Breaking the People-Pleasing Addiction: Oh! And Why You Will Probably Never Stop Caring What Others Think
Hi, my name is Lauren, and I am an addict.
What’s my “drug of choice?” Approval.
I want…nay, I NEED everyone to like me.
I want you to think I agree with you even when I secretly don’t. I want you to agree with me and my opinions that I do not verbalize for fear you won’t agree.
I am not happy unless you are happy. With me, specifically.
I never want to disappoint anyone, and I struggle to say no because of it.
I crave constant reassurance that we are on good terms and that you’re happy with me, my performance, and my life choices.
It’s a special kind of high, having or gaining the approval of others, being on the receiving end of their compliments and praise.
It is a high I have chased daily for far too long even though I have wished a million times to NOT care what other people think.
Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, let’s talk about how, as a recovering rule-follower, you’re probably an approval addict, too. In other words, you are probably a people pleaser.
Let’s start our recovery process by defining what it means to be a people-pleaser. I love this simple definition from Jay Shetty: a people-pleaser is someone who displeases themselves in order to please others.
People-pleasers are known for not being in touch with their own needs, wants, and emotions though so here are a few other markers of a people-pleasing nature:
You avoid conflict by any means necessary particularly by suppressing your own opinions, feelings, wants, and needs.
You have extreme difficulty saying no, and any time you do, you feel tremendous guilt and shame.
You over-commit yourself frequently leading to stress and overwhelm.
You are terrified of taking risks or over-stepping.
You obsess over what other people are thinking about you.
You feel drained emotionally and mentally.
And here’s the kicker: You feel resentful or bitter—the reason being your constant prioritizing of the needs of others before your own—but you may not realize that’s the reason.
If this list struck a chord, you’re probably a people-pleaser or at least a recovering one.
As you may well know by now, I am committed to helping rule-followers learn to be rule-breakers. Part of this is to help rule-followers learn to stop being people-pleasers. As such, you probably expect me to say something like, “Rule-breakers, unlike rule-followers, could not care less about what others think.”
You’re probably expecting (maybe even desperately hoping) that I will give you an answer to how to do just that—stop caring—a how-to guide on not giving a *choose your own adventure*.
I hate to disappoint you, as I’ve already said, but I’m learning it’s not that simple.
Even now, after boldly declaring myself a rule-breaker and disappointing many of those who knew and “loved” me as a rule-follower, I still feel the need to be loved and liked.
This was confirmed recently when I started a new job. For the first time in a long while, I have colleagues that I work with face-to-face on a near daily basis. Working with other humans is a fairly accurate litmus test on how our personal healing and growth are actually going.
Since starting the job, I’ve found that there are many ways that I have grown and healed. However, I was frustrated to realize I still care quite a bit what my colleagues think. I want them to like me.
I thought I had moved on from this level in the game. Apparently, not.
I processed it with my therapist, hoping she’d have some hot tips on how to stop needing or wanting other people’s approval.
Her response blew me away, and I’ll paraphrase it here:
Wanting approval from those around us is part of being human. We need each other. We’re built for community, and that requires some level of caring about and for others. It requires us to be “liked” to some degree so that we are also cared about and cared for.
I am learning that it’s less about “not caring” what others think, and more about not letting what others think about us sway us or cause us to morph ourselves into something we are not or something we dislike for that matter.
It’s less about keeping everyone else happy by any means necessary (which is impossible anyway and usually at our own expense) and more about living our lives with purpose and intentionality. This type of living may make other people’s lives better—and most of us want this to be so—but living with purpose and intention does not neglect our own one wild and precious life.
So how can we go about developing these distinctions? How can we stop being people-pleasers to our own detriment? How do we heal from our addiction to approval? How do we live with more intention?
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but here are Four Ps of Breaking the People-Pleasing Habit that have helped me:
Prioritize:
The first step in breaking our people-pleasing addiction (besides being made aware of it) is to get to know ourselves better so we can learn to make decisions based on our values. This requires us to, first, take time to sort out our priorities.
I invite you to spend time with yourself and get to know YOUR values. Ask yourself, “What are my current values, and do I WANT these to continue to be my values? Do I say that I value these things just because I feel like I “should” value these things?” Be honest with yourself, and if you’re not sure where to start, **this card sort might help.
Doing this very card sort helped me to understand my own personal values versus what I thought I was supposed to value. It’s also a good exercise to re-do every so often because your values can shift over time, and that is ok. What’s important is to know your current values so you can prioritize what is important to you in whatever season of life you are in.
Pause:
Before reacting or answering someone’s request of you, take a breath. Allow yourself time and space to think about what they are asking. It is 100% permissible to tell someone you need a little time to think about it. If they’re texting, you can simply text back with, “Let me get back to you on that.”
This way, you have time to think through and decide if this “yes” aligns with your values and priorities. It gives you time to look at your calendar and decide if you already have too much going on that day/week/month. It gives you time to remind yourself that it’s ok to say no. After all, your yes means nothing if you can’t say no.*
It’s also helpful to ask, “When do you need to know?” This way you have a deadline for the decision. Otherwise, I’ve found myself never saying yes or no and just completely ignoring the person’s request altogether, hoping they’ll think I “just forgot.” However, I can tell you from experience that the stress of the non-answer stays with you, not to mention how it must make the other person feel—unimportant and forgotten.
Give yourself a deadline if you must, but take the time to pause before committing yourself to something. Oh! And also, remember that you do not have to defend your no. No is a complete sentence.
Praise (It’s not what you might think.):
There’s a good reason that many of us become approval addicts. Several scientific studies suggest that receiving praise and compliments lights up the “feel good” part of your brain, the same part of your brain as pleasure, reward, and motivation. This is the same center of the brain in charge of dopamine release. Because of this, we associate that sweet, sweet dopamine rush with external approval and praise.
We watch others who are obviously and publicly receiving the praise we are so desperate for. We try to replicate everything that they’re doing seemingly “right.” We lose ourselves in the process, and we do it all for the approval. Comparison and envy become large factors in what drives us.
But here’s the cool thing about compliments and praise—we can get the same dopamine rush by giving them to others. Encourage others. Compliment others. Even, and maybe especially, those who you feel envious of and who you constantly compare yourself to. Like their social media posts. Hell, maybe even comment or share it if they own a business or something like that.
Stop waiting around and striving for praise yourself and give others that thing you’re so desperately seeking. Yeah, I know it can feel weird to compliment others when we ourselves do not take compliments well, but most people appreciate the compliments even if they’re out-of-the-blue especially if they’re sincere. Rule-breakers don’t fake compliments. We see beauty, and we simply point out what is true.
Practice:
Here’s your reminder that we are all learning. It’s not failure; it’s a learning process. Breaking the people-pleasing habit and healing our approval addiction take time. Be patient with yourself. Meet yourself with the same compassion you give others. You’re not going to get it right the first time, and that is ok. You’re going to say yes out of habit. You’re going to feel the guilt for saying no; that doesn’t mean you made the wrong decision. There are well-worn pathways in our brain that we must un-learn in order to create new pathways towards living with purpose instead of simply living to please others.
Remember, our goal is not to stop caring what others think entirely. Our goal is to be our authentic selves, to live a life of purpose and intention. What we will work towards is no longer allowing someone else’s happiness to cause us to act in a way that causes us to dislike ourselves.
You’ve got this, rule-breaker. Start small. Get to know your values. Be you. Be brave.
And also, STAY KIND, but remember to also be kind to yourself.
P.S. If this post resonated with you, why not share it with a friend or on your social media pages? It helps this writer tremendously when you do. Thanks!!
*I heard this quote originally from a mentor and friend of mine, Nick Honerkamp, but the origin seems a bit muddy. Have you heard it before? Where did you hear it first?
**Directions for Values Sort:
https://motivationalinterviewing.org/sites/default/files/valuescardsort_0.pdf.
Print the pages out and cut out the cards. Without thinking too much about it, sort the stacks into three categories: Very Important to Me, Important to Me, Not Important to Me. Try not to judge your responses. Meet yourself with curiosity and self-compassion. Your job is to simply notice where you put the different values. Try to narrow down the “Very Important to Me” to three cards.
