People Pleasing
Worldly success rests on a fallacy: the strange error that our perfection depends on the applause of other men! A weird life it is, to be living always in somebody else’s imagination, as if that is the only place in which one could at last become real! Thomas Merton
Are you a People Pleaser? A beloved friend or family member stuck in this mode? Take heart, there are ways to move beyond the unhealthy need to please others. Are you free to say no? The obligation to please others steals our freedom to say yes when appropriate, and no when it’s not.
There are ways to learn how to set boundaries, and not sacrifice your own needs to help others. Enneagram 2’s take note! While in my work, I have found more women who bury their own needs to accommodate a friend or partner, men fall into this pattern too.
One of the men in my Executive MBA team used accommodation as his primary negotiating and conflict resolution style. When I asked him about it, he said, “I collect chits when accommodating others.” I told him, “I’ll believe that tactic works when I see you cash in those chits.”
Read on to find ways to honor yourself, and to create healthy relationships with others. It’s hard, but possible. Be ready to be uncomfortable, but practice saying ‘no’ anyway. It is the pathway to freedom.
Please pass this along to friends, family and coworkers who find themselves caught in people pleasing.
Blessings, Gregg
Gregg’s Reflection
In my structural work, I find people readily admit being people pleasers. They are usually looking a little sheepish when they admit it. Like it feels a bit off, but is a ingrained pattern of behavior. Often, I hear stories about how they had to perform as a child, either academically or athletically, to hear affirmation from a parent.
Slowly, they learn they aren’t valued for who they are, only for what they can do. No wonder most of us are driven by doing and have trouble just being. See the post on Driven vs Drawn to understand how drivenness can become toxic. This pattern helps create the False Self I described in the post False Self/True Self. They learn they are not OK just as they are, they must be a performer to get applause. Pretty soon, a deep groove of People Pleasing becomes habitual.
This verse from Galatians is a clear rebuke of people pleasing:
Am I now seeking human approval or God’s approval? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ.
I find, in my Christian walk, many of the things Spirit leads me to do not please people. I am an Enneagram 8, the Challenger. So, when I call out issues of privilege or social justice, as I see Jesus modeling in the scripture, it ruffles many feathers. My pastor in Atlanta said to me on more than one occasion, “You don’t invite the prophet to dinner twice.”
So, if you are a people pleaser by nature, please ask yourself the questions in my Journaling Prompts below and reflect on the answers. Reach out, if you’d like to discuss this further. If you reply to the email Post, I will respond. Blessings.
Find a short Audio Introduction here:
Journaling Prompts
Do you find yourself seeking affirmation from others? Are You a People Pleaser? When you hit a home run, and receive affirmation from your peers, your boss, your customers, how long does it last? If you are back striving again five minutes later, what does that say about what you think about yourself?
Scripture
This is what the Lord says: Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord.
Jeremiah 17:5
Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save.
Psalm 146:3
Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe.
Proverbs 29:25
Why do you waste time looking to one another for approval when you have the approval of the One God?
John 5:41, 44
For they loved human praise more than praise from God.
John 12:43
Am I now seeking human approval or God’s approval? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Galatians 1:10
Ancient Writings
If I pray to God that all men should approve of my conduct, I should find myself a penitent at the door of each one, but I shall rather pray that my heart may be pure towards all.
Amma Sarah, Celtic Daily Prayer Book Two, p. 1428
Blessed is the servant who esteems himself no better when he is praised and exalted by people than when he is considered worthless, simple and despicable; for what a man is before God, that he is and nothing more.
St. Francis. Renovare notes on John the Baptist p. 67 NT
Modern Writings
People pleasing is a prison. It keeps us from speaking truth to our friends because we are scared to offend. It prevents us from preaching the gospel to those who oppose it. It makes us more devoted to fitting into our various subcultures than to being shaped by the infallible Word of God.
Amy Dimarcangelo, The Gospel Coalition: Let Jesus Set You Free from People Pleasing
The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy: the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions and applause of other men! A weird life it is, indeed, to be living always in somebody else’s imagination, as if that is the only place in which one could at last become real!
Thomas Merton, Seven Storey Mountain pg. 362
For as long as you can remember, you have been a pleaser, depending on others to give you an identity. You need not look at that only in a negative way. You wanted to give your heart to others, and you did so quickly and easily. But now you are being asked to let go of all these self-made props and trust that God is enough for you. You must stop being a pleaser and reclaim your identity as a free self.
Are you defined by people's response to you? If you are, then you’ve laid down a sandy foundation for your life. You’ll find your moods swinging up and down wildly, depending on what everybody thinks. Jesus put it this way, and I paraphrase: How could you believe, when you look to one another for approval instead of the approval that comes from the one God? As Saint Francis put it, “we are who we are in the eyes of God, nothing more and nothing less.”
Richard Rohr, On the Threshold of Transformation, p. 101
You probably don’t need to be told that your life would improve if you could learn to say “no”. Natalie Lue, the author of The Joy of Saying No, spent almost the first 30 years of her life saying “yes”.
How did that work out for her? “It led to being ill, feeling frustrated and resentful with family, at work, even with friends. ”It’s a lifelong journey, for an inveterate pleaser, to learn how to get a true sense of “where you end and others begin”, and set a boundary. If you’ve got a hangover from the childhood dynamic, and you feel you’re not allowed to say “no”, focus on the long game. People tend to ask for things because a pattern has built up.
There’s a risk that the first “no” will be so uncomfortable and unfamiliar to you that it comes off bristly and unkind. Beware the backslide. You’ll probably have to say “no” more than once for it to stick. It’s actually quite liberating if the other person gets angry at the refusal: more likely they don’t, and you just feel guilty. Ask yourself, Lue advises: “Is what you usually do actually helping? Are you blocking that person from figuring out something for themselves?”
But it’s not as simple as just resolving to say “no” more often. As Julia Bueno, a psychotherapist and the author of Everyone’s a Critic: How We Can Learn to be Kind to Ourselves, points out, “You risk exposing yourself to someone being pissed off, or judging you, or criticising you.” It’s a lifelong journey, for an inveterate pleaser, to learn how to get a true sense of “where you end and others begin”, and set a boundary.
Zoe Williams, Just Say No, The Guardian, 12/13/23
People-pleasing doesn’t just start at adulthood, said Manahill Riaz, a psycho-therapist in Houston and the owner of Riaz Counseling. This could mean that children were loved and praised only when doing things for others, Riaz Said. Alternatively, it could be based on the modeling that they saw from adults in childhood or even trauma that created people pleasing behaviors.
As a society, we encourage people to keep the peace, but when we keep the peace of others, we lose our personal peace, Riaz said.
The reason why people-pleasers avoid setting boundaries, is because the emotional consequence of setting those boundaries, which is often feeling guilty, Moore said. Guilt is the glue that holds people-pleasing together.
Jillian Wilson, The 6 Issues People-Pleasers Bring Up The Most In Therapy, Huff Post 1/22/24
For people-pleasers, the tendency to put their needs on the back-burner and prioritize other’s desires usually stems from childhood. A child learns how to people-please by first learning how to parent-please.
“During their formative years, these individuals likely received validation and approval when they fulfilled their parent’s needs, creating a link between self-worth and meeting external expectations,” said Imi Lo, a therapist and owner of Eggshell Therapy.
The goal in adulthood for people-pleasers should be to unravel learned behaviors and make the shift toward self-compassion, but that’s not a particularly easy task. “It’s a process of breaking free from the conditioning that shaped their tendencies,” Lo said. “A people-pleaser needs to recognize the importance of self-care without feeling selfish or guilty.”
If you’re friends, in a relationship or work closely with a people-pleaser, you can support them by not putting them in predicaments where they’re forced to quiet their own needs or wishes.
“Come on, just do it!“ People-pleasers almost across the board have a hard time saying no. That’s why it’s important not to guilt them into an activity or a decision. If they told you they can’t make your birthday trip, don’t pester them until they cave in and go; chances are, saying no was a big challenge for them.
“If you want to help a people-pleaser to honor themselves more, try to let them make their own decisions and respect them,” said Lia Huynh, a marriage and family therapist in Milpitas, California.
How to deal if you’re the people pleaser:
Huynh tells her quick-to-please clients to slow down and think about what they really want before they give into external pressure. “Ask yourself, ‘Do I really want to do this or am I just getting caught up in what they’re saying is best for me?’” she said.
If you don’t want to go to something, just be clear about it. Oftentimes people think saying no means you have to be harsh, but you can tactfully bow out, This is what the Lord says: Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord.
Brittany Wong, Therapists Are Sharing How People Pleasers Can Respond When They Have A Hard Time Saying No
“One thing people-pleasers need to work on is tolerating when someone is not happy with them,” she said. “This feeling can turn into rejection and then self-loathing. The thoughts can start with ‘so-and-so is not happy with me’ only to lead to ‘I am a horrible person.’”
Work on your internal dialogue here. “Instead, you can say to yourself, ‘So-and-so is not happy with me, and that’s OK. I am still a good person worthy of love.’
Brittany Wong, The Most Damaging Things You Can Say to a People-Pleaser, Huff Post 1/26/24