“Sure, I can help with that.”
“No problem, I’ll take care of it.”
“Yeah, I’m free. Whatever works for you.”
Sound familiar?
If you’ve ever agreed to something while your gut was screaming “please, no” – if you’ve ever said yes to keep the peace, avoid conflict, or just make someone like you a little more – then we need to talk.
Because here’s the thing nobody tells you about people pleasing: every time you say yes to someone else’s needs at the expense of your own, you’re essentially saying no to yourself. To your time. To your energy. To your actual life.
And that math doesn’t add up for very long.
What People Pleasing Actually Is (And Isn’t)
Let’s clear something up first. Being kind isn’t people pleasing. Helping others isn’t people pleasing. Being considerate, generous, and thoughtful? All great qualities.
People pleasing is different.
According to Psychology Today, the people-pleaser needs to please others for reasons that may include fear of rejection, insecurities, the need to be well-liked. If he stops pleasing others, he thinks everyone will abandon him; he will be uncared for and unloved.
See the difference? Kindness comes from abundance. People pleasing comes from fear.
Research from Greater Good Berkeley puts it bluntly: when we are trying to please others, we are usually out of sync with our own wants and needs. It’s not that it’s bad to be thinking of others. It’s that pleasing others is not the same as helping others.
People pleasing is a process of guessing what other people want, or what will make them think favorably of us, and then acting accordingly. It’s an often subtle and usually unconscious attempt at manipulating other people’s perceptions of us.
Ouch. But accurate.
Why Do We Do This?
Here’s where it gets personal.
People pleasing doesn’t come from nowhere. It usually starts early – and for a reason.
Emerging research suggests that fighting, fleeing, or freezing are not the only responses to traumatic events, such as abuse. Some people may also “fawn,” which is an extreme form of people-pleasing. It involves trying to gain the affection and admiration of those they fear as a means of survival.
For many of us, people pleasing was literally a survival strategy. If you grew up in a home where a parent’s love felt conditional, where conflict was dangerous, or where your needs were consistently dismissed – you learned to adapt. You learned that keeping others happy kept you safe.
Psychology Today explains that perhaps a people-pleaser had a parent whose love was conditional. This child may have had to earn her parent’s love and affection, or his parent was unavailable emotionally, or the parent’s availability was inconsistent.
The problem? Strategies that protected us as children often become prisons as adults.
The Real Cost of Always Saying Yes
Here’s what people pleasing is actually costing you:
Your energy. Medical News Today notes that taking on too much, or putting on a more cheerful persona around others, can be mentally or physically tiring.
Your authenticity. Research shows that anytime we pretend to be or feel something that we aren’t, we’re out of integrity with ourselves.
Your self-control. This one surprised me: research suggests that our ability to repeatedly exert our self-control is actually quite limited. Like a muscle that tires after a workout, our self-control is diminished by previous efforts at control.
So that little performance you put on to seem happier than you are? That’s going to make it harder for you to focus later in the afternoon. It’ll increase the odds that you react more aggressively to a provocation, eat more tempting snacks, engage in riskier behaviors.
Your mental health. Studies show strong associations between people-pleasing tendencies and adverse mental health outcomes highlight the psychological burden of excessive people-pleasing.
These individuals may be more susceptible to mental health disorders, including anxiety and depression, due to the emotional strain caused by their excessive desire to please others.
Your relationships. Ironically, the thing you’re doing to maintain relationships often destroys them. People who feel they have no choice but to please others may grow to resent their role, causing feelings of anger or frustration. This can manifest as passive aggression.
The Signs You Might Not See
People pleasing is sneaky. You might not even recognize it in yourself. Here are some signs:
You apologize constantly – even when nothing is your fault.
You say “I don’t mind” or “whatever you want” when you actually do have a preference.
You feel responsible for other people’s emotions.
You avoid conflict at all costs, even when something genuinely bothers you.
You have trouble identifying what you actually want.
One therapist describes it this way: people who please others often do not have a solid sense of who they are. They don’t know what makes them happy, what they don’t like, even what a boundary violation is. They are so used to selflessly putting other people first they are not in touch with who they are.
That last part hits hard. When you’ve spent years molding yourself to others’ expectations, you can genuinely lose track of who you actually are.
The Moment I Realized I Had a Problem
Let me tell you about a pattern I noticed in my own life.
For years, whenever things got difficult in relationships, jobs, or friendships – I would just leave. Pack up and disappear. It felt like strength at the time. “I don’t need this.”
But looking deeper, I realized something uncomfortable. I wasn’t leaving because I was strong. I was leaving because I had no idea how to set a boundary, have a difficult conversation, or ask for what I needed. It was easier to run than to risk someone not liking me.
People pleasing doesn’t always look like saying yes to everything. Sometimes it looks like avoiding situations entirely where you might have to assert yourself.
And the cost? I lost the most important relationships of my life before I finally faced this pattern.
How to Actually Stop
Alright. Enough about the problem. Here’s what actually works:
1. Start noticing.
Before you can change anything, you need to see it clearly. As one expert puts it: One of the first things I recommend is to write down the top 3 areas where you need to work on setting boundaries and people-pleasing. This is how we eat the elephant – one bite at a time.
Where do you consistently override your own needs? With whom? In what situations?
2. Understand your fear.
Fear will say to you: “If you tell them no, that will be the end of your relationship.” or “If you tell them that you don’t like that idea, you’re going to get fired.”
Name the fear. Then ask yourself: Is this actually true? What evidence do I have?
3. Start small.
YoungMinds recommends: Starting small and saying no to little things helped. This could be saying no if someone offers you something, like a straw at a restaurant. It might seem small, but getting used to saying no helped me feel more confident when saying no to the bigger things.
Build your “no” muscle gradually. You wouldn’t start at the gym lifting your max weight.
4. Create scripts.
One guide suggests having ready responses: Create a list of one-liners that you can use when faced with requests that don’t align with your priorities. For instance, “I appreciate the offer, but I have prior commitments.” or “I’d love to, but I need to focus on other priorities right now.”
Having these ready removes the pressure of coming up with something in the moment.
5. Expect discomfort.
Not everyone will be happy about your newfound assertiveness. You may lose some people in your life. Some folks may not like you anymore. And that is ok. What’s more important: popularity or peace?
Real talk: some relationships won’t survive you having boundaries. Those aren’t relationships worth keeping.
The Boundary Question
You can’t stop people pleasing without talking about boundaries.
As one therapist explains: Boundaries are imaginary lines that separate you from other people. These are guidelines, rules, or limits that you create to separate your identity and worth from others. Your boundaries convey how others can treat you. What is okay and what is not okay.
Here’s the thing most people get wrong: as self-worth and self-esteem become higher, healthier boundaries tend to take form naturally. You begin to instinctively recognize what you will and will not tolerate from others.
Boundaries aren’t about controlling others. They’re about respecting yourself.
Some practical boundaries to consider:
- Time boundaries: “I don’t check work emails after 7pm.”
- Emotional boundaries: “I can listen, but I can’t fix this for you.”
- Physical boundaries: “I need some alone time to recharge.”
As Calm’s research notes: It might feel uncomfortable at first, but it’s important to communicate your boundaries to those around you. Even when people push your boundaries, stick to them and remind yourself why you needed those boundaries to begin with.
What If They Don’t Like the New You?
This is the fear that keeps most people pleasers stuck.
Here’s the truth: if these people leave you because you are setting boundaries and developing healthy relationships, they didn’t need to be in your life anyway.
Some people in your life have benefited from your lack of boundaries. They’ve gotten free labor, emotional support on demand, a yes-man who never pushes back. Of course they won’t love it when that changes.
But the people who genuinely care about you? They’ll respect boundaries. They might even be relieved – because they’ve probably noticed you running yourself into the ground.
The Deeper Work
I won’t pretend this is just about learning to say no. For most of us, people pleasing is connected to deeper stuff – childhood wounds, self-worth issues, fear of abandonment.
Research confirms that when we experience trauma, we may learn to associate meeting the needs of others with receiving love and avoiding punishment. This can result in a tendency to constantly put the needs of others before our own as a way to cope and feel safe.
If this resonates, working with a therapist can help you unpack where these patterns came from and build healthier ones.
But even without therapy, you can start today. Every time you pause before automatically saying yes, every time you check in with yourself about what you actually want, every time you let someone be disappointed rather than betraying yourself – you’re rewiring decades of conditioning.
What’s On the Other Side
Let me paint a picture of what changes when you stop people pleasing:
You have more energy because you’re not constantly performing.
Your relationships become more authentic because people actually know you.
You stop resenting people for taking advantage of you – because you’ve stopped letting them.
You discover who you actually are. What you actually like. What you actually want from life.
Research shows that people who are given instructions for how to lie less in their day-to-day lives actually report improvements in physical health – less trouble sleeping, less tension, fewer headaches. And improvements in their relationships and less anxiety.
Living authentically isn’t just better for your soul. It’s better for your body and your relationships too.
The Choice
Here’s what it comes down to:
You can keep saying yes to everyone else and no to yourself. You can keep the peace, avoid the discomfort, maintain the exhausting performance.
Or you can start the uncomfortable work of discovering what you actually want and having the courage to ask for it.
The people-pleasing version of you has served a purpose. It kept you safe when you needed safety. It helped you navigate situations where being yourself felt too risky.
But you’re not that scared kid anymore. You can handle people being disappointed. You can handle conflict. You can handle being disliked by some people.
What you can’t handle – not forever – is abandoning yourself.
So start small. Say no to something today. Feel the discomfort. Notice that the world doesn’t end.
And then do it again tomorrow.
What’s your biggest challenge with people pleasing? Where do you find it hardest to set boundaries? Drop a comment below – I’d love to hear your experience.