Trying to please everyone will never work

One of the greatest impediments to good mental health, including that of self-esteem, is the exaggerated need to please other people. Healthy relationships obviously require consideration of the feelings of others, a compassionate desire to help those less fortunate, and a realistic desire to be perceived as attractive and have friends. But people pleasers have many irrational ideas and have difficulty forming healthy relationships.

Often these people pleasers are:

• Hypersensitive to the feelings of other with a frequent belief that if others are unhappy it must somehow be their fault.

• These individuals possess a strong and unrelenting need for reassurance that they are doing the right thing and not offending anyone else.

• They often have problems in making decisions and experience a dilemma due to their fear of making a decision that would offend someone. Consequently, they are frequently perceived by others as being very tentative, hesitant, and unsure of themselves.

• When faced with the inevitable situations in which their actions have left someone displeased, they suffer from disproportionate feelings of guilt and despair.

• Their desire to please diverts most of their attention away from themselves, leaving their own emotional needs unattended. Or, it may be carried over into other areas of their life so that they are often perceived as clinging and suffocating.

• This strong desire to be liked and to please makes their appraisal of the behavior of others as unrealistic and too forgiving. They then assume that the unsuccessful outcome was their fault and could not possibly be the fault of other person’s shortcomings or misdeeds.

• They are often very self-depreciating and have difficulty in accepting compliments.

Changing these unhealthy and unrewarding patterns of behavior is difficult but obtainable. The root of the problem usually goes back to childhood and adolescence when the desire to please parents or caregivers was rebuffed, rejected, or otherwise unobtainable on a regular and frequent basis. This constant search and struggle for affirmation only reinforced the belief that a more diligent and dedicated effort needed to be pursued to reach the elusive goal of being loved and accepted.

The basis of change involves a reappraisal of the basic assumptions about the way people relate to one another and includes a very strong and consistent effort to attack and reverse the irrational and erroneous beliefs. Here are some revised belief statements which may be helpful.

• "My feelings of self-worth must come from inside and cannot be dependent upon the self-serving views of the world around me. The gift of love and acceptance comes from a source much stronger than this contemporary existence."

• The apparent displeasure perceived in other people is often the result of some difficulty that they are having, something as simple as a psychological battle within that is completely unrelated to you. Recognize that it is not your responsibility to fix it, change them, or ensure their happiness.

Finally, if all else fails, consider the philosophy of my father who used to say, "When I decide I'm going to try to please everybody, I will also apply for a job reorganizing the universe."

Remember, you can please a few people some of the time, a lot of people a little bit of the time, and a sizable number none of the time.

Copyright c 1997 Harold H. LeCrone, Jr., Ph.D.