SELF-IMPROVEMENT

99 Problems But People-Pleasing isn’t One

Day 36, 50 questions for deep self-reflection

Do you take on other people’s problems as if they are your own? Do you go on a mission to help everyone around you, solve their problems, and forget about yourself? You too may be a people-pleaser. Hi, my name is KP and I’m a recovering people-pleaser. Not that today’s question was supposed to be about that, but hey, we go where the thoughts, self-awareness, and growth take us.

This is day 36 of the 50 Questions for Deep Self-Reflection challenge from Know Thyself Heal Thyself created by Diana C.

DAY THIRTY-SIX: What if you can care about people without taking on all their problems?

I’ve got this… I don’t got this

My instant reaction to the question is that I’ve already done a lot of work around the resolution of this. Alarm bells! I don’t doubt something is waiting, lurking in the dark. Remember that beast? Way back on day four? I feel like this question is one of those moments again.

People-pleasing is a strangely selfish action and I say this as a recovering people-pleaser who occasionally falls off the wagon. Why do I say it is selfish, which I get it, sounds completely counterintuitive? Let’s start with the Meriam-Webster definition.

Definition of people pleaser

often : a person who has an emotional need to please others often at the expense of his or her own needs or desires

The assumptions of the people-pleaser

People-pleasing leads to a few assumptions:

1. We know how to help
2. We know what they want/need
3. We are willing to sacrifice ourselves to help them
4. The person wants help
5. They will appreciate our help

So now let’s look at why I feel it’s selfish based on the above assumptions.

1. How presumptuous to instantly think we know better than them and they haven’t already ‘tried’ our potential solution
2. How presumptuous to think we can possibly know what somebody else wants and desires if we haven’t asked them. People-pleasers don’t ask because we are already supposed to know.
3. How presumptuous to think that by sacrificing ourselves and being the mater, that that will somehow help them.
4. How presumptuous to assume the other person wants help. People-pleasers don’t ask for help when we need it, so we assume everybody else is the same. Hot tip — they aren’t.
5. Why should someone thank us for helping them when they didn’t ask for it? And/or potentially didn’t want it?

People-pleasing is a learned behavior so instead of legitimately wanting to help someone because we will both feel good, we often want to help someone to make them feel good in the unconscious hope that they will make us feel good through appreciation and validation because we didn’t get that when we were young (hello childhood trauma). And if we don’t get that, it can lead to resentment. Anyway, this question is not specifically about people-pleasing, but that’s what came up for me. So, how does it relate to this question directly?

People-pleasing is a learned behavior. We often help someone in the hope they will appreciate and validate us.

Growing up, I learned that I didn’t deserve to have boundaries. I was not my own person and therefore, did not have my own wants or needs.

Back to the question

I feel for me, the question is:

How can I care for someone without becoming a people pleaser?

Wait! I may have just had an epiphany. Yep, there’s that beast again! I don’t think I’ve made the progress with this in the way I thought. When I think about it, the people in my life that I stopped helping, I stopped caring about. I didn’t think that those two things were inherently linked but considering it now, perhaps they are.

This just got very interesting!

I cut a lot of people out of my life that kept expecting me to help them from whom I was not receiving the ‘expected return appreciation’ (primarily family, but also, others). I taught them that I would help them at the drop of a hat. I became their servant and when I wasn’t appreciated for that, I took offense and saw them as taking advantage instead of looking at it as them simply utilizing what was given to them. I chose to give it to them and I didn’t ask if they needed it. That doesn’t make it my fault, but it does teach me something important.

The people in my life now, that I do willingly help, that I care about, that I want to help, are people that will always appreciate it.

But ah, here’s a thought: They’re also people that if I said no to, would not hold it against me. Just as if they said no to me, I wouldn’t hold it against them. But isn’t that the basic law of attraction? You attract people that are like yourself. So if I’m holding my boundaries, then it makes sense then that the people currently in my life hold their own boundaries too. Okay. I think that’s a good thing. I also feel like there’s more on this that I haven’t quite reached, and I’m not likely to get to in this session.

So let’s bring back what we’ve learned so far and apply it to the question. I feel like in talking through my thoughts around people-pleasing, I’ve released that somewhat, and I can now look at this as other ‘problems’; financial, health, mental, etc. I want to take on their problems in a sense, but not in a people-pleasing kind of way, in a supportive way. To clarify, I don’t want to take on their problems as my own but I want to be able to support them in their problems.

What do you need?

When I sense that someone may need help, I have a specific question I like to ask: What do you need? Not what can I do? Not what can I give you? Not how can I help? Simply, what do you need? Because if I don’t know what they need or want, how can I offer anything? Which goes right back to our list of assumptions. Ah, this is nice. This feels good.

What if you could care about people without taking on their problems?

• It would mean I could be there to support them without trying to solve a problem they’re not asking me to solve
• It would mean I could support them emotionally because I’m not stuck in the thought patterns of how to fix their problems
• It means I can love them unconditionally because they are not their problems
• It means I don’t expect them to give me anything in return simply for being there and being a friend
• It means I don’t have to amplify their problem by reflecting it back to them when they’ve already got enough to deal with
• And it means that they don’t have to take on my problems

Together, as friends, we can share the load of discomfort. We can offer support. We don’t need to take on each other’s problems. Some of my favorite questions to ask when I see someone who’s hurting or worried or overwhelmed or whatever it may be are:

What do you need?

Do you need a solution or do you need to vent?

Do you need me to agree or do you need me to challenge you?

We all need to vent, sometimes

Somebody else’s problems are never yours. And in fact, even their own problems are barely theirs because their problems are often perceived to be about someone else. Think of your own problems. How many would still exist if other humans didn’t? Always ask somebody what they need before charging headfirst into people-pleasing! Don’t assume. Don’t assume they want help. Don’t assume they want their problems fixed. Sometimes, we all just need to vent a little.

If you are interested in the journey so far — all the days that came before, I’ve collected all the article links here:

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