Pleasing People

Have you ever felt selfish for wanting to put your needs first? 

Have you learned that even when you’ve complied with everyone’s wishes and whims they still weren’t happy, and you weren’t either?

This is the deception of people pleasing. 

There is no tragedy greater than being alive but not feeling it because you’re numb, aloof, and emotionless. For many years between my teens and mid 20s, I lived this way, showing all the signs of being alive but never truly living. That’s because I felt a strong desire to give all of myself in order to pay back the world for everything I’d been given.

It took me a while to identify the missing piece from my life.  I wasn't living as the person I was, I was living my life to please others, make them happy and follow society's rules.  The more of this I did, the less fulfilled I felt.

I learned to shape my personality, behaviors, and reactions according to what other people wanted or needed from me instead of being authentic to how I truly felt.  I rarely said no, I was super responsible and spent 90% of my time doing things for others.

This started to wear me down and I started to crack.  I was in a cycle of actual unhealthy behaviour as you cannot constantly please everyone.

I had completely lost who I was.  When I self-identified as having certain personality attributes, it dictated my actions and led me to believe I needed to act in certain ways to match society’s standard of how a good and nice person behaves.  I was hiding who I truly was, would people like me if they knew at that point who I really was.

Even when my actions weren’t aligned with how I truly wanted to live my life, I found myself complying anyway. I worked hard to avoid looking selfish, unaccommodating, or disagreeable, and I avoided confrontation at all costs.

I stopped this pattern when I came to realize that being a good person is a lot more complex than just accommodating the needs of others all of the time.

When I realized that constantly giving in wasn’t as loving as I thought it was, and that the way I was acting didn’t come from a loving place at all but from a place of guilt and inadequacy, that’s when I decided to go from people-pleasing to living life on my own terms.

I started to evolve from selfless to self-full. That’s when I restructured my life.

Finally, I made other people responsible for themselves and their own problems.
I was no longer responsible for how others feel or act.
I had spent so long
trying to keep the peace in my relationships.  I was overlooking the ways in which other people were taking advantage of me. I ignored their twisted priorities because I thought I should play nice all the time, this also stopped.  It is much better to be honest and upfront.

I had lived my life through fear of criticism and rejection, Constantly censoring myself, and seeking approval all the time meant I was growing as a person.  I was in a cycle that my value as a person was totally dependent on what everyone thought of me, this too had to stop, I placed more value on myself by allowing me to shine through. 

I started to feel happy and alive when I started to get to know myself, learning when to say no and when to set limits in my relationships. It wasn’t easy. I had to get used to some criticism and disappointment.  However, I can say without hesitation that it was worth it.

Life should be lived the way you want to live it. No one should have the power over you to dictate how you need to live your life. The more you get to know who you are, and the more boldly you begin to live life on your terms, the better you’ll feel.

I no longer make decisions out of fear.  I do things for people because I want to, not because I’ll feel guilty if I don’t. I no longer need other people to make me feel worthy; I give that sense of worthiness to myself by knowing and accepting who I am.