What Happens When You Stop Trying to Make Everyone Happy?
When people begin healing from people pleasing, they often face an unexpected challenge—a deep sense of identity loss. After years of being valued for self-sacrifice and kindness, the idea of putting yourself first can feel uncomfortable or even wrong. Learning how to stop people pleasing isn’t just about saying “no” more often, it’s about finding out who you really are without the need for approval. Healing from people pleasing isn’t about becoming selfish; it’s about rediscovering who you are beneath the habits that once kept you safe.
If I am not a people pleaser then who am I?
I recently read the following comment on a social media post:
I wish it was that easy I’ve had 40+ years of trauma and the worst bit was I was praised for putting others first to the detriment of me it’s only in the past five years I’ve tried to put me first and it’s the worst I ever felt coz now I’m not offering anything I’m now invisible to everyone
Something that comes through in this comment is a challenge many people face when they begin a journey of personal healing and transformation: a loss of identity. If you stop being who you were, then who are you? This is also one of the biggest fears that prevents people from changing. If people pleasing is your practised way of creating and maintaining your connection with other people then just stopping that could leave you feeling lost, unsettled and invisible. As people pleasers we may not be able to even conceive of being any other way. Being super agreeable has worked for us, maybe not that well and maybe not without cost to our mental, emotional and physical health, but it is what we know. The thought of not being so nice to everyone can bring up sickening fear as we wonder:
How will people notice and like me if I don’t make them happy?
People pleasing becomes who we are, which can make change hard, but not impossible. Effectively transforming people pleaser behaviour is not just about starting to say “no” to people and being more assertive. This is partly because your nervous system and subconscious mind connects your people pleasing with safety and survival. Also if your motivation to change stems from people pleasing based beliefs such as to fit with social trends, or to be a better person and therefore more worthy of love, then your efforts to transform will feel laboured and inauthentic. There are two key steps to successfully transforming your people pleaser identity:
1. Create a new safety system for yourself
2. Focus on why change is meaningful FOR YOU
1. Create a new safety system for yourself
People pleasing is a safety system. It is a methodology of behaviour that you have adopted to protect yourself from conflict, rejection, and abandonment. If you want to change those behaviours, then the most effective way is to first create new sources of security that are based in positive self-worth and personal strengths. Rather than thinking in terms of “I am not going to do that”, think in terms of “I am going to build safety and security for myself by . . . “ When you do this you overlay a new internal safety system over the old people pleasing one, and behaviours that no longer serve you will naturally fall away as you build in new ones that serve you more effectively now. Some ways in which you can build your positive self-worth and personal strengths are:
· learning to accept and effectively process all of your emotions
· learning grounding breath and meditation practices
· learning to make peace with fear and anxiety as simply an inner warning alarm
· learning to approach conflict as a growth opportunity, and gaining skills to confidently manage conflict
· developing relationships with people who value your authenticity
· collecting evidence of being safe to be your authentic self
If you have always been agreeable, compliant, helpful, nice and/or submissive, when you begin to change those behaviours and that identity, then other people will also have to adjust. Be prepared. Some people won’t like it and they will challenge you or leave you. That’s okay. Understand that even when you people please not everyone likes you, it is possibly just less obvious because you are so self-erasing that they don’t need to express their dislike, or because they are using you for your willingness to do everything for everyone. This is another reason why it is important to build up positive self-worth safety systems before you start acting more assertively. Focus on the positive experiences you have when you act in ways that value yourself and are in line with your true self. Record these in a journal or phone note as evidence that you can be safe and have good experiences when you act in this way. Doing this helps you to feel more secure and confident.
2. Focus on why change is meaningful FOR YOU
Don’t change your behaviour just because I or anyone else said it would be good for you. It will not work, or it will be unsatisfying, because it will have no true meaning for you. Effective change happens naturally when it is meaningful FOR YOU. Your personal “why” has to be big enough to you to shift you out of your comfort zone. Change for a reason that is really important to you rather than due to a sense that you should.
Transformation is a process. It starts with an awareness that you want something different. Next comes the intention to move towards something new. Intention starts energy moving in that direction. Keep your focus on what you want to create because you move towards, and give energy to, what you are focused on. It may be discomfort or pain that you want to get away from that is triggering you to want more, but form your intentions around the positive flip side of that. A possible example of this may be, instead of focusing on not having to clean up the kitchen after dinner every night, set the intention of having the job of doing the dinner dishes rostered fairly among the members of the household, so that you have at least one night a week free to go to an art class. In other words, knowing what you don’t want gives you clarity about what you do want.
Here are some questions that you can reflect on to gain an understanding of what and why you want to change:
What would you like to be able to do?
How would you like more freedom?
How would you like to feel in your relationship?
How would you like to be recognised?
What is truly important to you?
Remember that change is usually a process of small steps over time. Awareness is a step, intention is a step, and small actions are steps. Celebrate them all because that builds your self-worth and confidence, and your new positive safety system. Understanding why people pleasing feels safe, and how to create new sources of emotional security, allows you to build an identity based on authenticity rather than approval.
If you want a more detailed guide of how to move through an intention based transformation process you can get my Mastering Change PDF or my book The Great Life Planner via the Resources page on my website.
Aroha nui, much love
Janine
Want More?
Thank you for reading this post. If you would like weekly insights and tips from me about how to transform your people pleasing habits and have more confidence, love, respect and freedom then you can subscribe to my People Pleasing Evolution newsletter. When you subscribe be sure to check out the welcome email from me as it contains a link to my FREE ebook: How to Say No Without Feeling Guilty. This ebook It gives you practical tips to successfully overcome the three main issues for people pleasers learning to say no:
1. Knowing what words to say (sample phrases provided)
2. Confidence to say the words
3. How to manage feelings of anxiety and guilt about saying the words
Subscribe to my weekly newsletter via Substack
Learn about more of the ebooks and resources I have created on the Resources page of my website, janinelattimore.com