Do you go out of your way to help your friends and loved ones? Do you feel like you are stretched a bit too thin? Read on to find out how you can overcome your need to people please.
10. Examine Your Feelings
Examine how you feel when you are going out of your way to please others. Do you feel happy? Do you feel helpful? Or do you feel exhausted and under-appreciated? Recognizing and examining the way you feel when you bend over backwards for people is the first step in ceasing your people pleasing ways.
9. Set Healthy Boundaries
It’s okay to help people. But if you are becoming overwhelmed with the amount of things people are asking of you, it may be time to set clear and healthy boundaries. You don’t have to outright refuse them if you don’t want to. But you need to tell them exactly what you are willing to do and what you are not willing to do.
8. Evaluate Your To-Do List
Think about all the things you have agreed to do for people. Have you agreed to do more for others than yourself? You may have too much on your plate. To reiterate an earlier point, it’s ok to help people. But you have to do things for yourself first. You can’t pour from an empty cup.
7. Listen To Your Body
If you keep doing everything for everyone else, you will exhaust yourself and burn out. Our bodies are not designed to work and worry 24 hours a day. If you do not make time to rest, your body will make you rest.
6. Politely Insist on Compensation
Your time and effort are not cheap and are certainly not free. If people keep expecting assistance from you, it may be time to start gently asking for payment in the form of gas, food, or a Venmo transfer. This can help ensure that no one will take advantage of you.
5. Reevaluate Your Friendships
Maybe you are reading this and thinking “but they’re my friends and friends help each other.” Yes. Friends do help each other. But if you are the only one in the friendship helping, then they are treating you like an assistant, not a friend. Take a step back and ask yourself if this is a relationship worth continuing.
4. Surround Yourself With Support
After you evaluate your friendships and relationships, spend time with the people who you’ve realized truly care about you. These friends will support you and remind you of your worth. Surrounding yourself with friends who genuinely care about your time and well-being will help you stand up to those who don’t.
3. Value Yourself
Some people feel the need to people-please because they feel like that is the only way they have value. They think no one will like them if they don’t make themselves available to everyone around them. If this is how you feel, it’s time to start viewing yourself as someone who is worthy of unconditional love and friendship.
Read More: Why You Should Stop Being a “People Pleaser”
2. “No” Is A Complete Sentence
Often when we tell people “no” we follow it up with an explanation. Explanations are necessary sometimes, but not all of the time. No one has the right to know the details of your personal life. “No” is a complete sentence. Let’s practice. Can you spot me for lunch? No. Can you run this errand for me? No. “No” is all that is needed.
Read More: 10 Tough but Important Steps to Establish Boundaries
1. Please Yourself
People-pleasers will take care of everyone in their lives except themselves. So many people-pleasers forget that they are, in fact, people. You deserve to be helped just as much as your loved ones do. Remember to help yourself. You can’t take care of others while you are suffering in silence.
Read More: Could You Tell if Your Relationship Was Toxic?
