Dear People Pleasers, here’s how to be happy without seeking validation from others

What is a people pleaser and how do you know if you are one?

Do you:

• Find yourself adjusting your behaviour depending on who you’re with?
• Imagine the reactions of others to a planned course of action and adjust your life choices accordingly?
• Feel a great sense of relief after receiving reassurance from a friend on what you said in an uncomfortable conversation?

Haily Magee defines people-pleasing is an interpersonal and transactional phenomenon: it’s the act of chronically prioritizing others’ needs, wants, or feelings at the expense of—and to the detriment of—our own needs, wants, or feelings. We may people-please to get others’ love or attention, to be treated well by others, or to feel safe in others’ presence.

As a recovering people pleaser, I’ve learned some lessons. In this article I:

• Share the story of how people pleasing has been haunting me my whole life.
• Explain how validation is doing the exact opposite of what you think it’s doing.
• Outline how people pleasing patterns are hurting you.
• Show you how to break these people pleasing cycles and live the life you deserve.

Sound familiar?

The story: my people pleasing patterns have been torturing me my whole life

I struggle with being on my own, not only is this because I gather energy from others as an extrovert, but because I get anxious and am soothed by the validation or approval I get from others. Until recently, it was painful to be in the company of myself.

I realize now that’s because the approval of myself was the one thing I could never feel.

We all have an inner voice, your thoughts, which narrate every moment of the day. This inner voice, is what the Buddhists have referred to at times as “monkey mind”: the idea is that your mind runs rampant, foreseeing danger before it arrives, trying to prevent disaster, distracting you constantly and chattering incessantly. Ooh Ooh, Ahh, Ahh.

I realized that my inner voice was causing me a lot of pain and hardship and fuelling my compulsive people pleasing behaviours. So, to try and delineate my true self from my thoughts, I named my inner voice Patricia. Meet Patricia. Patricia can be coy and fearful, but she can also be cruel, pointed and controlling. In short, Patricia is a real piece of work.

If I heard her talking to anyone else the way she talks to me, I would smack her. Here’s a day in the life with Patricia:

• I sit down and she tells me I’m lazy.
• I haven’t called my grandpa in three days and I’m the worst granddaughter and my grandmother is judging me from heaven.
• I didn’t put on make up, I look like crap.
• I haven’t achieved a goal that I decided on last night at 11:30 pm, I’m useless.

As a people pleaser, Patricia often catastrophizes what people would say about me:

• A childhood friend will say that I’m not a good catholic (whatever that means).
• A smart and successful woman I’ve admired since university would say I’ve achieved an average career.
• My high school teacher who believed in me would say he’s surprised I didn’t do more.
• My aunt would say I’m ungrateful for the support my uncle gave me.
• My boss is going to figure out that I’m an imposter because I made that mistake, I need to work overtime so he realizes I’m not a loser.

Patricia became the spokes person for my fears of what every single other person might disapprove of. I grew up hop scotching past the lines of dissatisfaction of others. I avoided scowls like the plague. I got very good at anticipating what wouldn’t be well received and as a result, spent a lot of my life being popular, pleasant and well liked.

But along the way, I lost myself and the fear of being disliked turned into a deep anxiety. The fear of disapproval is disabling, it stalls you into inaction and worse, stops you from knowing what you really want.

While we all Patricia’s that torment us in different ways, what’s unique for people pleasers is that the only way you can get her to shut up and be nice, is when you’ve received validation.

I’ve recently realized that I’ve actually been chronically exercising a people pleasing addiction: seeking validation from others.

Validation: people pleaser’s drug of choice and ultimate kryptonite

Seeking reassurance or validation from others is the same thing as being on a circular racecar track. You keep going around and around but you never end up in a new place.

Seeking validation from others offers a temporary reprieve from your inner voice, fears and anxieties. But it’s ultimately a waste of time because it’s temporary because you’ll keep ending up with the fear of being disliked.

How people pleasing patterns are hurting you

By living for the satisfaction and approval of others, we are telling ourselves that our worthiness is contingent upon what others think.

Let that sink in.

The way you are living your life keeps sending your subconscious a clear message: you’re only “okay” if they say you are.

I realized that this wasn’t a message I’d want to teach to my niece or any other young person – so why is it an unconscious message I keep sending myself?

By constantly seeking validation to quiet your monkey mind, you are dependent on others and you will need to seek that validation again and again. You are seeding self-doubt and letting it grow into a life of unhappiness.

How to release people pleasing patterns

Here’s how I give my monkey mind a banana and get it to shut it up. I watch it and I don’t believe everything it says. Your mind’s inner voice is not the ultimate truth, in fact it’s often spewing a bunch of hurtful nonsense.

Here’s how you practice watching your thoughts instead of listening to them and responding to them blindly:

• Write yourself a letter and build compassion with yourself. Here are some prompts:
  1. What I am working hard at is…
  2. I’ve made mistakes, the ones I can’t stop thinking about are…
  3. I lovingly forgive myself for…
  4. I’m proud of myself for… despite…
  5. I like myself and I have permission not to be liked by everyone. This will look like…
• Start a daily journal – here are some prompts:
  1. What do you want to do? If no one knew and there were no consequences, what would you do?
  2. Write out what you are afraid someone might say if you don’t do what you know they’d like you to. Read that back to yourself – is the fear of those words enough to stop you from living the life you want?
• Take walks with no music, podcast or phone calls and get comfortable observing your own thought patterns.
• Meditate – here is my favourite meditation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Daw8a35Ul0c

The purpose of these exercises is to observe your patterns and tendencies. I noticed that my thoughts were cruel, impatient and judgemental. I was astounded just how mean I was to myself.

Here’s what’s waiting for you on the other side of your people pleasing patterns:

• You’ll tune into your intuition and realize your deepest goals, you’ll have the courage to take the risk and the energy to take action (because you won’t be spending so much energy worrying about what other people think)
• You’ll sleep better – when waking up in the middle of the night worrying about what someone might say, you’ll recognize it’s your Patricia up to her old tricks and get to bed sooner.
• You’ll feel entitled to ask for what you want, and for the first time, you might actually get it.
• You’ll set boundaries that protect your energy and have more time to do focus on what’s important to you.
• You’ll develop deeper and more meaningful relations because you’ll be connecting from a place for authenticity and vulnerability.

Thanks to the realization that I have a serious people-pleasing problem, I no longer blindly respond to the fearful thoughts. I’d be lying if I said I had it figured out and never practice people pleasing patterns, I’ve been building these mental patterns for more than 30 years and have only spent the last few trying to let them go.

With that said, I’ve had moments in the sun; moments where I felt good in my shoes and didn’t need to seek validation. Those moments build courage and the only validation you hunger for is the quiet alignment that lives within you when you’re doing what feels right for you.