so sustained satisfaction of another person because of your actions is not guaranteed. You can never be sure how another person will react, which is why it’s always a gamble trying to please another person. No matter how hard you try to ‘get it right’, you may never succeed and have wasted your precious energy on something futile!
When people-pleasing involves you behaving in a way that isn’t your natural way of behaving, this can give others a perception of you that isn’t true. In turn, this creates expectations and puts pressure on you to continue being that persona going forwards. This can impact your self-worth and make you question – do they really like you for you? Or are they associated with you because of the façade you’re showing them?
Always saying YES to others will inevitably mean saying NO to yourself a good chunk of the time.
When the drive to satisfy others becomes greater than your respect for your own needs and boundaries, that’s when you might want to look inward. In the post I’ll cover some suggestions for how to reduce the negative impact of people-pleasing.
Thank you for reading. You’re welcome to share your thoughts by leaving a comment below or get in touch by using the contact form on the website.
Take care
Charlie
Disclaimer – all content is written with love and with the intention of it being helpful. The purpose is to support people in expanding their self-awareness, understanding of others, and move towards inner peace. The author is mindful that the posts may not speak to everyone (or anyone!), so take home only what feels relevant and useful for you. Please get in touch with any queries.
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