What are you Gaining from People Pleasing?
Somewhere we learned that our needs aren't as important as other people's. We learned that our role is to predict, mind-read, and generally guess what the other person needs or might need so that we can fill it for them.
Here is an example of a friend of mine. Liz (not her real name) attended her annual family vacation last month. She spent so much of her time making sure that her brother and sister were happy that she didn't even know if she had a good time. Liz spent the whole week of vacation trying to figure out the perfect restaurant for everyone, the perfect beach spot, the perfect dinnertime conversation! She made sure she kept her brother and brother-in-law (sister's husband) separate the whole time and made sure her mother didn't get on her sister's nerves. In short, Liz felt responsible for everyone else's happiness. I asked Liz, "What would happen if you stopped engaging in the behavior?" and she said, "I have no idea, but I can only imagine how stressful it would be." She had played this role for years, and they counted on her. They needed her in that role.
The first step in changing your people-pleasing ways is to recognize that you engage in this behavior. The second step is to recognize that you are getting something out of it!!! Yep, that is a hard one to swallow, my friend. But it is true. Because Liz people pleases, she feels more important, they "need me to take care of them," they "need me to pick the perfect restaurant" if "I don't take care of them, they will be miserable." The truth is they might be angry, lost, or frustrated if Liz didn't step up and take over, but they would eventually figure it out. If they had to, Liz's family would figure out how to get along. As a people pleaser, we tend to get in this rut of believing we are irreplaceable, believing that our overt need to over give and wear ourselves out is helping everyone. In reality, we are hurting ourselves AND those around us.
Once Liz recognizes she is a people pleaser, she has to ask herself: What am I getting out of this pattern? The two main things I have seen in myself and my clients that we gain are:
A sense of importance, a sense of security/identity in her role, and the kudos from her family about what she contributes.
When she pours all her energy into her family/friends, she doesn't have time to look at her life, to look at her own wants/needs.
Looking inward is too hard and challenging for some of us because we are afraid we might not like what we see. By focusing on everyone else, Liz is too exhausted to look at her own life and figure out her desires. People-pleasing allows her to never really go for her dreams because she just doesn't have time. Changing the habit of people-pleasing is hard because we usually are gaining a lot from this role. Once we realize what we are gaining and that it just isn't worth the price, we can start changing the behavior.
The problem with people-pleasing we get so caught up in being hyper-aware of everyone else and making sure everyone else is having fun and getting their needs met--we forget our own. It is an unfulfilling way to live. Logically we can't read people's minds; we can't make everyone happy. We can only make ourselves happy and be kind and caring to those around us. We have to trust that if we stop people-pleasing and look inside, there is a beautiful, magical world. We have to trust that those around us will figure out how to make themselves happy. We have to trust that when we all just take care of ourselves, stop mind-reading, stop playing the victim and be kind to one another, we will live happier.