How To Stop Being a People-Pleaser (for good)

Ok, so you’ve identified that you’re a people-pleaser. You’ve noticed a pattern of feeling frustrated in your relationships (whether romantic or platonic – it can show up everywhere) because you fail to communicate your wants and needs early on. You go along with it, telling yourself it’s not so bad, until you reach breaking point… which usually ends in an emotional blowout or simply giving up and cutting the other person out entirely.

Either way, there’s a lot of resentment that slowly builds and it’s really, really draining.

It feels impossible to put yourself first – what if your requests are too much? What if you hear a “no?”

It feels so much easier to simply go along with what the other person wants, tolerating that small, niggling discomfort, than it does to ask for what you really need. Doesn’t it?

I have some good news for you – it’s possible to change this pattern and start advocating for yourself. Here are some ways to start that process.

Make Peace With Your Inner People-Pleaser

This part of you – the part that wants to accommodate, that wants to put others first, the part that wants to keep everyone happy – this is an important part of you. It may feel like something that you want to change, get rid of, even something you’re ashamed of, but I’d like to start by encouraging you to welcome it and give it permission to be a part of your character.

A good way in can be through journaling. Here are some prompts that might help:

“My people-pleaser gets most activated when…”

“I first learned how to take care of others when…”

“My people-pleasing part protects me from…”

“My people-pleasing part benefits my relationships by…”

People-pleasing is a response that you likely learned at a young age, in response to something that felt overwhelming. Really common experiences where this happens include parents being emotionally (or physically) unavailable: as a young child this can be felt as an abandonment, and by learning to please and accommodate we are ensuring that we won’t be abandoned again. After all, if we keep everyone happy, and don’t upset anyone, they are less likely to leave us!

It can be really helpful to make friends with your inner people-pleaser by acknowledging that it serves a really useful purpose. It has gifts for you: perhaps you’re a really loyal and caring friend, or you feel a lot of motivation to do work that makes a really positive impact on the world. Maybe you work in healthcare or another profession where putting others first is part of your job. 

These are really beneficial and wonderful things – your inner people-pleaser is important, even if it becomes a over-active in some situations.

Learn to Identify Your Own Wants and Needs

While your inner people-pleaser is an important part of who you are, it’s still possible to balance it a little better so that it doesn’t show up in ways that sabotage your relationships. 

How do you start doing this?

It’s possible that you’ve been suppressing your own needs for a really long time. Maybe you don’t even know how to think about yourself at all! 

In my experience, the body knows what the body wants. It’s the mind that starts chattering over the top, overriding what we feel, telling us that our needs are not as important. So I like to start with the body. 

This involves gently starting to increase awareness for what you can feel – not what you think. Can you give yourself some space and time to pause, slow down, check in with your body, and ask what you really need in this moment? Maybe it starts with small enquiries – how you want to spend the next ten minutes, or what type of tea you want to drink. 

I’ve written more about this in a blog post titled, Learning How to Feel More. There are a several practices and ideas there if you’d like some more inspiration.

Ask for Help from People you Trust

Finally, it’s important to acknowledge that your inner people-pleaser developed in the context of a relationship (perhaps with family at a young age, or in early sexual relationships). As an adult, this part of you becomes activated within the context of a relationship. This means that the most effective change will happen – yes – within the context of a relationship.

This could look like speaking with someone you trust about this part of yourself, and asking for their support. Perhaps this is a close friend, or family member, or something you could do with a partner. 

This is a great thing to work through within a coaching relationship too, for the same reasons.

How might it be to ask them to check in with you? To ask you directly what you want more often? Or simply to share an intention with them, that you’d like to prioritise your own needs more, to give yourself permission to start practicing saying “I want…” with them?

Having someone on your side to ask for reassurance can be really powerful too – being able to share a desire or need with them, knowing you can ask them to reassure you that you haven’t asked for “too much.”