People-pleasing – why you say ‘yes’ when you really want to say ‘no’

We know we are people-pleasing when we do something not because we genuinely want to, but because we want someone else’s approval. The other person may not have even come right out and asked us to do the thing, we have just decided that’s what they want and we want them to like us/approve of us/not reject us.

In many ways it is like we are a child again – we learn what will earn us praise from our parents and so we do it – ‘good job!’, ‘you’re so clever!’ etc. when we say thank-you or eat all our dinner.

When we grow up we start imagining what will please the people around us – we try and look through their eyes and do what will please them. We are seeking their approval and trying to avoid rejection.

It’s human nature to want the approval of others – in prehistoric times to be rejected from the social group would almost certainly mean death as you would be left to fend for yourself. It makes sense that you want other people to like you, and that you say yes to things you really don’t want to do – you are simply trying to avoid being rejected – which to your lower brain (the prehistoric part) still kind of feels like death.

As you can imagine there are a few problems with people pleasing:

·       Often we are guessing and making faulty assumptions about what someone else would like us to do or how they would like us to behave – we can never really know what they are thinking, even when they come out and say something to us

·       We have no control over what they think about us and how they feel, even when we do the thing we think they want us to do – we are simply not that powerful

·       We people please because we are worried about losing our relationship with that person – however when we do something that we don’t really want to do we end up resenting the person and we cause lack of connection in the relationship anyway – the very thing we are trying to avoid

There are ways to say no to people without feeling like you are going to die – I work with people on how to do exactly that. Email me if you would like to know how – jenny@jennypercy.com