You may have read 12 Signs you are a People-Pleaser and wondered if it is really such a big deal. After all, how can being such a caring person be that much of a problem for you, or anyone else?

I want you to have an amazing life. Therefore I am going to paint you the picture of how people-pleasing will impact every area of your life and the consequences for you and those who matter to you. I will also show you what the flipside looks like.

And of course tell you what you need to start doing instead so you can have that amazing life I mentioned.

Business/Career

You try to do everything by yourself. You have always taken care of yourself and other people too. You don’t want to come across as needy or incapable and so you soldier on alone. You don’t want to look weak.

But we can’t do everything on our own and we are not meant to. Asking for help actually gets you further along and quicker and you build a mutual support network along the way.

You may also get caught up in trying to do everything the right way. This leads to you taking a cautious approach and avoiding risks. Which will make you reliable, but will also keep you playing small.

On your recovery journey you identify self-sabotaging behaviours and discard them and begin charting your own path and going for what you want. You find yourself living a much bigger life.

Money

You may worry about money, that there is never enough. And so you take what you can get. You don’t ask for a pay rise because you don’t really believe you deserve it. And you are used to investing in other people, or the bank, not yourself.

On your recovery journey you discover that there is enough, for everyone including you, and you begin to believe that you deserve the best life has to offer. As you grow in self-love, you believe it is worth investing in yourself and you prioritise this.

Friendships

You often feel disconnected from others because you don’t show up as you – you are too scared to show your real self. You feel different from everyone else. And you are scared of how others feel about you. So your friendships remain shallow and you find that your time and energy are spent on the other person and their problems and their life and there is no give and take in the relationship.

We need to find people we can be real with. Sometimes this starts in recovery groups, like my free community. As you open up, you discover it’s okay to be you. You begin to experience real relationships and develop real connections with other people. You discover that you want to spend less time with some people and end other relationships.

Intimate Relationships

You will attract those with similar, or complementary issues to yourself, ones that allow you to continue your familiar patterns of behaviour. You may crave intimacy but you don’t want too much because you don’t dare reveal the tender, real you.

So you may attract relationships where you enmesh with each other, totally focused on each other and dependent on each other. Or you may attract the opposite – in your bid to not seem needy, you avoid communicating your needs and you attract an avoidant type who likes a lot of independence and not too much intimacy.

You are likely to find the relationship unsatisfying and you are likely to be a bad ender of relationships. You hate conflict and so you don’t bring up issues as they arise. You would rather end the relationship than deal with the issues.

In contrast, in recovery, you learn how to do healthy relationships, starting with the one with yourself. As you work on your most important relationship, the one with yourself, you learn to take care of your own needs and not put that burden on your partner. You learn to express your feelings in relationship-affirming ways. You learn to set and hold boundaries, creating space for safety and intimacy to grow in your relationship.

Family

If you don’t know how to set boundaries or speak up for your needs, how are you going to pass that on to your children? Children are like sponges, they absorb everything they experience. Even if you love your children dearly, if you struggle with loving or looking after yourself, they will pick up on that as well as how you behave in different contexts.

As you go on your recovery journey, you learn healthy relationship behaviours. This is the best gift you can give your children because they will see what a difference it makes to your life and you are role modelling what it means to be a healthy adult.

Spirituality

Regardless of your religious beliefs, if you are stuck in people-pleasing patterns you will feel like you need to be in control of everything. You feel responsible for everyone in your life. It is a truly massive burden that you carry around with you.

The recovery journey involves developing a relationship with a higher power of your understanding. You realise that you are not responsible for everything and you have a new freedom and lightness in your life. You also have a source of infinite strength in the face of crises.

Emotions

You are so other-focused you prioritise how other people are feeling. You either ignore how you feel or you minimise it, or discount it. Yet you are on constant alert as to how others are feeling because you can’t bear for them to feel all their feelings, just like you can’t bear to feel yours.

You find yourself telling yourself off for feeling sad/angry/resentful/guilty and you have an incredibly loud inner critic judging how you feel.

In recovery, you learn to feel all your feelings. Whilst terrifying at first, you learn that when you do feel it all, feelings are temporary and you can handle them. Knowing and owning how you feel taps you into your personal power. You develop a new voice of self-compassion and learn to tame your inner critic.

Health

Ignoring how you feel and being so other focused has consequences. In the short term it might mean you don’t take good care of yourself. You don’t go to the doctor when you are in pain. You don’t bother with dental or optician check-ups.

Not feeling our emotions means they get stuck in our bodies, waiting to be felt. When we carry on ignoring them, they will begin to get our attention by manifesting in mental or physical ill health. I often work with people who have chronic conditions, from back pain to fibromyalgia, to anxiety and burnout.

When we are in recovery, we make ourselves a priority. We learn to take responsibility for our wellbeing and we do what it takes to nurture our bodies, minds and spirit.

As you can see, people-pleasing affects every area of your life.

I kept trying harder and harder to make other people happy, to fit in, to be who I thought the world wanted me to be.

I burnt out at work and was on the verge of a mental breakdown in my marriage before I got help. Don’t let that be you.

What you need to stop being so damn nice

Put your recovery first

You have got to really want to change your life. Because as soon as you start this journey, your attention is going to easily be pulled away unless you are determined. This means that you don’t get distracted by:

· His/her/their problems

· Taking a holiday to get away from it all

· That dinner invitation

Instead, you prioritise going to recovery meetings, meeting your coach/therapist, journaling, feeling your feelings and doing the work.

Get help

It is super hard to do this work on your own. Having a community who ‘get it’, who understand your struggles, won’t judge you and instead validate your experiences and support you to keep going, is invaluable.

You might find a support group helpful, a coach or therapist, or even a good friend who you consider to be a safe person and one that demonstrates healthy relationship behaviours.

Check out my free community.

Slow progress is real progress

There is no magic pill to reversing all that behaviour, negative automatic thinking and stored up emotions. The way out is through.

Start small. Maybe you find it hard to say No to friends, but maybe you can start to say No to acquaintances more often. Maybe deciding where to move house to is too big a decision, but deciding where you want to eat out is doable. Maybe going to the gym every day is too much, but going for a walk every other day would make your body happy.

People-pleasing is a behavioural addiction so it is hard to change and stick with those changes. But if I can do it, so can you. And it is totally worth it. You will finally get to be yourself, be with those who appreciate you for you, shine your light brightly in the world, have healthy relationships and satisfying work. And you won’t feel empty anymore, you will have an unshakable core of love for the relationship that never ends – the one with yourself.

Thanks for reading. If you would like to learn how to break free of people-pleasing patterns, check out my debut book, available to pre-order:

How people-pleasing ruins your life (and how to stop it)