Being a
people-pleaser isn’t necessarily always a bad thing. But people pleasing
without a healthy respect for your needs, opinions, and wants can be hard to
contend with on day by day basis. You end up frequently doing things you don’t
want to do to make others happy. But you don’t get to do what you want to do,
so you become unhappy. You might internalize other individual’s pain without
dealing with your pain. You may worry about whether people will eliminate you
from their lives if you don’t do what you want them to do. You aren’t
responsible for making others happy at all times. And you don’t have to be
perfect all the time to feel like a worthy individual or to make others happy.
When all you try to do is to please others, you lose a part of yourself along
the way. Deep down, you are worthy of love from others, even if you don’t
satisfy them all of the time, according to counselors at Talkspace.
Why do People
Feel the Need to Please Others?
Many
people-pleasing tendencies evolve as we try to protect ourselves from rejection
and its accompanying sadness. Talkspace counselor Rachel O’Neil states that people who
have problems setting boundaries may fear disappointing others or that people
won’t like them. Or they might be afraid of losing their social group.
How Can You
Find Your Boundaries and Keep Your Identity?
To be able to
discover a balance between self-compassion and helping others, you need to be
able to accept yourself with no conditions, no matter what your inner critic
may be saying. Here are five personal actions you can take to become more
self-accepting:
1. You need to
permit yourself to say no.
2. Tune into
your emotions before you try to deal with someone else’s feelings. Once you
understand how you feel, you’ll know whether you’re prepared to deal with
someone else’s feelings or if you need to schedule some personal time to get
yourself together. It’s okay not to answer messages or phone calls right away.
Take time to get in touch with yourself before you get into a struggle or help
someone else with their problems.
3. Meditate to
increase self- loving kindness. If you aren’t grounded in your feelings, you
won’t be able to set boundaries for your relationships with others. A
loving-kindness meditation may be as simple as sitting quietly and thinking
such thoughts as “May I be filled with loving-kindness,” or “May I be well in
my body and mind.” Once you become calm and centered, you can then send these
helpful wishes on to someone else by adding their names to the meditation.
4. Be careful
with self-sacrifice. If you consistently do things for other people when you
don’t want to, or at the expense of the person’s sense of well-being, it’s time
to take a new look at the ways and times you sacrifice yourself for others.
5. Ask for
personal support. Working with a therapist can help you identify your people
pleasing tendencies. A skilled therapist can also help you set boundaries between
yourself and others that might be healthier for all people involved in the
relationship.
If you need
help setting boundaries between your needs and others, contact Talkspace today.
Don’t be afraid to request help from a qualified online therapist to keep your life and
relationships healthy. You and your self-esteem are worth the work.
