People-Pleasers are generally the nicest people you’ll ever come across.
That’s why they earned my Lovely nickname 🙂
They are lovely…really lovely.
They pride themselves on being lovely.
It’s part of their makeup.
If we chopped them in half, they’d say Lovely all the way through 🙂
Unfortunately, because of their loveliness and desperate need for approval, they often get taken for granted or taken advantage of.
Their forgiving nature can lead to them enabling and encouraging bad treatment from others.
In some cases, they’ll even tolerate abuse in the name of love.
Abuse can never be considered love in any circumstances.
Never, ever, ever.
Full stop.
When I meet a new Lovely for the first time, I’m always struck by just how nice and decent a person they are.
Usually they’ll do anything for anybody.
Unfortunately they don’t usually get the same treatment in return.
This seems like such an injustice to me.
It’s what led me to create Dream Self Esteem.
I want to champion all the Lovelies out there – male and female – who deserve so much, but receive so little.
As a recovering people-pleaser myself, I recognised that my own life satisfaction and better treatment only really took off once my self-esteem started to grow.
Boost your self-esteem and you start to live a better life.
I want to share this message with the world.
All you Lovely people-pleasers out there, if you work on your self-esteem, your life will improve immeasurably…in all areas.
I think it’s time to balance things up.
It’s time to put a stop to this injustice.
Why shouldn’t the best people in the world have the best treatment???
Surely that’s the fairest outcome?
I wholeheartedly believe this.
When I work with a new Lovely and their self-esteem begins to rise, they start to feel this injustice very sharply.
They begin to KNOW they deserve more than what they’ve been receiving.
They can SEE it, SENSE it, FEEL it…in every part of them.
They’re spurred on by it.
They want to reverse that injustice.
So they start to make some changes.
Unfortunately, once they start to communicate differently and put up some boundaries, they feel as if they’re being mean or bad in some way.
Their life-long need to please triggers them…heavily.
They feel uncomfortable.
Some will even squirm (visibly) in their seats whilst they’re talking to me about it.
They fear that if they change their people-pleasing ways they won’t be loved or approved of anymore…and that’s bad.
Really bad.
It feels wrong.
The thing is, they’re not being mean, not by a long way.
It just seems that way, because they’ve always been so giving.
They’ve always made it about the other person’s needs and wishes and never about their own.
It all feels alien.
This is how I felt too.
Most of the time low self-esteem begins in childhood.
There’s more information about this in my short E-Book Why do I have low self-esteem and what can I do about it?
So the people-pleasing has been there for a long time.
A lifetime, in most cases.
Our comfort zone is called our comfort zone for a reason.
It’s where we feel comfortable!
Make a change and we start to feel less comfortable.
Especially if we’ve been that way all of our lives.
I call the area outside the comfort zone the stretch zone.
The stretch zone doesn’t feel as comfortable, but it’s still manageable.
All I ever ask of clients is that they take a baby step into the stretch zone.
Just one little step.
Then wait…
Make sure the sky doesn’t fall in.
Obviously it never does.
It feels uncomfortable, but nothing majorly bad happens.
Once they realise nothing terrible happened they can take another baby step.
In time the stretch zone that they’ve stepped into becomes their expanded comfort zone.
They feel comfortable again because nothing terrible happened.
Most Lovelies are addicted to comfort (this was definitely me) so I like to make this as comfortable as possible for them, whilst still making the change.
Step too far out of your comfort zone and you reach the panic zone.
That’s no good for my sensitive Lovelies, so I never encourage you to go there.
Easy does it.
If you’re ready to take a baby step into your stretch zone, here are my top 10 ways to stop being a people-pleaser…but still be nice.
Learn to say no.
No is a complete sentence, so if your body is telling you it’s a no, say no.
Role play…practice in the mirror…send a message rather than face to face but give a sincere no.
This is so much better than saying yes and then resenting it. Be congruent.
We all have the right to say no if we know in our heart it’s the right thing.
Put up appropriate boundaries.
I recently wrote a recent blog about this – read it here.
We MUST teach others how to treat us.
If you get that hmphh feeling when dealing with someone, you know they’ve crossed your boundary.
Boundaries are a positive thing – they build respectful relationships.
Use Assertive communication.
So many Lovelies use passive communication – we think people won’t love or approve of us if we stand up for ourselves.
The RIGHT people will always love us.
We must occasionally have conflict or confrontation in our lives.
If we’re agreeing all the time then something is usually awry.
I’ll be writing a future blog about assertive communication.
Stop worrying about what other people think.
Most people are not taking nearly as much notice as you think!
They’re focussing on their own lives.
Everyone can’t love you and that’s ok. You can be the juiciest, ripest peach in the world, but not everyone likes peaches.
Read some more here.
Drop perfectionism.
We DO NOT have to be perfect to be worthwhile.
We all love people in our lives who are not perfect – so why can’t they love us if we’re not perfect?
Perfection is not an actual thing, it’s completely subjective. Doing your best is good enough.
Talk kindly to yourself.
People-pleasing is all about the approval of others.
Approve of yourself first.
It earns you so much more respect.
People-pleasing is the opposite of self love.
You must talk to yourself in the way you would talk to someone else you love.
Here’s my blog on this topic.
Give and take.
Don’t give and give.
When you were taught to share as a child it wasn’t all for you, none for me, it was one for you and one for me.
Where possible balance all the relationships in your life so overall they are roughly 50/50.
Many people-pleasers have 90/10 relationships.
This is just not right or fair in my opinion. You deserve more.
Stop apologising for everything.
So many low self-esteem Lovelies apologise far too much.
It’s almost as if they’re apologising for their very existence.
Stop – please stop!
If you’ve GENUINELY done something wrong then a sincere apology is appropriate, but otherwise, stop saying sorry for just existing.
Learn the power of the pause.
I’ve put this one in as I want you to be aware of the power of pausing before you respond or take action on something.
Don’t always respond or act automatically.
Before you say yes when you mean no, or communicate passively when assertiveness is appropriate, pause and ask yourself how would someone who loved themselves deal with this and do/say that.
Recognise and celebrate all your skills and talents.
This is so important.
Lovelies play themselves down ALL the time.
Some of the Lovelies I meet have AMAZING skills, talents and accomplishments that they just sweep under the carpet for fear of thinking they’ll make someone else feel bad if they mention them.
NO it’s not kind to ram them down another person’s throat, but it’s also not right to dismiss them either.
They’re who you are.
They’re your special gifts.
They deserve to be celebrated and utilised.
The world needs those skills and talents and you need to feel good about them.
Even if you’re not a spiritual person you’ve more than likely heard the term karma.
Karma is the belief that what goes around comes around. If you sow good seeds you reap a good harvest.
Well my Lovelies, you sow beautiful seeds, so you deserve a beautiful harvest.
I acknowledge these 10 ways are not easy if you’ve been a lifelong people-pleaser, but I’m here to help you.
Why not book a call today and let me give you my prescription for people-pleasing.
Much Love
Christina xx