Want Genuine People in Your Life? Then Stop Over-pleasing!

You might be an Over-pleaser if you:-

• Attract the wrong people in your life.
• Give ‘more’ to others than you ‘receive’.
• Feel like a doormat.
• Feel disrespected and used by others.
• Say “yes” when you really want to say “no’.
• Avoid conflict and disagreements at all costs.
• Feel guilty when you say “no”.
• Sacrifice your needs and desires a lot.
• Have little downtime for yourself.
• Don’t feel valued by others.
• Put yourself and your needs last.

If you want to know how your over-pleasing is affecting your relationships, happiness, well-being, and your life, then continue to read this article.

There is a difference between ‘pleasing’ and ‘over-pleasing’.  Pleasing involves a ‘give and take’ approach, where both parties do something to please the other not because they want to gain something, but because they want to make that person happy, and it brings them great pleasure in doing so.  Over-pleasing on the other hand usually involves, one person continuously giving and the other person continuously taking.  Obviously, the one who takes is more likely to gain than the person who is doing the over-pleasing. 

Why We Over-Please?

The two main reasons for over-pleasing is to avoid rejection and conflict.  Over-pleasers are typically people who lack self-confidence, and who do not believe that they are worthy of unconditional acceptance from others.  They have a negative perception of themselves, and believe that others have the same perception of them.  Because they believe that they possess more flaws than qualities when they compare themselves to others, they feel the need to compensate this through over-pleasing in the hope that this will win people over, and gain their acceptance.   So, a lack of self-confidence and a fear of rejection is one of the most common causes of over-pleasing, the other is a fear of conflict.  Over-pleasers also tend to be non-assertive communicators.  They are more likely to pacify, accommodate, give-in, submit and back down, to avoid conflict.   The type of people that they seem to over-please the most are those who have a tendency to be aggressive, dominant, and confrontational when they do not get their own way.  The thought of having to deal with a conflict that they know might trigger anxiety for them, forces them to rely on over-pleasing as a preventative method. 

While you might assume that over-pleasing will gain you acceptance and respect, this is far from the truth.  In the next section I explain how it actually does the opposite. 

Over-pleasers Pay a Price

While over-pleasing might help prevent conflict and rejection (simply because the person usually gets his/her own way) the person doing all the pleasing and accommodating always has a price to pay in the end.  When you are over-pleasing you have to give a lot of your own time and energy, and that can be mentally and physically exhausting. It doesn’t leave you with a lot of time or energy for yourself.  When life becomes outweighed with things that you ‘have to do’ rather than with the things that you ‘want to do’, this starts to have a negative impact on your mental state and wellbeing. You end up losing that sense of purpose and stimulation.  When you over-please, you can also end up losing yourself. When you focus more on meeting other people’s needs and not your own, and you adjust your life to accommodate them, then you may not get an opportunity to develop your own identity, and the person that you aspired to become. 

Over-pleasing also does nothing for your sense of self-worth. How can you feel worthy when you put yourself last every time and put someone else first?  How can you feel valued when it’s always about making everyone else feel valued, and never you?  If you want unconditional love and acceptance, then you need to stop over-pleasing.  Pleasing spells “kindness and caring”, but over-pleasing spells “desperation”.  If you want to be respected and valued by people, then you need to please and not over-please.  This means not just being considerate of others, but also being considerate of yourself and your own needs. You need to make yourself a priority.  Before jumping in to do something for someone, ask yourself is it for a critical and necessary cause or am I doing this just for their convenience? 

While most people will not take advantage of you, unfortunately others will.  The problem with over-pleasing is that it prevents you from screening relationships.  You will only know how genuine your relationships are by the response that you receive when you say ‘no’. Genuine people will always understand and respect your decision.  Those who don’t, have their own best interest at heart, not yours.  These people are in your life because of what they can get from you, not because they value you for the person that you are.   However, not everyone is out to take advantage of you.  Some people are just used to your over-pleasing and may be unaware of how their behaviour is affecting you. But the only way that you will ever test how genuine your relationship is, and for them know how they are affecting you, is to stop your over-pleasing and to see their response.

If you want to have the right people in your life then you need to stop over-pleasing and not be overly concerned about losing the people in your life that do not deserve to be in it.

How We Become an Over-pleasers?

We start to develop this type of behaviour in childhood by observing and mimicking our parents, and other influential people in our life, or from the experiences that we encounter throughout our childhood, teen and adult life.  Over-pleasing can develop at any stage in our life.  For some people it can develop out of necessity for example, as a coping mechanism to help us survive in a domestic violent relationship.   Our childhood experiences however seem to be the stage that our over-pleasing is most likely to develop from.  If our parent/s were over-pleasers, then we are also likely to adopt the same behaviour. Through our observations we learn that pleasing the people in our life, avoids conflicts, arguments and rejection. Our desire to be loved, accepted, and safe in our relationships, can also influence us to develop over-pleasing behaviour.  Comments such as, “If you are especially nice to her she’ll be nice to you”, “Don’t rock the boat”, “You are best to let it go than to invite drama into your life”, “Don’t upset anyone” can create a false belief that we need to over-please in order to be accepted and liked, and so we begin our journey of giving more to than we should to others in the hope that it will always be reciprocated, only to find out that this is not always the case.

Not all ‘over-pleasing’ behaviour is developed in childhood through observing and mimicking our parent/s. This behaviour can also be developed as a coping mechanism in childhood.  For example, a child who has been subjected to abuse, destructive criticism, and/or severe punishment, have a high chance of developing ‘over-pleasing’ behaviour, and are also more likely to continue this behaviour in their adult life. A child in these circumstances will quickly learn that in order to survive and avoid punishment, harm, and rejection, they will need to please that person.  

How to Change Over-pleasing Behaviour?

As mentioned earlier, over-pleasing behaviour is not a personality trait, so it is not something that you have to be stuck with it for life.  It is a symptom.  A symptom of non-assertive behaviour, and/or of an unhealthy self-esteem.  If you want to stop over-pleasing, then you need to ask yourself these questions.  Am I assertive enough to say ‘no’ when I need to?  If I cannot say ‘no’ is it because I am afraid of a) disappointing the person, b) hurting their feelings, c) upsetting the person, or d) losing the person, or e) all of the above?  If you have answered ‘yes’ to all of these options, then what might be preventing you from saying ‘no’, is both low self-esteem and a lack of assertiveness skills.  Assertiveness is a learned skill that is vital in maintaining a healthy self-esteem, and in developing healthy relationships. Not having assertiveness skills is like going into battle without armour.  You cannot protect your self-esteem from being harmed or your feelings from being hurt, if you are not assertive.  It is a very valuable skill to have.

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