The Absolute Ridiculousness of Being a People Pleaser

Hi, my name is Mable, and I am a people pleaser.

Suppose there were a support group meeting for people-pleasers. In that case, I’d probably cook food for the whole group, apologize for how mediocre the food tastes, tell the group that I probably forgot to add some salt and then, I would volunteer to chair and host the next meeting, and then cry in the bathroom because I’m overwhelmed—but still show up with a smile the following week.

It’s ridiculous, honestly.

People-pleasing is like being in a toxic situationship with the whole world. You’re always performing, always calculating, always trying to say yes when you desperately want to say no, but heaven forbid you disappoint anyone. Their disappointment would be catastrophic, and your whole world would end, right? Right.

So instead, you overcommit, overshare, over-apologize, and sometimes even under-sleep, under-eat, and under-value yourself, all in the name of ‘keeping the peace.’ This peace, by the way, is something that you are single-handedly (and thanklessly) holding together with some sellotape and a lot of self-sacrifice. When we try to please other people, it leaves us in a constant state of stress. We’re never at peace because we’re always worried about who will be upset with us if we say or do the wrong thing.

I wish I could pinpoint the exact moment I started to sink into the quicksand of people-pleasing. I wish I could tell you that there was a defining moment, but even I struggle to pinpoint when I started to cater to everyone’s needs but my own. Was it in childhood, when adults praised me for being such a good girl, so polite, so helpful? Or was it later, when I realized that keeping everyone happy was the fastest way to avoid conflict? If you know me, you know that I am the most conflict-avoidant person, and I will do everything in my power to not be part of a conflict.

Somewhere along the way, my brain filed away this unhelpful equation:
Other People’s Approval = Mable’s Self-Worth

Spoiler alert: this math does not math. At all.

The worst part? People pleasing is sneaky. Very sneaky. It comes in the form of niceness, generosity, and being ‘a team player.’ If there’s one thing that I need to learn, I need to learn how to be kind but with boundaries. People pleasing is not kindness, I had to learn that the hard way. It’s fear wearing kindness as a mask. Moving through life afraid is no way to live.

People pleasing is saying, “Sure, no problem,” while your internal monologue is screaming, “Actually, that is a huge problem, and I would rather eat a dirty sock.”

Here’s where it gets truly absurd: the people you’re bending over backward for?
Half of them wouldn’t even notice if you stopped.

I’ve learned the hard way that many people aren’t keeping score. They’re not tallying every favour you’ve ever done for them, every time you swallowed your truth to avoid rocking the boat. They’re just sailing along, oblivious to your turmoil, while you’re in the same boat trying to remove the water with a tiny little teacup.

And yet, the guilt! The sheer, paralyzing guilt that comes with even thinking about saying no. Or worse, disappointing someone. I swear, sometimes it feels like I’d rather be hit by an old taxi that should have been condemned a long time ago than endure the look of mild inconvenience on someone else’s face.

But here’s the thing that I am learning, I am allowed to say no. You’re allowed to disappoint people sometimes. You’re allowed to be seen as not nice every now and then. The world won’t end. The people worth keeping in your life will survive. They might even respect you more for it.

I’m slowly — painfully — learning that the key isn’t to stop being kind but to stop being a doormat in the name of kindness.

I am also learning that you can love people without betraying yourself.

To my fellow people pleasers, if you, too, are a card-carrying member of this exhausting club, I see you. And I promise you, it’s okay to put the teacup down and let the boat sink or sail however it will.

Repeat after me: “No” is a complete sentence.

Hi, my name is Mable, and I am learning how not to be a people pleaser.