117: 10 Signs You’re a People Pleaser

Welcome to the Time to Level Up Podcast. I'm your host, Andrea Liebross. Each week, I focus on the systems, strategy, and big thinking you need to CEO your business and life to the next level. Are you ready? Let's go.

Hello, my friends, and welcome back to the podcast. I hope you're well and having a great day thus far. I am recording this from yet a different location in my house. I keep moving because we are moving. I find spaces that don't seem to be occupied in the moment with painters, handymen, or things like that. Today I'm in my son's room if you must know and I am recording this podcast all about people pleasing.

Now, people pleasing plays a huge role in our personal lives, the decisions we make or don't make, and in our businesses. People pleasing, people sometimes refer to it as like a disease. They have the people-pleasing disease or they'll label themselves instead of having a “Hello, my name is busy” badge on it, they'll have a “Hello, I am a people pleaser.” “Hello, I'm busy” or “Hello, I'm a people pleaser.”

A lot of times, prospective clients will get on the phone with me and say, “You know, I'm a people pleaser and that's getting in my way. I don't like being a people pleaser. I think I need to change it,” but then they just don't know how. Today what I'm going to help do is help you identify quickly whether you are or aren't. I think everybody is somewhat of a people pleaser to a degree, but then we're going to dig into how to stop doing it because that's really what we want to know.

Here we go. Signs that you're a people pleaser. I think a lot of people pleasing stems from some self-worth issues and we humans think that saying yes to everything that is asked of us will help us feel accepted or liked. That really isn't the case. A lot of people pleasers have a history of not being treated so well themselves and somewhere along the way, they decided that their best bet for being treated better or being treated differently was to try to people please the people who mistreated them, like the kill them with kindness philosophy.

Thus, over time, people-pleasing may have become a way of life for them. Does this sound like you? Because many people pleasers confuse people pleasing with kindness. When we talk about or when I recommend maybe turning someone down or when we discuss your reluctance to turn someone's request down, I get a lot of responses, “Well, I don't want to be selfish. If I turned them down, it seems very selfish,” or “I just want to do the right thing. I want to be a good person.”

Consequently, they allow others to take advantage of them. This people-pleasing, disguised sometimes as kindness, can be a serious problem and a really hard habit to break. Here are a few signs that you may be trying too hard to please everyone.

Number one: you pretend to agree with everyone. You have the nodding-head syndrome. You listen politely to everybody else's opinions even when you disagree because we think, “Oh, that's a really good social skill.” But pretending to agree just because you want to be liked can really cause you to do things that go against who you are.

I have a client who often in a meeting will shake her head and agree to whatever her colleague is saying when in fact she really does not agree. Now she has a huge case of frustration. It's led to almost imposter syndrome, wondering if she herself is capable of making some of these decisions, or if she always has to go along with what her colleague says because that's the right or kind thing to do.

She's stopped sharing her own opinions. She just pretends that she agrees with her colleague, and it's not working out so well, to the point where now she's actually even considering leaving her job, because it's so demoralizing. Are you pretending to agree with everyone when you really don't?

Next thing, do you feel responsible for how other people feel? Now it is very healthy to have the ability to recognize how your behaviors or actions may influence others. That awareness is actually pretty healthy. I encourage that awareness. Some of that awareness comes when we do thought downloads, for example, we can eavesdrop in on our brain and how we might be starting to feel responsible for how other people feel.

But thinking that you actually have power to make someone happy is a problem in and of itself. It's up to you to be in charge of your own emotions. I recently was in a financial meeting with my parents and their financial advisors, and we were discussing some pretty hard things and I caught myself feeling like I was responsible for how they felt. I caught myself not saying things because if I said them, I thought it might hurt their feelings and somehow I was responsible for how they felt, it was like a big vicious circle.

If you are someone who feels responsible for how other people feel, then what's really happening, I'm going to give this a little twist, is you're not actually trying to please the other person, you're trying to control them. You're trying to control how they feel based on what you are doing or not doing. Isn't that interesting? Think about it as people control, not people pleasing.

Here's the next sign. Do you apologize often? Whether you take the blame yourself, “Oh, I shouldn't have done that,” or “That was my fault,” or you fear that other people are always blaming you, frequent apologies, either way, can be the sign of a bigger problem. You don't have to be sorry for being you.

I want you to count how many times this week, or today even, you say you're sorry, count how many times. It's pretty interesting how many times we say that. Do you apologize often? That is another sign you’re a people pleaser.

Here's the fourth thing: you feel burdened by the things that you have to do. I see this a lot with my clients, both at home and at work. You feel burdened by all of your home responsibilities, all of your kid responsibilities, you feel burdened that you are in charge of what everybody eats every night. You're the chef and it feels like a burden and you're tired of it.

Or you feel burdened by your long to-do list at work, and it just feels heavy. But here's the news flash: you're in charge of how you spend your time. But if you're a people pleaser, there is a good chance you fill your day with activities that you think other people want you to do.

Just this week in I've Got This Coaching, a client asked for some coaching around making dinner. She told me she's so tired of making dinner. She's over it. It takes a long time. No one appreciates what she makes. Sometimes they don't even eat what she makes anyone. They rarely help clean up. She's over it.

I said, “Well, what if you just said okay, this month,” we actually were talking on the very first of the month, “this month is the month of no making dinner, what would happen?” and her kids are teenagers. She said, “Well, I don't know. I mean, people would starve,” and I said, “Would they really starve?” “I don't know. They probably would eat chicken nuggets every night.”

“What's wrong with chicken nuggets?” “I don't know. They would think something's wrong with me.” “Is there something wrong with you?” “I don't know. I would feel guilty because they weren't eating nutritious things.” “Are you going to monitor their nutritious eating for the next 10 years? No, because they're going to go to college.”

She was coming up with all these excuses as to why she had to cook dinner, but she was feeling burdened by it. Guess what, she doesn't have to cook dinner. They'll survive. Feeling burdened by the things you have to do is a sign of you being a people pleaser.

Here's the next thing. You can't say no. Whether you say yes, and then actually follow through, or fake an illness, for example, to get out of your commitments, you'll never get where you want to go if you can't speak up for yourself. This happens so much with women. We can't say no. Either we tell someone, “Oh, I'm not sure I can make it. I'll check. It's going to be tight,” then don't show up at the last minute.

Or you say yes, follow through, and feel miserable. Both of those things are signs of people pleasers. Women have a really hard time committing to something when there is a group of people. You get invited over and “Oh, I'll try to make it.” Either you're coming or you're not. If you're a try-to-make-it kind of person, then you're a people pleaser.

Here's the next thing. You are a people pleaser if you feel uncomfortable if someone is angry at you. The truth is if someone's angry or mad at you, it doesn't necessarily mean you did anything wrong. But if you really can't stand the thought of someone being displeased with you, you will be more likely to compromise what you value.

Here's something that happened to me recently, I got fired as the client. A contract that I was working with fired me. She said she didn't want to work with me anymore. She had her reasons, which all I guess I could see the kind of work I was giving her to do is not the kind of work she really wanted to be doing. It was infrequent. I wasn't regular in the work I was giving her so she fired me.

I felt pretty uncomfortable. I was interpreting this as her being angry at me. Maybe she was angry at me. But I didn't like that. But I quickly got over it because I realized, “You know what, maybe that meant we just weren't a good fit.” But if you feel uncomfortable when someone says no to you, or when someone's angry at you, you have to remember it doesn't mean that you did anything wrong.

I didn't do anything wrong, my work is infrequent. That's just what it is. But if I kept going down that slippery slope of thinking that she just didn't like me, then that's a problem. That's people-pleasing.

Here's the next one: you act like the people around you right now. It is normal for other people to bring out different sides of you. When you're in certain situations with certain people, you act a certain way. When you're in a business setting, you act a certain way. When you're home on your couch, you act a certain way. When you're out with a group of friends, you might act a certain way.

It's normal for people to bring out different sides of your personality. But people-pleasers often engage, I'll call it in self-destructive behavior if they think it will help others feel more comfortable in social situations.

For example, people-pleasers might eat more when they think it will make other people happy. When you think your grandma is going to be happy if you ate her apple pie, you're going to eat it because you're thinking it'll make her happy so you're people pleasing.

Here's another thing though that happens: self-destructive behavior is also not speaking up for yourself, not telling someone that you're making $500,000 a year at a party because you think it will make them feel uncomfortable and instead downplaying creating wealth for yourself, that's people-pleasing.

I recently was with a group of women, we went to Florida for a little girls' trip, and one of the women brought up how much money people make, spouses make. It was a group of women and she was bringing up how much money people's spouses made. She assumed that people's spouses all made more money than the women so that she was assuming—in this case, they were all male-female relationships—she was assuming that the males all made more than the females.

That really wasn't the case. One woman spoke up and said, “Well, actually in my house, I make more money.” Other people were afraid to speak up. That's people-pleasing behavior because it's self-destructive. That's a sign of a people pleaser if you won't tell someone, “No, you're wrong,” or “No, I don't want this pie,” people pleasing.

Here's the next thing. You are a people pleaser if you need praise to feel good. If you need kind words, words of affirmation, words of affirmation can make anyone feel good, but people-pleasers depend on that for validation. If your self-worth rests entirely on what others think about you, you'll only feel good when others shower you with compliments.

Now, I think my mom's a little guilty of this. She loves praise, words of affirmation, and acknowledgment of all the amazing things she does. I remind her time and time again that if she is doing those things and will only feel good about doing them if they are recognized, then she is doing them for the whole wrong reasons. She's waiting for an acknowledgment.

Sometimes from her grandchildren, she is waiting for an acknowledgment. They might not acknowledge you, I hate to tell you, Mom. You need to be doing that for you. You are not doing it for words of affirmation or praise from them. If you are, then you're people-pleasing.

Next one: you go to great lengths to avoid conflict. It's one thing not to want to start a conflict. I love when people tell me, “I don't really like conflict.” Does anyone like conflict? I don't think so. I've never met anyone that likes to have conflict. You should not state that you're a person that doesn't like conflict.

But if you are avoiding conflict at all costs, it means that you're struggling to stand up for what you think, you're struggling to stand up for the things and the people that you really, really believe in.

A client yesterday was struggling to stand up for what she knew to be true and instead was dancing around it with all sorts of questions and trying to get the other person to really state this truth so that she didn't sound what she perceived as bossy or out of line.

She thought if she said it, then it would create a conflict. But if the other person came to the conclusion on their own, then it wouldn't. Actually, there might be some truth to that. But basically, what I'm telling you is she was trying to avoid conflict and she wasn't standing up for what she knew was right. That's a problem. That's people-pleasing.

Here's the last thing: if you don't admit that your feelings are hurt, if you can't really form true, authentic relationships with people because you're not telling them how you feel, then you're totally missing out and you are people-pleasing. You can't form authentic relationships with people unless you're willing to speak up sometimes and say that your feelings are hurt.

Denying that you're angry, sad, embarrassed, disappointed, or frustrated even when you're emotionally wounded or damaged really keeps a relationship superficial. I was just talking to my daughter who is really frustrated by a situation. Her feelings have been hurt. I said, “Well, did you tell them?” She said, “No. I don't know. I don't want them to think that I can't handle it,” whatever she had in her mind about her.

I said, “Well, then that's really not a great friendship. You should be able to tell them that your feelings were hurt,” that they weren't having any empathy for the situation she was in. If you can't tell them that you're hurt by their lack of empathy, then that's really not a great relationship.

To review, here are 10 signs you're a people pleaser: The first one we talked about was that you pretend to agree with everyone. We also mentioned that you feel you're responsible for how people feel. Third, you apologize often. Four, you feel burdened by the things that you have to do. Five, you can't say no. Six, you feel uncomfortable if someone is angry at you. Seven, you act like the people around you. Eight, you need praise to feel good. Nine, you go to great lengths to avoid conflict. Ten, you don't admit when your feelings are hurt.

In an upcoming episode, we're going to talk about how to break free from people-pleasing. I think this is a good breaking point right here. I was going to go into that but I think this is enough for you to just stew on and then I want you to listen to the next episode when we talk about how to break free from it.

Remember, while it's really important to impress your boss or your client, and show that you can be agreeable, being like a servant or a victim can backfire. Really, you will never ever reach your greatest potential if you're trying to be all things to all people. Start getting out of the people-pleasing habit by saying no to something small.

What can you say no to today? What’s something you could probably say no to tomorrow? Or what's something that you can really just express your opinion on? Expressing your opinion is super simple. Don't ask questions, just tell your opinion. Or what's something that you could take a stand for?

Each step that you take will help you gain more confidence in your ability to be yourself. If you're really struggling to let go of these people-pleasing habits, then we need to chat and you need to keep listening because I'm going to try to help you in the upcoming episode to change this behavior.

However, I'm also going to remind you that listening to podcasts, while amazing, is a passive action. If you would like to take some massive action and really get out of this, then I encourage you to join us inside the I've Got This Coaching program because it's really in there where we take this work, and we 10x it, we create change, we practice it. We take all of the learning and put it into action. That, my friends, is very powerful.

Share this episode with someone who needs it. That is my one request that you share this episode with someone who needs it. I guess my second request is if you need to do more work on this yourself, then let's chat. There are so many coaching options. It's a new year, let's get going. Until next time, remember, it is your time right now to level up.

Hey, listening to podcasts is great. But you also have to do something to kick your business up a notch. You need to take some action, right? So go to andreaslinks.com and take the quiz. I guarantee you'll walk away knowing exactly what your next best step is to level up.