“I Am Not Who You Think I Am”: How To Cure People-Pleasing

This is what inner freedom feels like — the freedom of no longer being a people-pleaser!

In my coaching business and in my life in general, I have met many people-pleasers. In fact, for the longest of time I used to meet one every day: Myself.

Perhaps you know one too: the always helpful, always caring, and always YES-saying person – usually with some tendencies to perfectionism baked into it as well. In fact, these personality traits are overrepresented among stressed and burnout people. Why? Because the constant need to be liked, to do everything perfectly as if your life depends on it, and a desire to have control of what others think of you is extremely stressful. It’s stressful and uncertain - the perfect recipe for burnout. 

Why is it like this? People-pleasers rarely set boundaries for themselves or others, and can therefore go above and beyond their energy limits to feel liked, wanted, and needed. This limitless behavior where other people’s needs are more important than their own stems from something deeper than just wanting to be nice. Because in fact, people-pleasers are not trying to please OTHER people. The main reason for people-pleasing is AVOIDANCE of their OWN feelings of SHAME that appear when they disappoint someone. And I believe this behavior stems from lack of self-awareness, low self-esteem, and a need to control what others think of them. 

SO how to "cure" people-pleasing? When helping myself as well as my coaching clients with this I use a 3 step value-based approach:

1.) Self-awareness: Seek silence and let your heart speak. What do you value in life? What kind of person do you want to be? What matters for real?

2.) Energy tracking: Now that you know what’s important to you, think about how you spend your energy daily. Is it on these value based things or other things?

3.) Dig deeper and dare to ask yourself WHY to come to the root issue: If your energy is spent on other things, WHY do you do it? Usually, people-pleasing comes in here. The FEAR of something in combination with a hidden low self-esteem. What are you scared of will happen if you start setting boundaries for things you DON’T want to spend your energy on - and instead focus your precious energy on what YOU truly value (that you discovered in point 1)?

People-pleasing is an energy draining illusion and since you will never ever be able to know or control what others think of you, you might as well set healthy boundaries towards yourself and others and focus on what truly matters in life. 

Charles Horton Cooley once said “I’m not who you think I am. I’m not who I think I am. I am who I THINK you think I am.”

Read that quote again. And again!

What other people think of you is out of your control, and accepting this will FREE YOUR MIND from trying to find out. Instead, this energy could be used wisely to focus on what you actually CAN control: “I am who I THINK you think I am” means that it’s MY INTERPRETATION of your perception of me that matters. Good news is that I am IN CONTROL of these thoughts! 😇