What is people-pleasing?
People-pleasing is not your character or your nature — it’s a strategy. It’s a learned behaviour that often develops as a way to stay safe and maintain connection. At some point, you might have learned that in order to be liked and accepted, you had to put others’ needs before your own.
Maybe you were praised for being the mediator, the helper, or the great listener. Perhaps you were surrounded by people who didn’t take responsibility for their emotions — and you ended up regulating their emotions for them. Maybe managing others’ feelings was rewarded. Over time, you may have internalised the idea that your role is to keep the peace and take care of how others feel.
At its core, people-pleasing is a boundary issue. The line between where you end and others begin becomes blurred. When someone around you is angry, disappointed or upset, it can feel like it’s your responsibility to fix it — as if the world won’t be okay unless you make it okay and your okay-ness depends on other people feeling okay.
People-pleasing can emerge from the belief that the less self-interested we are, the kinder we are. It’s a script many of us live by: “If I make myself small (or easygoing and nice etc), others will be okay — and I will be safe.”
People pleasing is not just a thought pattern, though. So, it is not simply about knowing that ‘it’s okay to say no’. It is about whether your body feels that it’s safe to say no. Learning to tolerate the discomfort of disappointing others is not a cognitive process alone. Your body needs to experience this shift, and ideally, it needs to happen in a relational context — where you are still connected, still safe, even when you don’t comply.
So, how does this show up in everyday life?
Our people pleasing tendencies can take so many forms. You might struggle to voice your opinions or feel anxious when you set a boundary or express a preference. It might look like you keep prioritising others’ needs at the cost of your own — which, over time, can lead to exhaustion, overworking, and burnout.
Constantly giving is not a way to resource ourselves, and over time, this starts to deplete us. Research into burnout and compassion fatigue has shown that people who consistently prioritise others’ needs over their own are at greater risk of emotional exhaustion and physical health issues. Gabor Maté’s book ‘When the Body Says No’ gives many examples of how chronic people-pleasing and emotional suppression can contribute to physical illness.
The act of giving can feel rewarding in the short term, but without a real balance, it can deplete our emotional reserves. When we repeatedly give without considering our own needs, we gradually lose touch with what truly nourishes us. So, people-pleasing is not a successful sustainable strategy for connection, belonging or feeling safe.
Starting to unlearn the pattern
The solution is not a quick-fix one. It is an ongoing listening inward, paying attention to your inner experience and tuning into yourself.
It’s essential to ask ourselves:
What do I want?
What do I need?
What do I feel?
What is important to me?
This may seem difficult at first, especially if we’ve been conditioned to believe that caring for others is more important.
According to psychologist and self-compassion researcher Dr. Kristin Neff, self-compassion — treating ourselves with the same kindness and care we offer to others — is crucial for maintaining emotional health and resilience. When we neglect our own needs, we risk losing a sense of self. We become disconnected from ourselves. This has a detrimental effect on our mental health.
If you’re asking yourself these questions and finding it difficult to come up with answers, you’re not alone. Please be gentle with yourself. If we’ve spent much of our lives in a “people-pleasing” mode, focusing on others, it may not come naturally to suddenly know what we want. However, over time, as we create space to listen to ourselves, our body begins to offer subtle cues.
If this resonates and you’d like support in exploring this further, I offer individual therapy in person and online. You can also head to my instagram page or explore other articles on my website for more reflections and resources.
Image credit: Thirdman – Pexels
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