Published on November 14, 2024 by Zencare Team and written by David Rothman, LCSW.
What is People Pleasing?
People-pleasing is something we all do to some degree to maintain harmony in our relationships. It often involves reading others’ needs and taking action to meet them through acts of love, care, or support. Without any people-pleasing behavior, our relationships would suffer since we wouldn't be seeking to maintain or create harmony with others. This tendency can be traced back to our caveman ancestors as a survival mechanism: if you didn’t get along with your tribe, you risked being outcast from the group, which means you wouldn’t get access to food and shelter, and thus could die.
However, people-pleasing becomes problematic when it’s done excessively or rigidly. Problematic people-pleasing involves mental patterns and internalized rules such as “I must always put others’ needs before mine,” “I must not disappoint others,” or “I have to make others happy so I can feel happy.” Rigid people-pleasing behavior often results in personal suffering and is common in those experiencing depression, anxiety, or trauma. People-pleasing often serves to avoid specific emotional reactions from others, like rejection, disappointment, hostility, or judgment. Like most behaviors, it’s reinforced by some type of reward, such as approval or validation from others. People-pleasers tend to prioritize other people’s wants and needs at their own expense, leading to chronic imbalance in relationships. People-pleasers devote much time, effort, and mental energy into avoiding “letting down” others and ensuring their happiness, often at a personal cost. Consequences can include, but are not limited to: poor boundaries, a weakened sense of identity, poor self-esteem, and difficulty with communicating one’s own needs.
Root Causes and Triggers of People-Pleasing
Rigid, pathological people-pleasing often begins with childhood trauma, especially for those who experienced childhood trauma due to caregiver actions or inactions. For example, a child with abusive parents might adopt the rule, “I must keep my parents happy and satisfied at all times,” as not following this rule could risk further abuse (in this case, people-pleasing is a protective measure for the child). People-pleasing can also arise in response to overly strict or high-expectation parents, leading to rules like “I must never let others down.” The child learns that love, approval, and validation from their parents are conditional on their behavior.
Early experiences of conditional acceptance can shape the habit of people-pleasing, creating a pattern of self-neglect for the sake of harmony. This creates a strong desire for validation that can lead to persistent fear of rejection (e.g. “I must agree with my friends or else they’ll stop liking me” or “I can’t say anything to contradict what my group of friends thinks or else they might outcast me”) and overlook their own feelings, making it challenging to set boundaries and/or express ones wants/needs. These behavioral patterns can even become personality traits that manifest as low self-esteem, passivity, and perfectionism.
Cultural factors can also contribute to people-pleasing. E.g. parents who come from a culture that expects high academic achievement may reinforce a rule that their child “must” get straight A’s in school in order to be considered a success or “must” go into a certain line of work they consider to be worthwhile. This can result in a child overextending themselves in school, leading to emotional distress and/or burnout. Later in life, it can result in the adult child choosing a career path that they’re not passionate about in order to please their parents, leading to career dissatisfaction, depression, anxiety, and/or burnout.
Other Factors That Perpetuate People-Pleasing Behavior
Social media can add pressure to fit a curated image, reinforcing the idea of gaining validation by meeting others' expectations, e.g. “I must act/look this way in order to be approved by my peers”. These negative messages from social media can get internalized and affect behavior in the real world.
Workplace dynamics can also contribute to and even actively encourage people-pleasing behavior. In toxic work environments, people may feel compelled to overextend themselves to prove their worth, get ahead, or stand out in some fashion. This leads to things like working an untenable amount of hours per week or difficulty refusing or saying no to extra assignments or work requests from superiors; burnout and job dissatisfaction often follow.
Toxic people (those who manipulate, criticize, or push past boundaries) can take a serious toll on emotional well-being, especially for people-pleasers who feel compelled to “keep the peace with others at any cost. Relationships with toxic people result in an imbalanced dynamic that drains energy and damages emotional health. When a toxic person in our life is also a family member, cultural factors, a sense of family loyalty, and/or guilt may complicate the need for boundaries with that family member. Inflexible rules, e.g. “I can’t be assertive with my parents even though they abused me, I must always show gratitude for what they provided for me” around family members can lead to people-pleasers experiencing deeper, more painful negative feelings (e.g. shame, resentment, anger, etc.). Recognizing toxic patterns and setting limits is essential to protect one’s mental health. Saying “no” more often, setting clear boundaries, and limiting contact when necessary are powerful acts of self-respect, enabling us to prioritize our own well-being and make room for balanced and supportive relationships.
How People-Pleasing Affects Your Well-Being
Excessive, rigid people pleasing can have several costs and consequences:
1. Mental and Emotional Exhaustion
People pleasers constantly expend energy trying to meet others’ needs, which over time, can drain one's emotional energy and personal bandwidth. People-pleasers often experience chronic stress from trying to anticipate others’ desires, worrying about being liked, and feeling responsible for others’ happiness. This is a form of hypervigilance that is taxing on the mind and body, leading to nervous system overload (increased anxiety, stress, worry, and burnout). Resentment is another possible emotional consequence, as people-pleasers may feel under-appreciated, overlooked, or even used, especially if their efforts aren’t reciprocated. This can lead to strain in relationships that make them untenable. The continuous cycle of overextending oneself without sufficient self-care drains emotional resources, leading to a sense of fatigue that is challenging to recover from.
2. Loss of Self-Identity
Excessive people-pleasing behavior can erode one’s sense of self. Excessive focus on making others happy can lead to becoming more disconnected from their own preferences, goals, and desires. This pattern often leads to a blurred self-identity where they may struggle to define their values or pursue their passions and goals.
3. Difficulty Setting and Enforcing Boundaries
For people-pleasers, setting boundaries can feel uncomfortable and provoke anxiety. It may break one of the rigid rules they set for themselves, e.g. “If I’m not thinking about others first, then I’m a bad/selfish person”. However, lacking boundaries can make them vulnerable to others’ demands, leading to a cycle of over-commitment and self-neglect. Without healthy boundaries, it’s challenging to protect personal time and energy, making it difficult to recharge or pursue individual goals. Over time, the inability to say “no” can diminish one’s autonomy, making it challenging to take control over one’s own life and priorities.
4. Lowered Self-Esteem
People-pleasers often derive their sense of self-worth from external validation, relying on others’ approval to feel valued. When approval isn’t received or people respond negatively, it can severely impact their self-esteem. This can then to lead to even *more* people-pleasing behavior as the person may believe that they’re not trying “hard enough” to please others. Low self-esteem not only undermines confidence but also reinforces a belief that one’s own needs are less important than others’.
Making Positive Changes to Break Free from People-Pleasing
1. Learn to notice and acknowledge the pattern:
Because of their highly-ingrained nature, people-pleasing behaviors often occur on “autopilot”. In order to change people-pleasing behaviors, you must notice and accept thoughts, feelings, and urges that occur with people-pleasing behaviors. E.g. “I’m noticing pressure to say yes to this invitation even though I’m sick, I’m noticing that I’m worried I’ll let my friends down”. When one is aware of their own thoughts, feelings, and urges, they’re much more likely to pause and consider their actions instead of acting automatically out of habit. This can also help you naturally consider alternate ways of thinking. A common question in therapies such as CBT and ACT is “what would I say to a friend/loved one in the same exact situation I’m in now?”
2. Be aware of your “rigid rules” and work on more flexible alternatives:
It also helps to be aware of the aforementioned “rigid rules” you may hold, for example “I must always say yes to my boss so they think I’m a hard-worker” or “my needs always come second because I don’t matter as much as other people”. Learning to let go of these rigid rules takes work and willingness to explore what holding onto the rules has cost you, followed by figuring out more flexible replacement rules you’d like to adopt.
3. Use assertive communication and set healthy, clear boundaries:
Learning to be more assertive, that is, to clearly state your opinion, preference, and/or feelings in an honest, appropriate, respectful, and direct manner is central to achieving balance in relationships. It’s considered a healthy style of communication, especially compared to aggressive communication (e.g. communicating in a way that puts down others, talks over people, attempts to dominate, etc.) or passive communication (not talking, avoiding conflict, not making your needs known, trying to keep the peace, etc.) Assertive communication is a key element of setting healthy, clear boundaries and the healthiest way to get one’s needs met from other people.
For many people-pleasers, the hardest part of being assertive is overcoming the discomfort of potentially disappointing others. It can be helpful to remind yourself that using assertive communication isn’t unkind; it’s about taking care of your own needs while still respecting others. The more one uses assertive communication, the more natural and less anxiety-provoking it feels.
4. Think about what’s sustainable in the long-run:
It can be helpful to ask yourself: is my behavior of always putting the needs of others first sustainable in the long-term? Consider: if you get burnt out at your job because of people-pleasing, it would likely be extraordinarily difficult to maintain an excellent work performance. Likewise, if you’re constantly putting the needs of your partner or children over your own needs and you get burnt out, it would be difficult to continue to show up as a loving partner and/or parent indefinitely. Setting boundaries and using assertiveness helps you get your own needs met and create enough balance in your life so that you can continue to show up as your best self in all of your life arenas.
You can start breaking free of your rigid people-pleasing habits by taking small steps to reclaim control over your life and focus on what truly fulfills you. Developing habits that prioritize your needs—such as expressing your feelings clearly and honestly, acting like your true self, advocating for yourself, expressing your true wants/needs, and/or setting boundaries—can help you lead a richer and more fulfilling life. This process involves learning to trust your own decisions and boundaries, allowing you to value your inner voice without excessively worrying about the approval of others. By taking these first steps, you can slowly, but surely start building and maintaining healthy relationships with those around you.
When to Seek Help for People-Pleasing
If you think you might be a people pleaser or if you struggle to change people-pleasing tendencies, seeking out a professional therapist may be the best course of action. A therapist can help you explore the root causes, understand why the tendencies began, and offer guidance on building healthier habits in your relationships.
Several therapy modalities can effectively address people-pleasing behaviors by helping individuals understand their patterns of thinking and behavior and adopt healthier patterns. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is widely used to identify and challenge automatic thoughts and beliefs (i.e. mental and behavioral patterns) about self-worth and the need for external validation. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is also effective for people-pleasing as it encourages clients to accept their thoughts and feelings rather than avoiding them via people-pleasing behaviors, helping them commit to actions that are more workable and lead to a more balanced, fulfilling life. Additionally, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) can help process underlying trauma that may drive people-pleasing tendencies, particularly when these behaviors stem from past experiences of rejection or emotional neglect. Other evidence-based modalities for trauma, such as Cognitive Processing Therapy or Prolonged Exposure Therapy may also help with people-pleasing behaviors that originate from trauma.
Therapy can enhance self-awareness, provide adaptive ways to handle stress or uncertainty, and build healthier habits such as assertive communication. In the long run, breaking free from people-pleasing is about more than just setting boundaries; it’s about balancing your needs with other people’s needs in a way that allows you to reclaim your well-being and live a rich, full, and authentic life.