7 Things People-Pleasers need to leave in 2022
Find out what behaviors I no longer tolerate in myself and others in the new year.
Hi, 👋 this is Klara with a free in-depth article of fittingrightin. In every article, I cover knowledge, skills, and strategies every recovering people-pleaser needs. For the full experience with new articles every Tuesday and Thursday, monthly live Q&As, plus free downloadable worksheets and guides, subscribe:
In today's post, I describe 7 things to leave behind in 2022, especially if you tend to please others at the expense of your own well-being and happiness.
Believing your negative self-talk without questioning if what it's saying is true.
Soaking up other people's negative emotions and letting the moods of others dictate your mental, emotional and physical well-being.
Suppressing your feelings, needs, and wants to put other people first.
Not staying emotionally regulated when I communicate my needs and boundaries.
Doing what you think you're supposed to do rather than what you want to do.
Staying around people who apologize and promise to change, yet nothing ever changes.
Not participating in activities that would make you feel better when you're having a bad day.
Before you continue reading, I want you to know that struggling with the described behaviors is normal. If you recognize that you're engaging in many of the listed points, don't beat yourself up for it, but rather let your feelings come up and accept that, for now, this is where you're at in your recovery journey from people-pleasing.
Let's dive deeper into each point:
Believing your negative self-talk without questioning if what it's saying is true.
Negative self-talk is a common problem many people struggle with. As people-pleasers, we often suffer from severe negative self-talk as we often grew up with excessively critical parents whose voices we have internalized.
By negative self-talk, I mean the negative thoughts and beliefs we hold about ourselves, which, when left unattended, can cause severe damage to our mental, emotional, and even physical well-being.
During my recovery journey from people-pleasing, I discovered that the voice in my head was mean to me. It was saying things to me that I would never dream of saying to another human being.
Recognizing that your internal voice isn't reflecting reality truthfully but is rather polluted with your past traumas and negative experiences is an important step in your recovery journey from people-pleasing.
Here are some reasons why your negative self-talk isn't telling you the truth:
It's often overly focused on the negative, which distorts and negatively exaggerates what's going on.
It's subjective. Your negative self-talk is based on your own subjective beliefs and perceptions, which may not reflect reality accurately.
It's not based on evidence. Our negative self-talk is often fueled by assumptions or interpretations rather than facts.
It's self-destructive. Your negative self-talk might seem harmless, but the things we tell ourselves quickly translate into beliefs we hold about ourselves, which may hold us back from putting ourselves out there.
It's important to recognize that negative self-talk is not true and to work on replacing it with more positive and realistic thoughts. This can help to improve our self-esteem and overall well-being.
Soaking up other people's negative emotions and letting the moods of others dictate your mental, emotional and physical well-being.
Being a people-pleaser, I would guess that you're also highly empathetic. You're good at reading others and knowing their feelings and needs.
While inherently, there is nothing wrong with being highly empathetic, it can be a true burden when we have loose boundaries and often end up soaking up other people's negative emotions.
There are a few strategies you can try to help prevent someone else's negative mood from influencing your own:
Remind yourself that someone else's mood is their responsibility, not yours, and neither is their mood your fault. You may have grown up with an emotionally immature parent who made you manage their emotions for them and made you feel responsible, which explains why you take someone else’s moods personally. Yet, this is a sign that you need to unlearn your beliefs about fixing someone else’s mood.
Use your skill: be empathetic. Instead of jumping to fix someone's mood, try to understand where they are coming from and offer them sit it out with them. This can help others feel less alone and will help you to separate their feelings from yours.
Practice awareness. When you're easily affected by other people's moods and feelings, chances are that their negative emotions are triggering something in you. Practice witnessing how you feel, what emotions arise in your body and what thoughts flood your head when you're around someone in a bad mood. This will help you identify what is driving your need to soak up the other person’s mood.
Learn and set emotional boundaries. Emotional boundaries are the most difficult to practice for anyone stuck in the cycle of pleasing others. It's all about recognizing that someone else’s negative feelings aren't your fault and that it's your job to watch out for what you let in. Emotional boundaries are like an invisible bubble that allows you to differentiate between what's yours and what's not.
Suppressing your feelings, needs, and wants to put other people first.
As people-pleasers, we had to learn to suppress our feelings and needs in order to focus on others fully. We couldn't let how we felt and what we needed to get in the way of our people-pleasing patterns, as this is our way of creating safety for ourselves.
During your recovery from people-pleasing, it is key that you start reconnecting with your feelings and needs. Here are tips on how to do that:
Practice being present in your body. Use a quiet moment daily to check in with yourself and identify what you're feeling in your body (breath, heart rate, any tightness, etc.)
Build your feelings and needs vocabulary. You can't identify what you need or how you feel if you don't have the right words. Learn what human needs and feelings there are to identify them better.
Validate your feelings and needs. As people-pleasers, we often suffer from an overly critical internal voice that can be judgemental of our needs and feelings. It's important to recognize that and change how you judge yourself for your needs and feelings.
Not staying emotionally regulated when I communicate my needs and boundaries.
When we are people-pleasers, boundaries are most likely new territory to us. We often overthink setting boundaries, which is another defense mechanism holding us back from stepping outside of our comfort zone and setting boundaries.
Here is one of my favorite lessons when it comes to setting boundaries: There are no magic words. Even if you set boundaries in the kindest, most empathetic, and humble way, some people will still not like it.
The most important part of setting a boundary isn't what you say but how you say it. Staying calm and collected is much more important than using the "perfect” wording.
When setting a boundary, be aware of your emotional state, and when necessary, take a step back to cool off or get clarity on the matter.
Doing what you think you're supposed to do rather than what you want to do.
When we have people-pleased for a long time and suppressed our feelings and needs, we often don't know what we want to do with our lives anymore.
We often end up feeling lost and unsatisfied in our lives and do what others tell us to, expect us to do, or what we think others think we should do.
It may seem harmless to do what you think you're supposed to do, but I know firsthand (check out the article about my own story) that doing what you're supposed to do rather than what you want will ultimately make you miserable.
Staying around people who apologize and promise to change, yet nothing ever changes.
First, I am proud of you if you find yourself in a relationship and speak up about something that bugs you. I know it's difficult to speak up and share what we dislike or no longer want to tolerate. It's a big step towards healing.
Unfortunately, it often doesn't end there. Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you repeatedly ask someone for what you need or to stop doing something, yet they never change? Or do they change for a bit and then return to their old selves?
Setting boundaries isn't just about speaking up, but it's also about following through. Suppose you repeatedly set the same boundary, yet nothing is changing. In that case, you need to ask yourself if you want to tolerate their behavior moving forward or if you need to be crystal clear on what you will do should they decide not to honor your boundary.
This isn't about controlling others but about following through on your own boundaries and respecting your boundaries even if others don't.
Not participating in activities that would make you feel better when you're having a bad day.
Humans want homeostasis, meaning we like things to be the same. Sometimes this isn't in our best interest. After years of people-pleasing and often feeling at the mercy of others, it became normal for me to feel resentful and victimize myself.
When we feel like a victim, we often feel powerless. This can cause us to believe that we are powerless, creating a victim mindset. This is when we believe that the world is out to get us and that we can't change how we feel.
Yet, in reality, we hold much more power than we think. Tune into your needs, take care of yourself when you're having a bad day, and learn to recognize when you're intentionally sabotaging yourself by not doing things that would make you feel better.
Before you leave…
When you first recognize what we need to change, you may feel compelled to change everything immediately. My best tip if you want to implement healthy change is to pick one thing and work at changing it. There is no rush; healing is difficult enough, so don't pressure yourself into doing too much too fast.
Start small, break tasks down into the smallest tasks possible, reward yourself for showing up every day, and seek support if you need/want to.
What behaviors do you want to leave in 2022? Let me know in the comments below.
I certainly want to work on doing the things i want to do rather than the things I think I am supposed to do. This is something I struggle with and it makes me unrightfully resentful of the people associated with the thing I think I am supposed to do.
Also, this post was super helpful, thank you for the detailed breakdowns! Really loving this content elaboration idea.