6 Tips to Stop People Pleasing and How to Love Yourself
Being a people pleaser might sound like a nice trait, but it often stems from low self-esteem and creates unnecessary stress and anxiety, leading to one’s own needs not being met. This makes it hard to find satisfaction in life and puts one at a higher risk for depression and other mental health struggles.
Therapist Imani Wilform (MHC-LP) of Empower Your Mind Therapy shares how to stop being a people pleaser and start loving yourself:
· Acknowledge that you are one. Own being a people pleaser and identify what behaviors you engage in as a result. Getting really clear on how your people pleasing tendencies manifest will help you be able to make a real change.
· Engage in Self-esteem building. As the root comes from a lack of self-esteem, it is important to build your confidence to stop the people pleasing behaviors. The key to self-esteem building is learning to focus on the positive. This entails taking time to focus on your strengths, accomplishments, and positive qualities.
· Remind yourself your needs are important and allow yourself to say no. A big part of people pleasing behaviors is not allowing your needs to take priority. When someone asks for a favor, don’t answer right away. First take time to tell yourself you are equally important to this other person. This will help you be able to make more selective choices on when to accommodate other’s needs.
· Get in the habit of checking in with how you feel. People pleasers often don’t even take the time to focus on how they feel because in their minds it doesn’t matter. When you take that moment to remind yourself your needs are important, also think about how you feel and what you want.
· Check the facts. A big motivator of people pleasing is avoiding conflict. However, most of the time, conflict is not likely or at least not as catastrophic as we predict. Instead of worrying about avoiding conflict, ask yourself is that likely? And is it really going to be the end of the world? If not being willing to give in to requests 100% of the time means the other person gets upset, it is more of a reflection on them. In those cases, check in with yourself on why that is a relationship you are fighting for.
· Ask yourself what your motivating factors are for people pleasing. Take a moment and consider what the obstacles are in your way of finding a better balance.
Know that you can be a caring, compassionate person, but not always put other people first. Finding that balance is the key. Using the above tips, you can more easily make selective decisions about when to give into requests, when to express your feelings, and stop overly worrying about upsetting others and experiencing conflict. Finding this balance will help lessen anxiety, stress and, and resentment.