Picture this: You have a friend whoâs moving, and he asks you for help on a Saturday morning when you have plans to do something that youâve really been looking forward to. You donât want to hurt your friendâs feelings, so instead of letting him know youâre not available, you say, âYeah, sure. I can help.ââ
Why did you do that?
Well, you might be a people pleaser, and your urge to make people happy could be making you sick, says , a therapist based in Scotland and author of the upcoming book, ââ
The need to please people is something many of us struggle with, and it goes all the way back to childhood, Moult says. Think about when you were a very small child, and you started to eat with your parents.
âMaybe mum and dad are like, âYeah, go pick up the spoon, get the food in your mouth,â and theyâre applauding you,â she says. âYou start picking up these like messages of âif I do something right, Iâm going to get the response from the people around me,â and when we want a positive response, we do more of that because we love seeing other people happy.â
But as we get older, Moult says, we start to use people-pleasing to protect ourselves from discomfort.
âWe donât like confrontation, the feeling of being uncomfortable and upsetting somebody is our greatest fear. We will do the thing to make them happy,â she says. âSo that âyesâ to your friend moving when youâve really, really been like, âI wanted to go to the beach,â or whatever it was. You say âyes,â because the fear of doing it and letting that person down is far greater. Because thatâs the thing. Youâre looking at them. Youâre not looking at you anymore.â
4 questions with Lizzie Moult
What are the signs that you could be a people-pleaser?
âGenerally, itâs saying âyesâ to a lot of things that you donât wanna do. So Iâm an overworker. When I was in my 20s, Iâd always say âyesâ to the extra shift. Iâd always say âyesâ to covering someone who was off sick because I couldnât let my boss down. I could never take a sick day.
âThatâs a really good sign of a people pleaser. Generally, people pleasers donât like to share whatâs actually happening. So no matter how theyâre feeling, theyâre always fine. Theyâre always good. Everything is fine because theyâre not listening to themselves.â
How does people-pleasing affect mental health and relationships?
âIn relationships, quite often youâre hiding a lot of your own truth because youâre too scared to express it. You donât want to actually share that, âOh, itâd be really nice to go to the beach today cause itâs gonna be a nice sunny day.â If I donât share that with my partner, Iâm then starting to become frustrated and resentful because I feel like I canât share my own truth.
Whatâs the first thing you can do if you want to stop people-pleasing?
âThe first thing I say to every people pleaser is that we need to turn the table around on your awareness. People pleasers are super vigilant. They are constantly, constantly reading, assuming and guessing what other people are doing. What people-pleasers donât have is the ability to actually experience their own full scope of emotions. You just donât take notice of it.
âSo what I get people to do is â I call it five minutes of mindfulness â to sit somewhere where they have no distractions, no phone, no nothing, and just sit there. Now, itâs probably one of the hardest things you can do, because itâs so not normal. We live in such a busy world, so to sit for 5 minutes in our own self is difficult. But in that, you get to then learn, âOh, how am I actually feeling? How am I responding to the weather today? How am I responding to what Iâm just thinking about?â Because when weâre people-pleasing, we donât even consider that. Weâre just waiting for the smile. Weâre waiting for the âyes.â Weâre waiting for their reaction, not listening to our own.
âSitting with yourself for five minutes is a really good start. The reason being is it teaches you about yourself. But then if you wanted to scratch the next layer off, itâs going back to those beliefs that we have. So for example, âIf I eat everything on my plate, I am a good human,â because when I was a kid, my parents were like, âYou have to eat everything,â and so when I did, it pleased them. So as an adult, I have to reassess those beliefs of, âDo I actually need to clear everything off my plate in order to be finished, to be full, to be what?â Because theyâre no longer making the rules for my life. You have to assess each belief that you have.â
What happens when you start to stay no?
âBoundary vampires⊠So these are the people who donât take no for an answer. One of the best tricks I give to everybody is to get a one-liner and to stick to it. So for example, a friend asks you to help them move house, and your response should actually be, âI canât. Iâm off to the beach.â So using that classic one-liner could help the boundary vampires because they donât want to hear your truth over and over again, because they just want you to hurry up and say, âyes,â because thatâs what theyâre used to you doing. So thereâs an adjustment period, and it does take time with some relationships where you start asserting your own beliefs and your own truth as such.â
This interview was edited for clarity.
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produced and edited this interview for broadcast with . Raphelson also produced it for the web.
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