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In this episode of Overgivers Anonymous, I’m going to talk about people-pleasing. People pleasers typically try to agree with everybody. They try really hard to avoid conflict and they feel responsible for the way other people feel. And they apologize often. People-pleasers are often burdened by things that they have to do. Their plates are so full of what other people are asking them to do. There is nothing wrong with being a people pleaser, however, there is something wrong with the way that we allow our people-pleasing to get in the way of our health, our wellness, and our business.
There are several hidden ways that people-pleasing impacts your business, like when you are trying to people please to the point where you are over giving in your business you end up under earning. If you’re not collecting income for the time that you’re spending on projects, you’re losing money and you could be burning out. You might feel like your business is a huge burden, and you don’t know why things are so awful. But you’re burning out because your people-pleasing first and you’re not looking at yourself.
You may feel unmotivated by this entire business process because you feel underappreciated, and you don’t know what to do next. You may be seeing errors in your business, simply because you’re in this cycle of trying to please everybody but not having enough time and always being behind the eight ball because there’s always something else to do in front of you, that you aren’t saying no to.
I’m a people pleaser, and people pleasers are great. We are the caregivers of the planet, we look after other people. However, we also need to look after ourselves. So if you’re people-pleasing to the point where you’re over giving in your business and it’s causing you headaches, and you’re having a really hard time, there are some things you can do.
The number one thing you need to realize is you have a choice. You can choose to react differently to the situations that are happening in your life. That’s not going to happen overnight. Whenever we are making changes in our life, in our business, in our relationships, it takes time. The idea is when you are changing your behaviours, or your habits, it’s a slow process, and it takes time. If you take time and slowly acknowledge the growth in the situation, it will happen.
The other thing about how to change the people-pleasing so that it’s not taking over your life is to set your priorities. In order for this to work, you need to have the mindset that these priorities are much more important to you than the people-pleasing that you’re used to doing. This now leads into the word “no”. We have a hard time with this word, but “no” is an answer. You do not need to give any excuses or any explanation as to why your answer is “no”. When you set your priorities and somebody comes along and says, “I’m just gonna put this on your plate”, you say, “No, that doesn’t belong on my plate”.
So whenever something comes up in your business, and you feel like you’re people-pleasing, and it’s causing you pain. Perhaps you feel overwhelmed, overworked or stressed. Take a step back and think about whether or not it might be a people-pleasing problem. If it is, remember you have a choice. Set your priorities and put your boundaries around those priorities, that will show you that you have the ability to set limits. Say no and express your opinion for something different.
