How to overcome "people pleasing"
from the perspective of a recovering people pleaser, and someone who identifies as the opposite.
How do you get past the fear of letting others down to make choices for yourself? I want to please others out of empathy and concern, which means I put my own needs and desires on hold. I feel selfish, engulfed with guilt, or that I am hurting other people’s feelings. In the meantime, I go down a rabbit hole of my own hurt feelings. It can feel like a vicious cycle.—Jen M.
Thanks for the question, Jen! I invited Eric Kohner to join me in answering because Eric has coached me around a similar topic. I’ll share some initial thoughts, and then invite him to weigh in.
First, I want to celebrate you as a person with empathy, which is under-valued despite that we call it as an essential leadership skill.
(How do I know it’s under-valued? The more empathy a job requires, the less it generally pays.) But it’s also a skill or awareness that has served many of us quite well, too. I’m willing to bet that you are exceptional at building and maintaining relationships—even with people who may have different perspectives or values. I’m making up that “connected” is something you like to feel.
If experiencing connection comes naturally to you, the new skill to learn is the super power of disconnecting, which is what it can feel like when you make choices for yourself, or express a different opinion, or say “no.” It is, omg, so uncomfortable for some of us. This is the tolerance I had to build as I stepped into bigger professional roles because the nature of my relationships changed—people that I previously considered to be authority figures became peers or colleagues, and learning to disagree, negotiate, hold a line, etc., wasn’t only acceptable, I expected it from myself in order to do my job well. Sometimes I had to stand up on behalf of my team, for example, or contribute my expertise to solve whatever challenge was at hand.
In order to gain more skill at showing up in this new way, I started small and with low stakes. I challenged myself to say “no” or “I disagree” at least once a day:
“It's such a nice day out!"
“I disagree. I prefer the rain.”
Bam. Just like that. Make it short, direct, and drop it like a bomb (connectors tend to over-explain, one of our less endearing traits, I’d say.)
Sometimes, even with small assertions, I immediately would try to repair the relationship, but mostly I would sit with my discomfort and notice what happened—and often what happened is that other people learned to accommodate me. Yes, it was wild and unexpected, but when I took up more space, others were given the opportunity to play different roles, too. They got the chance to adjust their expectations, or be the ones to nurture the relationship.
Did I make mistakes? You bet. There were times when I overshot it and came out pretty hot—and I still mess up. (Note the messing up theme because it’ll come back.)
If you decide to try this exercise, start small, practice every day, and trust that your relationships have more tensile strength than you might assume. Or, start disagreeing now! Tell me you’ll take none of this advice and like it.
—Steph
Let’s hear from Eric…who has valuable insight from another perspective.
Eric here. I questioned whether I am the right person to answer this because, for some reason, people pleasing hasn’t been a major issue in my life. Historically, I haven’t been afraid to piss people off, to speak my truth in life. Granted, sometimes that truth wasn’t necessarily benefitting the person I was giving it too—so I’m not saying that’s the way to go. I haven’t always challenged others as elegantly as I would have liked, and sometimes I’ve caused harm.
On the other hand, probably 90 percent of my clients hire me because I challenge them, and they want to be challenged. For a certain kind of person, I’m a really good coach because, at times, discomfort moves the dial on somebody’s life and creates transformation. I push back on the conventional wisdom that making someone uncomfortable is causing harm—there can be value in making people uncomfortable. We need psychological safety and challenges.
A lot of the work I do with managers and leaders in the corporate sector is help them learn to give tough feedback, and here’s what I believe: When you are coming from love, when you’re seeing the person in front of you as magnificent and capable, then more often than not, you can say almost anything to them and they’ll be able to receive it.
So how do you get over people pleasing? I don’t know if you get over it, but you learn to manage it.
Become more self-aware and notice when it pops up, and get curious about its origins. When we have a better understanding of who we are and how we show up, then we have more choice over who we want to become.
—Eric
