How A People Pleaser Can Change
Dear Reader:
In last week’s column I began a discussion of the so-called people-pleaser. People-pleasers chronically feels compelled to please others at their own expense. This inordinate need for approval results in the people-pleaser routinely putting other’s needs first. This perennially nice person also usually avoids confrontation and conflict.
If you are tired of feeling like a doormat, then prepare for a detailed and honest evaluation of yourself, which includes your thoughts, feelings and behavior.
Ask yourself if you really think that it is possible and necessary to please everybody all the time. The obvious answer is NO. However, the people-pleaser has developed a set of beliefs and set of assumptions that alters his thinking so that his answer is yes, maybe, sometimes , possibly, but not unequivocally no.
Changing this manner of thinking requires a lot of “self-talk” emphasizing that this set of distorted thoughts can and needs to be changed. Likewise, it is necessary for the pleaser to recognize that it is not his responsibility to fix everyone’s problems or ensure everybody’s happiness.
The pleaser can then move on to incorporating the statement “My feelings of self-worth must come from inside and cannot be dependent upon the self-serving views of the world around me. I cannot and will not depend on the approval of others to make me happy and proud of my accomplishments.” Remember what Eleanor Roosevelt once said: “No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.”
Behavioral changes can start by learning to be appropriately assertive and learning when to say no. Setting healthy behavioral boundaries include recognizing that many people will take advantage of the overly compliant and passive person.
Halting this lifestyle of self-depreciation requires understanding and believing that the pleaser needs to become his or her own best friend. This is not suggesting an unhealthy dose of narcissism, but rather a belief that you have your own good and special qualities that enable you to function in a relatively independent and autonomous manner in life that is not dependent on the recognition and approval of other people.
A people-pleaser can make healthy improvements with insight and motivation, hard work and time.
