5 Reminders When Feeling Anxious About People Pleasing
Hi my peeps! It’s been a HOT min. I’m going to jump right in. 2019 was the weirdest year for me. I have never felt so low about myself before. My identity became “what everyone else wanted to do/think/plan/be.” I didn’t know how to stop feeling this way and it literally affected me in all areas of my life.
I would be getting ready to post anything and then I would think to myself “no, I shouldn’t post this or say this because people will judge me for it.” I would say yes to things I was mentally/emotionally not capable to say yes to. I cared WAY too much about what others thought of me. And because I was more invested in being what I thought others wanted me to be, I was unable to address my own needs and be myself.
“I can’t tell you the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone.”
– Ed Sheeran
People pleasing boils down to feeling like you’re not enough. You start to believe that your opinions, wants, needs and voice do not matter. You’d rather be liked and under-valued over time than have a backbone and potentially be rejected right then and there. People pleasing has been something I have struggled with my whole life. It’s made me stay in relationships longer than I should’ve. When people text or call and I cant respond, I get insane amount of anxiety because I feel like I’m disappointing them. I say yes to things that sometimes I can’t even attend to/ do. My people pleasing just really got out of hand.
Starting my 2020 I wrote down 5 things that will help me when I’m feeling anxious about pleasing others
YOU/ WE DON’T OWE ANYONE ANYTHING!!! If you treat people as though you owe them something, it’s because deep down, you don’t feel like you’re enough for people. You then end up making promises that you can’t fulfill, creating unnecessary drama, and doing things that you don’t want to do just because you feel like you have to compensate for the fact that you have an existence. You are MORE than enough. You don’t have to be a “yes” person all the time and you don’t need to treat anyone as though you owe them anything. Just DO YOU boo.
Understand that if you’re going to be successful, you WILL “disappoint” people. There’s no way around it. Just like you can’t run without your heart rate increasing, you can’t be successful while being everyone’s cup of tea. If you have truly made the decision to be successful, you must accept that people WILL be disappointed, offended, resentful, jealous and critical. “Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal.” PROGRESSIVE. As long as you’re progressing toward a worthy goal or ideal… You’re a damn success. And as long as you’re a success, you will ALWAYS disappoint others because not everyone can progressively realize their goals without getting discouraged and self-sabotaging.
Make the decision that you’d rather be your true self, have an honest opinion and be REMEMBERED than be a liked/agreeable with no personality and FORGOTTEN.
Remember that you should never have to beg for love, care and support. PERIOD.
Get rid of expectations in your relationships and start expecting more from YOURSELF. This is something I realized was one of my biggest problems. I always expect way too much of people. And when they act differently than I do, I end up feeling really disappointed. Truth is everyone is different. Everyone expresses themselves differently. Therefore, I can only make an intentional effort to expect nothing from anyone, rather, expect more from myself.
I’m not perfect at this yet. It’s a battle I have yet to win. However, I know I am not the only one that struggles with people pleasing, so many of us do and if you’re one of us… I hope you know you are ENOUGH and I hope this helps you like its helped me.
