People Pleasing (2): How does it Help or Hinder us?
People-pleasing involves adjusting our words and actions for the sake of another individual. Typically, they can be considered very helpful and kind people who will drop everything to come to your aid. However on the other end, some people may even think of them as manipulative or hypocritical as they try to win the praise of those around them. Therefore there are pros and cons to people-pleasing. On the positive side, people-pleasing can help you be adaptable and open to situations and different personalities. However, on the negative side, people-pleasing can have an extraordinarily hard toll on your emotional wellbeing as you are constantly putting your own needs on a back burner for those of others.
People-pleasing can also be called by the term “fawning,” this term is part of our ancestral system: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. When fawning comes into play, we will sacrifice what we ourselves need in order to “survive” those around us. While people-pleasing can look like generous and helpful behaviour, it comes from a place of low self-esteem and self-worth, and a need for others’ approval. Sometimes you may feel that people-pleasing is just part of your personality, but people-pleasers often get taken advantage of by others. These people-pleasing tendencies can come from traumatic childhood experiences or abusive relationships.
How does People-Pleasing Help?
Sometimes, people-pleasers are misjudged as being manipulative and bossy, or just trying to get people to like them. But simply we are just trying to please people, there are no ulterior motives, we just want to help. If taken care of and addressed appropriately, people-pleasing can have some benefits. But it is very important to be able to keep your boundaries and identify if you might be putting your needs on the back burner so to say. A few ways that people-pleasing can be beneficial are:
Great at resolving conflicts: People-pleasers tend to want to find the best way to minimize friction in social situations as they know how others needs might affect those around them.
Easily making social connections: People-pleasers are often very likable and bright, they tend to be great at small talk and have an air of friendliness.
They are great listeners: taking a genuine interest in the lives of others, they will be the first to offer their help if someone needs it.
Adaptable: People-pleasers are adaptable in the sense that they can start up a conversation with just about anyone and use the surprising amount of knowledge that they have acquired from these conversations.
Level-headedness: They can keep their head in emergencies: having learned over time to avoid conflict or act abrasively, they can tend to be more level headed when situations are tense.
They want others to be happy: that’s it. Individuals with people-pleasing personalities have an innate desire to make those around them smile and laugh, and if you are feeling down, they will try to make you feel better.
How can it be Harmful?
If you are in a constant people-pleasing mode, you can and will easily lose sight of who you are as an individual. Spending so much time trying to please others is harmful to ourselves, because we no longer have any idea of what we want when no one is asking anything of us. Another way people-pleasing can be harmful to us is when they succeed in pleasing, the feeling can start to become addictive. And they can end up relying on that successful feeling in order to feel good about themselves. It can also lead to a life of wanting to control others, whether it is their opinions of you or the things around you. After a lifetime, people-pleasing can lead to some of the following:
A deep resentment coming from all the anger you have put to the side because you have overly accommodated to others’ needs.
Loss of self that comes from adjusting our personalities for those around us.
Exhaustion, burnout, and fatigue are all natural consequences to over-giving.
Low self-esteem, coming from being overly self-critical about how others view them
Loneliness can envelope you when you’re so busy wearing a mask that you cannot be loved on you own terms – but the terms that have been made up.
Regrets may appear from missing opportunities or being so inhibited by your own fear of failure.
Feeling insecure: Experiencing constant vulnerability in relationships from disarming personal boundaries so as to be accommodating to your partner.
Loss of freedom in the sense that you trade your personality for the safety of being liked
Finding someone to talk to with expertise in this situation and yet who treats you as an individual is extremely important. Here at Resting Tree we want to help you overcome any past traumas that may have led to your people-pleasing characteristics and to develop new strategies in order to handle them in the future. Do take time to consider how therapy may be able to help you. When you are ready to take that first step, we are here for you. Contact us at info@restingtree.ca or book your free consultation today.