You can’t please everyone. This is a really important message to all of you out there who struggle with people pleasing. I am one of you – or I used to be. Or to be more accurate, I am a recovering people pleaser.
You might be thinking to yourself about now, “Wait! You send out a daily dose of encouragement. I thought you WANTED to help people, to be kind.” And you would be right. I DO want to be kind and I DO want to help people. It actually is something that drives me. And by themselves, these are good things. They are good characteristics to have.
They are also two of the characteristics that can be associated with people pleasing. You might also be someone who has a hard time saying “no” to any requests. Or you might feel guilty about it when you DO say “no”. You fear that people will think you’re selfish or mean. You may take the blame for something even when it isn’t your fault. You may find that you say you’re sorry frequently. Does any of that sound familiar?
If so, you might be someone who struggles with people pleasing. To be clear, wanting to please other people in your life is not in and of itself a bad thing. It’s the motivation behind it that can be the challenge. And because of that you can lose sight of who you are. You lose your own identity. You spend so much of your time and energy pleasing other people that you forget what truly makes YOU happy. And you connect your worth to whether people like you or not. You neglect your own needs. You may even find yourself resenting people because you may feel taken advantage of. You burn out and simply don’t enjoy life
The truth is you can’t please everyone. And even more importantly, you shouldn’t. My encouragement for you today is to stop trying to please everyone and start to learn to love yourself enough to put yourself first. Establish some boundaries about what you’re willing to take on and stick to those boundaries. Learn to say no. Take care of yourself. It’s okay to keep doing good things. It’s part of making our world a better place. But remember that you need to do so on your own terms. Your happiness may depend on it.