People Pleasing
I am a recovering people-pleaser. As an eldest daughter and self proclaimed ‘good girl’, I have invested a lot of time and importance on being liked.
Pleasing people did and still does make me happy. I love to feel people's faces light up when I deliver a gift, a project or an event. I love the feeling of people being ‘happy with me’. Being “pleased”.
People pleasing is a shitty currency. It’s a currency many of us trade in without realising!
What are you liked for? The things that we were rewarded for as children often show up in our adult behaviours. Being on time. Being polite. Looking smart. Minimising our behaviour! For sitting quietly and being fucking patient!
We are taught from an early age to please and what we 'should' care about.
We are literally earning people's approval in exchange for our behaviour. We stay safe by creating the imagined expectations and desires of other people.
Desperate to be ‘seen’ or just ‘noticed’ we set out to please everyone and often end up selling out on who we truly are.
As an opinionated extroverted, show pony, being seen and not heard and only speaking when I was spoken to took enormous effort! It was soul destroying. By the age of thirty, I realised that I could not play the game anymore. I made the decision that being myself was more important than being liked. That I was no longer going to compromise myself for the comfort of others.
But it crept back. In any new situation, a new level of my life, ‘the need to please’ became a healthy insurance. It was useful. Until it wasn’t.
People pleasers spread themselves as thin as marmite! We are so eager to make others happy, we blurt out “of course!” and “yes! No problem” before it even occurs to us to say “I can’t right now” or “no thanks.” It’s like an auto reply created from twenty years ago and the coding has stuck.
We take responsibility for other people's reactions. We feel bad when others feel bad and we try to minimise any discomfort to those around us.
Over responsibility is a huge problem. We tend to take a ridiculous amount of responsibility for whether or not people are having a good time — so much so that we completely forget that us enjoying ourselves is even an option!
The root cause of people pleasing is a healthy dose of ‘I’m not good enough’ with a side salad of 'I don’t matter’. There are many places this can come from. I am a big fan of moving forward, so rather than focus on all the reasons we develop the disease to please, I am more interested in what we can do about it!
As the famous Dr. Phil said, “You can’t fix what you don’t acknowledge.”. Acknowledging is the first step to awareness.
If you are still reading, you can bet that you are a caring, capable and committed person.
You care deeply about people, probably have a shit ton of people in your paddock - people who rely on you for something. You have a radar for what people need. Something to eat, some advice or a listening ear - you intuitively know what is needed in most situations.
You are capable. Not only do you do a lot, you do it effortlessly, minimising your greatness and not causing too much of a scene! You have initiative and are a get-shi-done kind of human, constantly frustrated at how other people can be so ineffective!
You are committed. You pride yourself on getting things done. On turning up. On being there - (wherever ‘there is!!)
I have created a day for you - a day where you get to spend time in your own energy. A day where you get space to think, laugh and redesign how and who you want to be.
I am so excited about these energy festivals - we will be taking time to breathe. To catch up with yourself!
We will be looking at your life, what you love, how you feel and hacks to shape your world the way you want to.
You will have space to listen to yourself, top your instincts. To re-prioritise what's important to you.
To restart 2025 being intentional about what you are and aren’t doing. About who you are and aren't being. To get clear about what you are and are not available for. So you can learn to run your life rather than let life run you!
Join me at the Energy Festivals!
February 16th Hamilton at Zenders Cafe and Venue
February 23rd Alexandra at Orchard Garden
March 2nd Wairarapa at Rose & Smith
Christchurch venue & date will be announced soon....