We are the people pleasers: warm, empathetic, non-judgmental, and helpful. We can read others and adapt—if needed by defusing tension even before it arises. We make everything easy for others. We make everything work. Being in a relationship with us is smooth, effortless, and pleasant.
It can take a while before we realize the price we pay for making everything so easy for others. Every conversation, every decision—sometimes our entire inner world—becomes a delicate dance around them: their feelings, their expectations, their needs. We are hyper-aware of what might trigger disapproval, even from total strangers. And even a hint of disapproval can send us spiraling into panic, shame, or despair. It’s an exhausting, unfulfilling way to live.
If you’re reading these words, you’ve most likely reached the point of having had enough. Congratulations—you’ve already done a superb job! Most people never get this far, which is, in a way, the beginning of the end.
Three areas where people pleasing creates a mess
People pleasing has a far reaching effect on three aspects of our experience: our relationship with ourselves, our relationship with others, and our relationship with the life we end up having.
Mess #1: our relationship with ourselves
Have you lost your self respect, in the middle of all this people pleasing ? That’s an aspect of your relationship with yourself. Have you lost sight of who you are, your tastes, opinions, emotions, wants and needs ? That’s another aspect of it.
This can be explained by my main school of thought, Internal Family System therapy. Within this framework, we are made of different parts, each having its own agenda. And yes, these parts can have difficult relationships; for example, one part of us is intent on people pleasing – mainly out of fear of being abandonned or attacked – and another part is telling us to grow a spine. Or, a part of us has strong needs and desires, but another part of us shuts them down so we can satisfy other people’s expectations and approval.
The part of us who carries our people pleasing emotions and attitudes is trying very hard to protect us. This protector is all about connection: whatever it takes to stay connected, to belong, to be safe. Forget autonomy, identity, spine, needs. The intention is good, but it can wreak havock on our self esteem, our identity , and can nudge us towards depression; having no self respect, low self esteem, no clear identity and no way to access and satisfy our needs, does not lead to pleasurable prospects.
On the relationship side, the damage is clear: There is no real connection. Mature, emotionally aware people may sense something is off. They can’t quite grasp who we are, what we truly think, or what we like. They might feel uncomfortable around us, not knowing where they stand. And if we’re dealing with another people pleaser? It can be almost funny in a sad way, two persons trying to follow the other’s lead.
The truth is, people pleasing isn’t about kindness. It’s about fear—a strategy to avoid conflict, rejection, or the terrifying idea that we might, just might, not be enough. But here’s the catch: When we are always playing a role, no one gets to meet the real us. Not even ourselves.
The real danger for us is not being able to stop exploitative situations. It can happen in small ways, like someone cutting in line ahead of us because we won’t speak up. Or it can stretch over years, in relationships where we give endlessly—time, energy, money, emotional labor—only to realize one day that our partner’s contribution was a fraction of ours. All it took to obtain all of this? A pat on the back here, a disapproving look there. That’s all.
The whole time, we are not feeling great. True, we are avoiding conflict and disapproval. But after a while we also feel lonely and resentful. We may end up avoiding relationships, temporarily or more permanently, to stop loosing ourselves in people’s needs and emotions. What started as a strategy to protect relationships has backfired.
Then there’s the self-denial. After years of prioritizing others, we lose track of our own wants, needs, opinions, and tastes. Everything that makes us us disappears—or worse, never fully forms. I remember the shock of realizing, as a young adult, that I had no opinion. None. I could listen to anyone and always agreed, like a human echo chamber. I had no idea about what I liked, needed or felt.
Finally, there’s the life we don’t live. When we’re always focused outward, we don’t spend our time, energy, or brainpower on what we want or need. And so, down the line, we don’t get what we want or need out of life. The result? Disappointment, low grade depression and this terrible impression that life is what happens to us.
How to stop being a people pleaser ?
Let’s start with a primer: It is entirely possible to stop being a people pleaser. I can guarantee you that. I transitioned myself, and nowadays, I identify as a non-people pleaser. I have (very) strong opinions on some things. I’ve learned how to hold my boundaries. I’m comfortable being myself around people most of the time. But here’s the catch: What doesn’t happen is instant, effortless healing.
I know it’s an issue—we all carry this dream of becoming a new person overnight. But that’s just a dream. It doesn’t happen in real life. I’m really sorry.
On the flip side, though, people pleasers are not afraid of hard work. We do it all the time. We just have to change who we are doing it for.
That said, let’s start with what not to do, even though it’s usually our first impulse: shaming and criticizing ourselves. Why? Because this attitude is rooted in the same fear of disapproval and rejection that fuels people pleasing in the first place. We don’t need more fear or disapproval—it won’t help.
What we do need is to claim our own importance and start leading our own lives.
Changing our behaviors
There’s a school of therapy called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) that focuses on changing our behaviors and thoughts rather than diving deep into the past. While I believe revisiting the past can be helpful (more on that later), I agree that until our behavior changes, nothing changes. Trying to figure everything out first is tempting—I’ve done plenty of it myself—but it doesn’t trigger change.It can even become an excuse for not doing things differently: “Not yet! Later! When I’ve got it all figured out!”
People pleasing is a learned behavior, and after years of repetition, it has carved deep pathways in our brains. We think and act like people pleasers almost automatically, without even realizing it. But here’s the good news: What’s learned can be unlearned. We can create new pathways and weaken the old ones—though, yes, it takes time.
The first step is to stop automatically following others’ lead and give ourselves time to check in with ourselves. It starts with buying time in interactions before responding to an explicit or implicit request.
One way to do this is to formulate, or reformulate clearly the expectation : “So you want me to come this weekend and help you with this big order, right? How long do you think it will take? Would I be paid overtime?” You’re not saying yes or no—you’re just putting into words what the other person expects. Sometimes, this clarity alone is enough for others to backpedal. Your boss, for example, might realize they can’t actually ask you to work an unpaid weekend. But more importantly, this gives your prefrontal cortex—the conscious part of your brain—time to fully register what’s being asked.
If it’s not enough, you can directly ask for time: “Okay, I understand. Can I get back to you later? I need to check with my partner/look at my calendar/think it over.” Then comes the crucial part: checking in with yourself to see how the request or suggestion feels to you. The truth is, we have trouble with knowing what we want, but it’s often easier to know what we don’t want. If we are unsure, we can pay attention to our physical sensations. Our body often knows before our mind does .
And then comes the really difficult part: setting a boundary which means stating what we want—or don’t want. Most of the time, to our surprise, the other person is perfectly fine with it. (Beware: Don’t overinterpret their response. If they say they’re okay, assume they’re okay.)
Sometimes, though, we have to tolerate discomfort—irritation, anger, or disappointment from others. And that’s okay. We can survive it. They might be angry or disappointed with us, but that’s better than being angry and disappointed in ourselves. Slowly, but surely, we can build our tolerance for this discomfort and build respect for ourselves.
Getting to Know Ourselves
Getting to know ourselves is especially difficult when we’ve spent so long ignoring what we want, like, need, or feel. For some of us, it can feel like we have no personality at all—just a void where our preferences, desires, and even our emotions should be. Instead, we cling to what others around us like or want, or what our environment expects us to do. We might even end up feeling empty, as if there’s nothing inside us but a hollow space.
For others, it’s even worse: We’re afraid of what lurks within us. We fear our emotions might overwhelm us, that we have dangerous impulses, or that we’re somehow bad. But here’s the truth: There’s no monster inside. My favorite school of therapy, Internal Family Systems (IFS), teaches that we all have a Self—a core, benevolent and clear part of us that never disappears, even if it’s somehow out of view. No matter how far we’ve strayed from it, we can always find our way back. And as IFS reminds us: There are no bad parts. What we fear is hiding inside us isn’t evil. Most of the time, what comes up is normal emotions, wants and needs. That’s all.
With this inner awareness work, it’s best if we start small. Whenever possible, we can take a moment to check inward and ask how we are feeling, what we are thinking, and needing.
At first, the answers might not come easily. That’s ok, there are ways to improve this situation.
An excellent tool do this is journalling. I know it can look like an innefectual strategy, but make no mistake : creating a time and a safe space to express our inner life on paper can have a scientifically proven, big impact on our mental health.
Another way to retrace our inner compass is to listen to our needs and wants when they communicate indirectly. I’ve already talked about body sensations. We can also pay attention to jealousy (which can be a sign that someone else has what your want or need), resentment (which can be a sign that you are not getting what you need), and your energy levels, which often depend on how aligned what you are doing is with your wants and needs.
If you want more guidance, an excellent book to work on getting to know ourselves is Martha Beck’s Finding your own North Star. It helped me tremendously to get the ball rolling, back in the day.
Just like setting boundaries, rewiring our brains to check in with ourselves takes practice. But even brief moments of self-awareness can start to shift things. The more we do it, the easier it becomes.
Understanding the underliying cause of people pleasing
One of my core belief, as a psychologist, is that our mental health issues are mainly a product of our history. I’m in good company for this, fortunately. If you want to educate yourself on this debate, you can read the excellent book named What happened to you ?, a collaboration between Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Bruce Perry, a neuroscientist and child trauma expert. It can really help shifting our perspective away from “what is wrong with us”.
I understand that stating our people pleasing issues are a result of our history can seem depressing : we may conclude that there is nothing we can do about it, since we can not rewrite our past. I remember consciously running away from my past, not wanting to deal with it at all. I get it.
But it’s not what happened per se that causes people pleasing. It’s our resulting misguided thoughts and beliefs. There is no way we can comfortably be ourselves if we believe we had a painful childhood because we were a bad, incompetent kid. And this belief, my friend, is guaranteed to be false. We have reasons to believe it, but it’s still nonsense. We may also carry a profound distrust of others, believing they are both better than us, and hard to please. Getting to correct these types of beliefs take time when we have grown up with them- and most probably, discussions and help from others.
The reality is, we became people pleasers because, growing up, we had to work hard to please a critical, volatile or disinterested adult. The need to adapt to our unfortunate situation is what created these beliefs and automatic people pleasing behaviors in ourselves. Understanding this is not enough on its own, but it helps rebuild our self esteem and our self knowledge. It can also lead to a compassionate respect for who we were – and who we are today.
It’s not easy, for sure. But it can be done, I promise.