Breaking the Cycle of People-Pleasing: Understanding the Negative Effects and How to Overcome Them

Learn the step-by-step instructions and self-reflection questions to help you recognize, understand, and recover from people-pleasing patterns for a more fulfilling life.

On the outside, people-pleasers often are perceived as reliable, motivated, helpful, organized, loyal, polite, productive, caring, attentive, and understanding. These admirable qualities can lead to success in personal and professional settings. However, it comes with a price. 

On the inside, people-pleasing can have a multitude of different negative effects. People who people-please often feel disconnected from themselves, as they are constantly trying to meet the needs and expectations of others. They are often highly self-critical and carry an overly negative self-image, along with low self-esteem, based on their internalized belief that they need to overcompensate for their not-enoughness.

On top of that, people-pleaser often harbor a lot of secret resentment towards those they are pleasing, as they end up feeling taken advantage of. People-pleasing also comes with increased anxiety, as they are constantly worried about whether they measure up to the expectations of others. This often leads to burnout, as people-pleasers may push themselves too hard to please others and frequently ignore signs such as fatigue, emotional exhaustion, and mental fog.

People-pleasing comes hand in hand with having difficulties setting boundaries, as disappointing others is a big fear of people-pleasers. Not being able to say no, often causes people-pleasers to feel lonely even if people surround them, meaning that they cannot create trust in their relationships since they tend to hide their true selves.

If you find yourself nodding along and identifying that people-pleasing is a behavior and mindset you no longer want to be stuck in, then follow the step-by-step instructions below and sit in self-reflection with the guided questions.

Step-by-step instructions to help you recover from people-pleasing: