An Interview With Brooke Young & Yitzi Weiner
People-pleasing behavior, as understood in the context of coaching, therapy, or consulting other mental health professionals is the repeated occurrence of a behavior characterized by giving up one’s own desires in order to satisfy someone else’s, usually without letting the other person know about this and while at the same time accumulating frustrations because of it. It’s like repeatedly sacrificing something without letting anyone know, but still expecting that sacrifice to be acknowledged.
In today’s society, the tendency to prioritize others’ needs and expectations over one’s own can lead to significant emotional and psychological challenges. In this series, we would like to explore the complex dynamics of people-pleasing behavior and its impact on individual well-being and relationships. We would like to discuss the root causes of people-pleasing behavior, its effects on personal and professional life, and practical steps for cultivating healthier relationships and self-esteem. We hope that this series can provide insights, strategies, and real-life experiences that can help individuals navigate and overcome the pitfalls of being a people pleaser. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Daria Condor.
Daria believes stories are what defines the human condition and has made it her purpose to explore and rewrite the stories we tell about ourselves and the world. She is a writer, photographer and narrative coach, founder of the Weaver of Stories. Through her art and narrative coaching practice, she aims to help individuals explore their own unique life stories and set them on a path of self-discovery and growth.
Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us your “Origin Story”? Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
Thank you very much for your invitation, I am honored to be among your guests. I would love to add my story to your collection.
When I was a little kid, I changed quite a few kindergartens because of my health. It wasn’t anything very serious, but enough to skip a few months of attendance.
By the time I started school, I was already pretty withdrawn and I had forgotten how to interact with other children. At first I didn’t mind being alone if I had a book with me, but slowly I realized that other kids had fun together and I grew to resent my loneliness. I felt I didn’t fit in and this affected my already low self-confidence.
Unfortunately, no-one taught socializing in school, and I simply didn’t have the tools I needed to socialize in a healthy way. Eventually I developed the habit of people-pleasing as a coping mechanism. I didn’t know it back then, but this was my way of trying to integrate, to belong.
Of course, people-pleasing only simulates integration. I constantly felt like an outsider trying to fit in, but it had better results than my previous efforts and once the habit was in place it was very hard to break…
I’m going to stop for a moment and share that I also have many wonderful memories from my childhood. What we are talking about today is just one aspect of a complex story, because it’s a big part of how I became who I am today. But it’s important (at least, it’s important to me) to acknowledge that this is not the full story. It’s only too easy to reduce a complex life story to a few words and then jump to conclusions based on incomplete data.
So let me tell you about one of my most wonderful memories from my childhood, just to compensate for the atmosphere so far. I think one of my defining traits back then was my curiosity.
Do you know how most children go through a why phase? Well, for reasons I can’t quite fathom but nevertheless I am incredibly grateful for, I was always encouraged to ask questions. And someone, no matter how persistently tiring I must have been, usually found the energy to provide answers or to teach me what I wanted to know.
I also loved bedtime stories. My Dad used to read them to me, and so did both of my grandmas when I was visiting them.
One day when I was very young and I was visiting my grandparents, I got it into my head that I wanted to write my own story and read it to my parents when I returned home. I did not know how to read or write and I hadn’t realized the mechanics of it. I just thought that reading meant people glanced at a piece of paper and the words just appeared in their heads, you know. So I drew some squiggles on a small piece of paper and went and recited my story to my grandma, thinking that I was actually reading it. My grandma tried to caution me, but I don’t think I understood what she explained and in any case, I didn’t listen to her warning.
Imagine my disappointment when, two days later, having returned home, I glanced at my paper where I had “written” my first story and no words appeared magically in my mind. I only calmed down when Dad offered to teach me how to read…
So that’s how I ended up reading my bedtime stories to my Dad or grandma when I was about four.
I can’t describe how much this changed my life. Learning how to read gave me access to so many different worlds and allowed me to sate my curiosity. I no longer depended on adults being available to read to me to experience the magic of stories.
Years later, when I started therapy, one of the first things my therapist suggested was journaling. That’s when I timidly shared that I had cultivated this habit ever since I had learned how to read and write, all those years ago. And I cannot even begin to describe just how much writing, be it fiction or journaling, has helped me over the years.
Narrative therapy and narrative coaching are labels I discovered as an adult for something I have been practicing for years. For this reason, I know how powerful an impact they can have on someone’s life. And I want to help others experience the benefits of this practice, using my vast experience as well as the knowledge I’ve gained by studying these therapeutic techniques and becoming a coach.
Can you tell us a bit about what you do professionally, and what brought you to this specific career path?
I’m an artist as well as a narrative coach. Put simply, what I do is guide people through their own life stories and help reframe them in a positive way.
I write stories and use narrative coaching techniques when I work one on one with my clients. For those who can meet me personally (I am based in Switzerland, but I also travel to my clients), I create special hybrid experiences where I combine creative writing and photography with narrative coaching to boost self-confidence. My unique strategy is designed to have a more powerful impact and lasting effect, which I measure statistically through a composite index. This allows me to track the changes my coaching method triggers, as well as to constantly find areas to improve.
Everyone has a story about themselves and their life, whether they are aware of it or not. You don’t even have to like reading or storytelling to have a little story about yourself in your mind. It’s how we think. And that’s what I help re-shape, so that it works for you, not against you.
It’s not what traditional coaching or therapy entails, but it can be very effective. Here is an example:
I once had a client who had been struggling with her self-confidence and you could see that right away in the way she described who she was and what she did professionally. When asked the same question you just asked me, she downplayed her highly specialized professional background and said something like “oh, I just work in technical maintenance in the aerospace industry”. That vague phrase could mean anything. After working with me, she changed that description to more precisely convey what she did, which was engineering parts to make airplanes safer. And not only did she change how she communicated, but she had fully internalized the importance of her work, having a renewed sense of purpose and dedication. In her words, she realized she wasn’t just doing boring engineering things, she was keeping people who were flying airplanes and their passengers safe. And the most beautiful part is that she’s the one who came up with this story, I just guided her along the way.
As to what brought me on my career path… I’ve always known that I wanted to tell stories when I grew up. I didn’t know the specifics and how I’d turn it into a business that’s meant to help other people and connect us through our own life stories, but I’m grateful it turned out this way. I find my professional activity deeply satisfying and meaningful.
There were some obstacles along the way, and most of them lived in my own mind. I never once doubted my commitment or my passion for storytelling, but I did spend years doubting whether anyone might want to actually pay me for it. There’s a powerful story in our collective consciousness about art and the humanities and how they are not actually useful as such, and therefore they are not advisable career paths. Even now, I sometimes can’t believe I get to work with stories for a living, but it’s because I feel incredibly blessed to be able to do this, not because I am afraid.
Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion about People Pleasing. To make sure that we are all on the same page, let’s begin with a simple definition. What does “People Pleaser” mean to you?
People-pleasing behavior, as understood in the context of coaching, therapy, or consulting other mental health professionals is the repeated occurrence of a behavior characterized by giving up one’s own desires in order to satisfy someone else’s, usually without letting the other person know about this and while at the same time accumulating frustrations because of it. It’s like repeatedly sacrificing something without letting anyone know, but still expecting that sacrifice to be acknowledged.
The key here is the word “repeated”, because simply doing something nice for someone else for a change is normal behavior. This is what makes people-pleasing behavior particularly tricky to work with. You don’t just quit, you have to find a balance. And it can be easily dismissed by others, or confused with other behaviors.
I’ll share some examples to show you why.
Examples of what might be* people-pleasing:
1. Agreeing with someone just to keep the peace, not because you really feel in agreement with them.
2. Accepting an invitation even when you don’t really feel like attending an event.
3. Accepting someone’s request to help them or do them a favor.
*might, because people-pleasing needs to be a repeated occurrence, and the person displaying this behavior usually feels almost helpless or unable to say no. Otherwise it’s just someone being nice and going out of their way to make someone else happy. But if you always agree or accept things out of a sense of obligation, then there’s a strong possibility you are a people pleaser.
As you can see, while it’s a simple concept, it’s easy to get confused. To complicate matters further, this term is also misused, sometimes deliberately. I’ll give you some examples of what is not considered people-pleasing behavior but is often referred to as such.
What people-pleasing is NOT:
1. Refraining from responding in kind or escalating a situation is not people-pleasing. It makes me sad to see many people trying to hide behind this term to excuse or justify toxic behavior.
2. Receiving something you do not like as a gift and accepting it politely is also not people-pleasing behavior, it’s common courtesy. People-pleasing behavior is something that happens repeatedly and makes us resent the other party involved. That perfume you don’t like? Pass it on to your perfume collecting sister or friend.
3. Doing whatever we want, whenever we want, regardless of anyone else’s feelings, is not what a “recovered people pleaser” acts like. While it is arguably the opposite of people-pleasing, it does not constitute normal behavior.
I hope I’ve helped clarify things a bit.
On the surface, it seems like being a person who wants to please others is a good thing. Can you help articulate a few of the challenges that come with being a people pleaser?
You are exactly right!
Like you mentioned, being a person who wants to please others is a good thing, and not just a good thing, it’s normal.
Pleasing others, or, in other words, making others happy, is something most of us will agree is a worthwhile and desirable trait that most human beings share and a goal that we aspire to achieve.
The reason why it’s so troublesome is that it’s a question of balance. Finding the right equilibrium between pleasing others and fulfilling our own desires is a delicate act.
Someone who genuinely only lives to make others happy, without becoming frustrated or resentful, is not a people pleaser. While this might sound too good to be true in our day and age, there are a few figures who exemplify this behavior, like the Dalai Lama or Mother Theresa.
For the rest of us, what happens when we keep giving up on our own desires in order to please others is that we get upset. We may not show it, and this is part of people-pleasing too. After all, showing that we don’t want to do whatever we think would make someone happy and letting them know that we are doing it grudgingly would defeat the purpose of our entire effort.
People-pleasing behavior is harmful when we mostly accumulate frustrations and rarely get to satisfy our own desires.
It helps if you think about people-pleasing as being on a spectrum, where normal behavior is in the middle, people-pleasing (as defined previously) is one extreme, and excessive self-centeredness is the other. Managing people-pleasing is a bit like managing one’s weight. You have to find the balance that works for you. Many people do it naturally and find it hard to understand what all the fuss is about. However, those who have trouble with it risk oscillating between the two extremes and may find it hard to get to that sweet spot that is right for them.
Some challenges faced by people pleasers come from accumulated frustrations. Sometimes they build up and they overflow in the form of anger or negative emotions. Sometimes the people pleaser decides to set up boundaries and goes about it haphazardly, generating conflicts.
Long-time veterans of people-pleasing face an additional challenge: it becomes difficult for them to say ‘no’ to requests. Even if they decide to set up boundaries, the behavior is now a reflex and very hard to break. It’s not uncommon to experience guilt after refusing someone’s request. Compounding this, those around them may react negatively to any changes in their behavior.
Worst of all, people-pleasing behavior is usually a symptom of a deeper issue. Simply addressing the symptoms, as well we all know, is not enough to fix things.
No amount of saying “no” in a clear and calm voice in front of a mirror will fix anyone’s self-confidence or help alleviate their suffering. And it’s usually a lot of pain, accumulated over years, and often never, ever shared with anyone.
And lastly, people-pleasing often backfires.
A common reason why people engage in this behavior is that they feel like outsiders and want to fit in. However, the person engaging in people-pleasing never truly feels integrated and accepted, and that perpetuates their people-pleasing behavior.
The problem usually lies in the people pleaser’s perception, not in whether or not others accept them. There may be some toxic people around to further complicate things (as people pleasers often attract them), but not everyone is a manipulator or hell-bent on taking advantage of others. In this regard, people-pleasing behavior never achieves its goal.
Does being a people pleaser give you certain advantages? Can you explain?
There are advantages and disadvantages to almost anything, and yes, even people-pleasing has some.
In order to be a people pleaser, you have to know what others like and what they dislike. You have to be able to offer them the things they like and help them avoid the things they do not like. Oh, and people pleasers typically want to avoid conflicts.
Over time, long-term people pleasers develop their own tools to achieve these goals, and some of them can be very useful indeed.
For instance, people pleasers tend to have very good observational skills and become very attuned to other people’s likes and dislikes. They get good at “reading the room” and discerning undercurrents in people’s moods.
Furthermore, people pleasers are generally very empathetic and are quick to notice another person’s discomfort. And when they do, they will almost certainly try to do something about it immediately. This can also make them well-liked by others, because everyone likes a person who puts in effort to accommodate them.
They are also very attentive to details, some elevating this trait almost to Sherlock Holmes levels.
Because people pleasers don’t like conflicts, they also acquire good interpersonal skills and can be effective mediators.
Can you describe a moment in your life when you realized that your own people-pleasing behavior was more harmful than helpful?
My people-pleasing behavior had been doing damage for some time, and I suppose I wish the moment I realized it was harmful to me had come sooner.
It was when someone who I had considered a close friend manipulated a situation in order to deliberately put me in harm’s way and expected me to just put up with it.
Because people pleasers naturally give a lot and rarely expect to receive anything from their friendships or we think the world of even the smallest gesture of kindness, we are very easy prey for people who think it’s only natural for them to just take.
What I remember hit me that day was that, as far as I could discern, that person had absolutely nothing to gain in harming me. They just did it because they thought I wouldn’t mind or react. They were surprised and angry when I stood up for myself.
Perhaps you’ll think that this is a more extreme way in which people-pleasing exposes one to risks. That you’d need a toxic person around to get to this point. Unfortunately, people pleasers often gravitate to such people and it takes a lot to make them realize that something is wrong.
Still, let’s take another example.
It was very difficult for me to reconcile my chosen career path with the expectations of my family, who wanted me to pursue a more traditional and financially secure profession.
This is a very common situation people pleasers find themselves in, by the way.
I couldn’t have given in to their expectations because that would have meant fundamentally changing my identity, but I’ve spent years feeling guilty because I thought I had failed their expectations. And I’ve met a great many people pleasers, even among my clients, who regret giving in and choosing a profession they knew wasn’t right for them just to keep the peace. After all, who else, if not our parents, do we want to please most when we are young?
The tragic thing here is that typically everyone involved has good intentions. In my case that was certainly true.
The parents want what is best for their child, but they are scared that the young person they have raised so far is just so young and perhaps they aren’t sure, not really sure, of what they want to do. They lack experience, and perhaps they lack perspective. It’s so easy to say “I want to be X” when you don’t know the median income for your chosen profession (or even what a median income is) and have never had to worry about paying the bills. So some parents insist that whatever they perceive as a secure or worthy profession be chosen by their child. Often, they are not open to discussion and do not explain their stance.
This is where conflict ensues, and it is a horrible conflict, stemming from fear and insecurity, and having the potential to create a deep rift in a family.
There is no right answer in such situations, but if I had to go back and go through that period of my life all over again, I’d try to encourage a dialogue firmly steeped in facts. “I love writing” can be a fact. Facts about numbers and median incomes can also be advanced. They can be assessed. As long as everyone can put the fear and uncertainty aside for a bit (and this is no small feat), it is possible to discuss things and seek solutions and even make choices after everyone has had their say and where everyone feels reassured and is able to be supportive, even if “it wouldn’t be their choice” — which it isn’t, actually. It helps if you have an uninterested third party to act like the host of your discussion and keep everyone focused on the end goal, and I try to be that person for my clients.
To finish my story, I took a bit of a detour because of my people-pleasing behavior, but I soon ended up back on my own path. I know now that I could have changed the nature of the discussion and avoided a lot of unnecessary conflict if I had framed it in a different way, but ultimately it would have led to the same conclusion. And all those experiences serve me well, as I am now able to help others.
In your opinion, what are the common root causes of people-pleasing behavior?
I think that people-pleasing stems from a skewed sense of personal worth and is often compounded by a lack of social skills. It can have many other causes, but (with the risk of generalizing a bit) they ultimately come back to self-worth. Low self-confidence, fear of rejection or abandonment, for example, are consequences of low self-worth.
Most often it’s not just one root cause, but several interlinked ones which feed off each other.
This was true in my case, and I’ve seen a different combination of these factors in many of my clients who suffer from people-pleasing.
The (flawed) reasoning goes something like this: “I am lucky to have this [friend / spouse / random stranger talk to me] and I should make sure they are happy at all times because [I am afraid they will leave me otherwise / I am really a worthless person and the moment they realize this they will leave me]”.
People pleasers can also develop into attention seekers.
They adopt the people-pleasing behavior because they want more attention, or they want to be perceived as that person who is always nice and helpful. They are generally unaware of it, but the reason why they seek attention is also because they base their personal worth on the amount of attention they get and on how nice and helpful they think they are perceived to be.
Sometimes people lack the skills to socialize and use people-pleasing to compensate their lack of knowledge, but it doesn’t take much to go from there to low self-confidence and other issues.
Various cognitive distortions can play into this, and people-pleasing can also be learned early on by children of people pleasers. Even if the parents or caregivers are not people pleasers, if the parenting style involves conditioning affection or approval, that also often leads to people-pleasing early on in childhood.
Conditioning affection is, for instance, when a parent says something like “I will only hug you after you clean your room”. What the child learns from this is that affection, love, and ultimately their worth are all things to be earned in exchange for achievements or chores. In addition to people-pleasing, it also tends to foster perfectionism.
I like to frame all these causes as stories we tell ourselves, because I know we can learn how to tell better stories. Or we learn new things about the world that in turn affect the way we tell our stories, and suddenly we see what everyone else saw from the very beginning: that we are worthy and interesting and human, and so is everyone else.
How does people-pleasing behavior impact personal relationships?
Personal relationships can be severely affected by people-pleasing behavior. The person engaging in it is usually aware that they are not being true to themselves and often feels guilty about it. Thoughts like “I am living a lie” might surface.
On the other hand, people pleasers also feel trapped. They can’t help but continue engaging in their people-pleasing behavior since that is what they think keeps others engaged with them. This is often an exaggerated perception, and the underlying belief is that they are not worthy of other people’s affection as they are.
Veteran people pleasers sometimes feel like prisoners of their own lives and circumstances. They feel their relationships are fake and simulated and crave real connections and authentic interactions.
If the people-pleasing behavior affects relatively minor things, like never refusing an invitation even though one feels like staying at home, the people-pleaser’s social circle will have an easy time accepting them when they start to slowly make their own preferences and needs to be known.
However, if the people-pleasing behavior has gone on long enough, it can affect some of the big choices we make in life. In these situations, making changes is more difficult and others can react negatively to them.
How does people-pleasing behavior impact professional relationships?
Professional connections, by nature, are often more transactional, resulting in less severe consequences for the people-pleaser’s colleagues. However, the personal ramifications for the people pleaser can be substantial, extending to long-term effects on their career.
People pleasers frequently refrain from making requests, such as seeking a salary raise or promotion, leading to stagnation in their professional growth. Simultaneously, their inclination to accept heavy workloads or unfair terms without objection can result in them shouldering a disproportionate amount of work.
How can long-term people-pleasing behavior impact an individual’s mental health?
Unfortunately, people-pleasing can have serious consequences on one’s mental health.
Simply accumulating resentment and frustration, as is typical of people pleasers, can significantly affect one’s social interactions. People-pleasing also provides an excellent framework for co-dependence to develop.
What’s more, engaging in people-pleasing for a long period of time can lead to other issues. Impostor syndrome, chronic stress, anxiety, panic attacks, or depression, just to name a few.
Veteran people pleasers often suffer from identity erosion. They struggle to determine what their values and priorities are, having focused on other people for so long.
Of course, none of these issues affects people pleasers overnight, but it’s important to take this seriously and get help.
In your experience, what is the role of self-awareness in overcoming people-pleasing tendencies, and how can individuals cultivate it?
I believe there are two important aspects pertaining to self-awareness in relation to people-pleasing.
Firstly, self-awareness can have a positive impact on people-pleasing behavior. In the case of long-time people pleasers, especially those suffering from identity erosion, increasing self-awareness can be beneficial. They need to reconnect with themselves and find out what their own likes and dislikes are.
To cultivate self-awareness, we can engage in practices such as mindfulness, journaling, or seeking feedback from trusted friends and mentors. These activities provide valuable insights into personal values, emotions, and behaviors, helping people pleasers develop a stronger sense of self.
Secondly, an excessive focus on self-awareness can contribute to fostering people-pleasing behavior. This becomes especially detrimental when paired with rumination, leading to a spiral of negative self-thoughts and memories.
Here is one example of how self-awareness can be detrimental: a person who engages in people-pleasing is invited to go out with a group of friends and accepts. After they arrive at the venue they notice that they are the only ones wearing casual clothes. They feel under-dressed and spend the rest of the evening ruminating on other occasions where they felt they didn’t fit in.
To address this negative impact, techniques such as cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) or practicing self-compassion can be effective.
Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience or research, what are the “Five Strategies Or Techniques That Can Help Individuals Break Free From The Cycle Of People-Pleasing”? If you can, please share a story or an example for each.
Alright. Here are my five go-to techniques that seem to be the most effective with my clients:
1 . Externalizing
Sometimes we need to get out of our own heads. Thoughts can be overwhelming and can form into negative patterns and deceive us.
The saying “you are not your thoughts” can be hard to believe, however, when our thoughts are spinning out of control.
Externalizing can be very helpful when we hear language like “I am [problem]”. This means the issue at hand is deep enough, has gone on long enough, that it has been internalized. It is now part of someone’s perceived identity.
Our goal then is to separate the problem from the self. We want to get from “I am [the problem]” to “I am facing [this problem]”.
2 . A game of choices
Using storytelling techniques to create a safe environment, we discuss hypothetical situations where we might engage in people-pleasing behavior.
This exercise involves using the branching narrative technique (widely used in video games) to visualize various possible outcomes of different choices we can make in a given situation.
The benefits of this exercise are twofold.
Firstly, engaging with hypothetical scenarios and formulating a range of responses is like practicing, without the added pressure of a real-life experience. This kind of preparation trains our minds to recognize specific situations and makes them familiar to us. And anything that’s familiar is less stressful. The added sense of confidence when entering a situation we know we’re prepared for can significantly improve our response.
Secondly, this exercise is designed to give us a more grounded sense of perspective. By comparing a hypothetical situation we are stressing about when it’s framed as having ourselves as the protagonist with, perhaps, a past situation where we’ve successfully navigated a similar event, we soon realize that we have the tools we need to cope. We just need to access them.
3 . Letter writing
Letter writing is an interesting and often underestimated technique.
Most people start by thinking it will be easy and fun, almost like playing, and it can certainly feel that way. Then sometimes they end up gaining a profound insight into their own stories.
It’s fascinating how sometimes issues we aren’t even aware of find their way onto the paper.
I think this is because we think about multiple things at the same time. It’s easy to bury an unpleasant thought in the midst of all the others. But once penned, thoughts have nowhere to hide, and we are able to really look at them.
Precisely because this is perceived as an easy and fun technique, I find it’s very useful to introduce narrative coaching to new clients.
4 . Building your very own Palace of the Mind
This is a variation of the memory palace which I have created specifically for boosting self-confidence.
The mnemonic device known as the memory palace consists of visualizing spaces which are then assigned memories in order to improve memory retention.
My variation involves using it to memorize core memories that we feel give us a sense of purpose, meaning, or confidence.
In my practice, I tend to suggest trying this technique to people pleasers in particular because they tend to overlook their achievements.
Giving them an anchor to reinforce their sense of self-worth and confidence is something many find effective. And its effectiveness only gets compounded over time, as more and more memories are added.
5 . Personal stories
Becoming aware of our personal story can have a significant impact on our lives. However, it’s important to clarify what personal stories are and what they are not.
When we talk about personal stories, we do not refer to an idealized fantasy of what we would like our lives to look like, complete with fairy godmothers and crystal shoes.
In fact, one of the challenges of exploring our personal stories is stripping them of fantasy and cognitive distortions.
What we want to achieve is a positive and coherent representation of our path through life so far and an idea of what we want our life to look like.
While we cannot eliminate fiction completely, some of the aspects we specifically want to identify and work on are any cognitive distortions that are making us stumble or deviate from our path.
The telling of personal stories usually places the subject in the role of the main character. This can be very difficult for people with low self-worth, who may find it difficult to see themselves as the main character, but it’s important to realize that this is all about perspective. The same story can be told from a myriad of perspectives, and this is just one perspective. Additionally, “being the main character” should not be interpreted as a justification for self-centered behavior. Instead, it’s an invitation to take full responsibility for one’s actions.
These are some of the most effective narrative coaching techniques I use.
What steps should people pleasers take to establish healthier boundaries?
This is a complex issue involving a delicate balance.
Firstly, people pleasers can try to assess their social circle and try to find out if they have anyone around them who is manipulative or is taking advantage of them on purpose. This is difficult because people-pleasing is prone to generating a type of toxic relationship in itself, but it’s useful because toxic relationships are addressed in a different way than non-toxic ones. Moreover, people pleasers who seek coaching or therapy have typically accumulated so much frustration that from where they’re standing, most of their relationships can easily be perceived as toxic, and that does not help matters. So it’s good to have a professional help navigate this.
Secondly, my heartfelt advice is that they do not try to impose boundaries in a fit of anger or try to be what some call “frank” when they want to excuse rudeness, no matter how they feel. People pleasers instinctually try to avoid conflict and are overly gentle, so when they try to “be direct” for the first time, they can overdo it and come across as rude.
What I suggest is for individuals to lead with empathy when setting boundaries. This approach is not only more effective but also aligns well with the natural inclinations of people pleasers.
Let’s pretend I’m a people pleaser and I have a friend I always meet at the same coffee shop. But I don’t like the place or the coffee, and I’ve never been able to tell my friend about this. I want to express this and try to set boundaries, but it’s been years of this and my resentment is bubbling up.
Instead of blowing up and saying something like “I hate that coffee shop! I’ve always hated it and you always make me go there! I won’t step foot in there ever again!”, I could lead with compassion and acknowledge that my friend has no way of knowing just how frustrated I am since I’ve never even told them I don’t like it. I also want to keep in mind that this is probably my friend’s favorite coffee shop, and they are allowed to have a favorite coffee shop I personally loathe. So instead of listing all the reasons why I hate that coffee shop, I could just say: “You know, I’d really like to try XYZ coffee shop. Would you like to meet me there at 5?”.
How can someone who is naturally empathetic maintain their compassion while becoming more assertive?
This is a very interesting question, and it comes up a lot in my coaching practice!
To start with, I think it’s completely possible to be assertive, empathetic, and compassionate at the same time, although unfortunately many people think this is not the case.
Assertiveness is something that many people with low self-confidence think is some sort of bravery they just don’t possess. It’s often confused with arrogance. But I always tell my clients that one can lead with compassion, and actually that is what being assertive is all about. Take the empathy away and that’s when you get self-centered, arrogant behavior.
In my experience, those who say they want to be more assertive usually feel that they need to champion their own interests and well-being because no-one else is doing this. The reason why this is difficult for them is that they see standing up for themselves as something that naturally goes against being compassionate and caring. Then they start fearing they’ll turn into someone they don’t want to become or identify with.
This basically means people end up fighting themselves, which is a losing battle no matter which side you’re on.
What I suggest instead, is to re-frame the concept of assertiveness as being inclusive of empathy. You don’t need to turn into a bully in order to stand up for yourself and you don’t need to trample on other people’s feelings either. In fact, no one we describe as being assertive would do this sort of thing.
Leading with empathy is also much more effective and it comes naturally to most people pleasers.
To be able to achieve this, there are two aspects people pleasers need to keep in mind.
On the one hand, people pleasers often need to learn not to take things personally.
For example, say I arrive last for a dinner with friends and the table is full. If I get upset that my friends didn’t think to ask the waiter for an extra chair, I’m taking things personally. In this case, I’m thinking along the lines of “nobody thought about me, they don’t even want me here”. But who am I that they should think about me all the time? I’m their friend, not the center of the universe. If someone else had arrived last, what would I have done? As a former people pleaser who pays attention to details, I’d like to think I’d have noticed and done something about it. But in reality, it’s only a possibility that I might notice. If it’s a big enough group and I’m not the organizer, I might not even know who is going to be present. And not everyone pays such close attention to details.
On the other hand, people pleasers also need to be careful not to make things personal for the other party.
This means, in particular, trying to avoid making personal accusations. In the same scenario with the seating problem, if I said “you are so uncaring, you didn’t even make sure I had a chair, you don’t want me here”, this means I’m attacking the person I’m talking to, and I’m also acting on a lot of assumptions. This only breeds needless conflict.
An alternative response to this situation might be “Hi everyone! I see there are no chairs left, did you already ask for one? Should we call a waiter?”. In this way, I’m not starting a conflict, I do not take things personally and avoid making negative assumptions. I check if someone already asked for a chair and also allow others the opportunity to help.
What are the most common misconceptions about people pleasers, and how do these misconceptions affect their journey toward recovery?
There are plenty of misconceptions about people pleasers.
For example, I’ve heard them described as weak individuals with no courage or backbone, or as attention-seekers. This is far from accurate, but unfortunately, this perspective can diminish their willingness to seek help and support.
Sometimes even positive misconceptions, like always being positive or pleasant can be detrimental. If everyone you know keeps telling you it’s nice how you are always so positive, you may not even be aware that you are engaging in people-pleasing.
The perceptions and expectations of others have, perhaps, the greatest effects on the recovery of people pleasers. Managing and maintaining their social relationships while also struggling to change their people-pleasing behavior is usually one of the most difficult things to navigate at this stage.
While this is not exactly a misconception about people pleasers, it’s something most have to face, and it is painful.
The misconception lies in the fact that others think the people-pleasing behavior is that person’s true self, when in fact that is just a behavior they are trying to correct. The people pleaser starts taking small steps towards behaving like their true self or who they want to be, and this clashes with the image others already have about them.
Put it like this: if we’ve been friends for years and whenever we meet we go to this particular coffee shop I like, I’m going to be shocked when you tell me that you actually hate that place and don’t want to go there anymore. And this is just a relatively low-stakes example to illustrate my point, but people-pleasing can add pressure to any discussion from home ownership to how many children, if any, one wants.
It’s not uncommon for friends and family of a recovering people pleaser to accuse them of having changed and to react badly when they start to enforce boundaries or express their wishes. And this is not necessarily because we are all evil and want to make life even harder for people pleasers, but because there is precedent. We all create certain expectations based on our past behavior. How is anyone supposed to expect something different, especially if we ourselves conditioned them to expect a certain behavior over years and years?
This is another area where storytelling and reframing can help tremendously. It’s valid to feel frustrated and it’s not only valid, but necessary to make changes if one wants to recover from people-pleasing. However, the way we frame or lead this process can make these tricky interactions easier and lower the chances of conflict.
Another common misconception about people-pleasing is that being “cured” means never, ever doing anything unpleasant again.
People-pleasing entails making many sacrifices, and often never even expressing one’s true desire, usually due to a fear of being judged or rejected. However, “recovered from people-pleasing” does not mean becoming self-centered and selfish. It means choosing when I say “let’s try a different cafe today” and when I go to the loathed coffee shop just to make my friend happy. It’s a delicate balance, and the whole situation is made much easier when we communicate sincerely about it, without hurting anyone’s feelings in the process.
What role can therapy or counseling play in helping individuals overcome people-pleasing behavior?
Therapy and counseling are great tools that are available to us if we want to overcome people-pleasing behavior or any other behavior that is a result of trauma.
They are not magical tools, and not every tool is suitable for every person, but they are available to us and can help tremendously.
How many people do you know who overcame their people-pleasing behavior on their own? And how many successfully manage it or have overcome it with the help of a therapist or coach? In my experience at least, the numbers speak for themselves.
What I think is essential however is that we all remember that people-pleasing and any other harmful or unwanted behavior we notice in ourselves are actually the symptoms of a deeper issue that needs to be addressed, an issue we might not even be aware of.
The role of a therapist, coach, or other healthcare professional, is to notice that deeper issue and help work on that, in addition to the symptoms the client has noticed.
The most heartbreaking thing in this profession, in my opinion, is seeing that people have an enormous capacity for suffering in silence and normalizing their suffering without ever seeking help.
A lot of people pleasers (and not only them) are coping daily with a lot of pain, and they hide it and put on a mask in order to not inconvenience others. And in a digital world populated with perfectly presented social media accounts, it’s hard to even believe that anyone else can relate to such an experience.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I know it’s already a cliché, but I’d like to help others become more aware of the deeper meanings that motivate our actions. There are many benefits plenty of studies show of listing 2–3 small positive things that happened to you every day, and I wonder if sharing what gives life meaning wouldn’t have the same effect.
Actually, I’ve been toying with the idea of creating a community where I post 2–3 small things that made me feel my day was spent doing something meaningful and everyone else is welcome to join in with their own.
They wouldn’t have to be big things, just small steps or pieces of a bigger puzzle. And they’d have to be as varied as possible, not the same 2–3 things repeated ad nauseam. Those would be the rules I would follow if I did this.
The idea is to get into the habit of noticing what gives life meaning, and maybe start prioritizing that.
I think this might help those who don’t know where to start. We often think about the meaning of life in terms of huge life achievements, not small things. Perhaps simply reading that I got a deep sense of achievement by finally updating my website images to WebP will remind others that you do not need to move proverbial mountains to find meaning and satisfaction in life.
Maybe this is the day I actually start this pet project.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
My online home is at weaverofstories.com where I also write our blog and the Real Life Quests newsletter.
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
About the Interviewers:
Brooke Young is a multipassionate publicist, public speaking mentor, and communication consulting. She works with a wide range of clients across the globe, and across a diverse range of industries, to help them create, develop, and promote powerful messages through heart-centered storytelling. She has formerly worked On-Air with FOX Sports, competed in the Miss America Organization, and is the Author of a Children’s Book. She frequently works with children as a professional speaker where she educates on Volunteering and Therapy Dogs. She has over a decade of professional performing background and finds joy in sparking creative passions for her clients.
Yitzi Weiner is a journalist, author, and the founder of Authority Magazine, one of Medium’s largest publications. Authority Magazine is devoted to sharing in depth “thought leadership interview series” featuring people who are authorities in Business, Tech, Entertainment, Wellness, and Social Impact.
At Authority Magazine, Yitzi has conducted or coordinated thousands of empowering interviews with prominent Authorities like Shaquille O’Neal, Peyton Manning, Floyd Mayweather, Paris Hilton, Baron Davis, Jewel, Flo Rida, Kelly Rowland, Kerry Washington, Bobbi Brown, Daymond John, Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, Lori Greiner, Robert Herjavec, Alicia Silverstone, Lindsay Lohan, Cal Ripkin Jr., David Wells, Jillian Michaels, Jenny Craig, John Sculley, Matt Sorum, Derek Hough, Mika Brzezinski, Blac Chyna, Perez Hilton, Joseph Abboud, Rachel Hollis, Daniel Pink, and Kevin Harrington
Yitzi is also the CEO of Authority Magazine’s Thought Leader Incubator which helps business leaders to become known as an authority in their field, by interviewing prominent CEOs, writing a daily syndicated column, writing a book, booking high level leaders on their podcast, and attending exclusive events.
Daria Condor of The Weaver of Stories On How to Recover From Being a People Pleaser was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.