Are You Considered A People Pleaser?

Aug 28, 2018

A common trait that has been observed among those who are unable to lose weight and manage their health correctly is that they are a “people pleaser.” Strangely enough, these are some of the nicest people you will meet. They are extremely helpful to friends and family and have a hard time saying “no” to people. This, unfortunately, can lead to bad health, as it did for Janet. Consider her story.

Janet is a nurse and the mother of 2 boys. She has participated in a program for weight loss for 10 weeks, and it has not yielded any results. She has not started to exercise or keep a diet journal and claims this is because she is so busy. She is always on the go to and from work or to get her kids to and from their obligations. Janet admits to eating fast food as well. “I’m exhausted. There is just no time,” she says. The evidence would indicate that she is a people pleaser, as she spends the majority of her time tending to the needs of others.

This behavior pattern stems from fear of rejection in most cases. This fear typically occurs due to early relationships in life that were conditional or in which the person was abandoned. People may also become people pleasers if they had extremely critical parents. This leads to severe anxiety upon the attempting of a task. This often results in people exerting large amounts of effort to get the job done and make sure everyone is satisfied. Regardless, the consequences can be fairly negative. Here are some solutions

People pleasers pay attention to just about everything but their own selves. Efforts toward the happiness of others result in lessened efforts toward healthy eating and physical activity. Thus, you need to find a balance. Consider devoting more time to your own well-being. You can do so by seeing tending to yourself as a stop for fuel on the way to helping others. A Red Cross truck, for instance, cannot aid those in need if it runs out of gas.

People pleasers often find themselves repressing anger toward people in their life. They desire to be nice all the time, and the anger comes out to show in the form of passive aggression. This is quite negative since mounting of resentment is one the main destructors of relationships. So communicate and speak up if you feel upset, and this will help your relationships in the long run.

Janet, for an example, admitted at one point that she did not even enjoy going to her son’s ball games. She wished she did, but her mind was so preoccupied with thinking of all the other things she had to do. Being present but not engaged in no better than not going at all. The solution is to take a break here and there to recharge your ability to enjoy the activity.

Stress is having more on your plate than you can manage, and people pleasers tend to face this on a regular basis. If you constantly feel too busy, you may be a victim of this vicious cycle. What helps is to lessen your workload, which can be done gradually. If you can free up a certain portion of your day, try it out. You may find it helps you destress.

People pleasers are commonly taken advantage of for their extremely helpful nature. This can get even worse when they enter relationships with people who tend to exploit others for their own benefit. In any case, the requests from others pile up until it is too much to handle. This is when it comes in handy to learn how to say “no” every once in a while. Continue to remind yourself that you need fuel of your own if you are going to improve the lives of others.

As has been indicated, people pleasers tend to become overloaded with problems and stress due to their helpful natures. Taking some time off strictly for you does not hurt every now and then and can help in the long run. We encourage you to reflect on these ideas and let your friends know what you think.