Why People Pleasing is Bad | Episode 122: Syd the Expert
People pleasing happens most often from people who have a kind and compassionate heart, but there is actually a huge problem with your people pleasing tendencies.
In this week’s episode of the Carrying Connected Conversations podcast, Syd brings her expertise to the table and shares why people pleasing is bad. Co-host Angie shares her own personal example of people pleasing and how she lost herself by placing someone else’s needs, wants and desires on a pedestal over her own. Syd explains the root cause of people pleasing and how to start the journey of healing this unsupportive habit. There is a key message that all people pleasers need to know, so press play to find out.
Listen to the episode now to understand how your people pleasing habits come from a place of insecurity and low self esteem.
You can continue reading about the conversation Syd & Ang had on the podcast through the transcript below.
Ang: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Carrying Connected Conversations. I always have to say this, but this is Angie chatting at you, just in case you are wondering who is starting off this week's podcast. Well, it is I, it is me, the wonderful fitness, wellness expert Angie. Hahahah! Obviously we are coming for a good intro for Syd here. If you guys have not caught on to our new format, where we do a check in with myself then we do a check in with Sydney. Then we kind of change the roles around and we had an expert chat with Angie, that was my episode last week. Now we are doing an expert episode with Sydney this week. Damn I am so excited about this because I already have so many things I want to say about it myself, but never mind because it’s coming from Sydney the expert. Oh my G. This girl knows everything about your spiritual wellness journey, she knows everything about connecting on a deeper level. SHe knows how to get you from that stuck feeling to an empowered new version of you. This is exactly why Syd is going to be sharing why people pleasing is bad. But before she does, we are obviously going to check in with Syd and see how this wonderful expert is doing today. Syd, how are you doing my friend?
Syd: Hello! I am doing so good! I love your intro, it’s so empowering to hear your words and to know them. I think that’s one of the most empowering things when someone is giving you a compliment when you feel the energy and you know those things about yourself. We have been taught that it is selfish and egotistical to think highly of yourself, and I am here to squash that.
So yes, we are talking about people pleasing today and why it’s a bad attribute. So I am excited to dive into this topic.
Ang: Before we even dive into this, I have had, well we all have had, our own trauma or our own experience with this. I am definitely someone that is coming from a place where I put somebody in particular on a pedestal for way too long. Can we at least start off with why that is bad to put someone on a pedestal? Or why is it bad when you are going above and beyond for someone else? I think that’s how most people would understand the term people pleasing. Of course feel free to get a little bit deeper on why it’s bad.
Syd: Ya definitely. I think people pleasing can be seen in a few different ways. We can explain it or understand it and experience it in different ways in our own journey depending on who we are and how we got to that space. The concept of putting someone on a pedestal and seeing how that triggers a people pleasing tendency is when you put someone on a pedestal and you are saying they are great, they are all mighty, they are so much better than me. When you fall into a people pleasing tendency you are saying that because they are so great and amazing and better that you, you need their approval to then see how you could also maybe be great one day. I think that is one main way that we experience people pleasing, that need for approval and validation from somebody who we think is better than us, or we believe is better than us.
Another way we see this people pleasing tendency show up, whether we put someone else on a pedestal or not, it’s the concept that their needs are more important that yours and you need to make sure that they are happy. Especially if the person you’ve put on a pedestal has anger issues, or they get stressed out easily and you feel their worry and their harsh emotions. Those low vibration emotions like anger, worry and stress, that feel heavier, if you are an empath you take on that energy and you feel that energy from this person that you’ve put on a pedestal. The people pleasing tendency is, you need to make sure that they don’t get anger, or they don’t experience stress. You feel you need to make sure that they are happy and taken care of because then you don’t feel their anger or you are not the butt of their stress and frustration. Instead you are the one that helped them reach happiness. That is another way we can experience those people pleasing tendencies show up.
I think the last way is in that caretaker role. A lot of us feel the need to take care of the people around us so they are happy and enjoying life. Not necessarily because we’ve been at the receiving end of their anger, or stress, or frustration, but really because we have the heart that wants to care for the people around us. We have a good natured heart and we are full of kindness and compassion, which can lead to people pleasing tendencies. This is because we tend to feel validated when someone says, “oh you are such a kind person”, or “oh wow you take such great care of everyone”. It makes us feel good when we are seen on the action of taking care of others. We really identify as people pleasers, which effects the way that we view ourselves.
Ang: I love this explanation. Now you’ve really talked about why we’ve placed them on the pedestal or why we think they are greater than us, which is the need for approval or validation from them. If that is something that we are seeking from someone else, what would say is the first thing for someone that is learning about their own people pleasing ways, that they can do to create their own validation and approval for themselves?
Syd: Ya, I think that is exactly where it comes from, the need for approval and validation is because you don’t know how to give it to yourself. You also don’t know how to receive it either. Often people pleasers will receive a compliment from someone and they don’t feel comfortable in receiving the compliment so they immediately turn it around and give a compliment back to that person. They might even receive a compliment and not feel worthy of it, so they will point out 10 things that are bad about themself. Really what this comes down to is that you don’t feel worthy and you have this fear of not being enough, or you feel like you are not enough.
Turning it around and learning how to give yourself approval and how to create internal validation rather than external validation. As the words explain, it’s creating validation for yourself internally rather than waiting for somebody outside of you to validate you. It’s a process because what you are needing to do is learn the root of your fear. You need to learn the root of this behaviour as to why you are people pleasing. If it is coming from the feeling of being unworthy or not being enough, then what are those feelings rooted in? What kind of pain did you experience, emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, in your past? Or is it something that somebody taught you?
We aren’t born to doubt ourselves. We aren’t born with insecurities. We are taught to doubt ourselves and we are taught to be insecure and this is really what this people pleasing tendency is rooted in. We doubt ourselves and we are insecure. So learning to give yourself approval and learning to validate yourself is learning to overcome this self doubt and insecurities that you carry.
Ang: Absolutely. It sounds like if we are looking for a quick way right off the bat, what is one thing that we can do, you kind of touched on it. I’d love to know a little bit more, but it’s the idea of when someone compliments you and you can’t accept it. For example, when some compliments your dress and you respond with, “oh this old thing, I got it ten years ago, I just decided to wear it today”, rather than taking the compliment the way I just expressed there could be something as simple as “thank you, thank you so much”. Is there something else that can be as simple as a little change like that in how we respond?
Syd: Ya. I think it also comes down to your self-talk. What are the words you speak to yourself in your mind or out loud on a daily basis? If you are constantly putting yourself down, berating yourself, judging yourself, criticizing yourself, shaming yourself, guilt tripping yourself, pointing out all the things you’ve done wrong, did wrong or are doing wrong, you are creating a very harsh atmosphere to live in. Those people pleasing tendencies become stronger because you feel so bad internally that you are going to focus on helping other people because you have an expectation that they will give you love, they will give you a compliment and appreciate what you do for them. You can never receive that appreciation fully because your self-talk is so negative, and you are constantly putting yourself down, that you truly believe you are not worthy to receive that appreciation.
It’s hard to change your self-talk and the only way to go about it is to start. Start trying to do something different. Start complimenting yourself on something that you do well. Start complimenting yourself on things you enjoy about yourself. You don’t always need to point out the things you are bad at. We need to start learning to point out the things that we are good at and to start loving ourselves more. The more that we give ourselves love and we talk to ourselves with kind and compassionate words, that we so easily give to other people, when we turn it around and give it to ourselves we start feeling more worthy and feeling enough for ourselves. This really changes the conversation.
Ang: Oh absolutely! Ya self-talk is definitely huge. So would you say, because you are the expert in all of this, that there is some sort of generalization that we can say if you are somebody with low confidence and low self esteem you are more likely to people please than someone that has higher confidence?
Syd: Ya definitely. I think I said this a couple weeks ago that was my check in episode, a lot of us grew up hearing the words “good girl” and “good boy”. There is nothing wrong with this, but what it does is it places an emphasis on being good because of an action that we’ve done. As we grow up into adults, again it’s not a space to look back on how we were brought up and criticize receiving those words “good girl”, “good boy”. What it is is a place to say, how did receiving those words impact how I ended up choosing to live my life? Am I living from a supportive way internally or am I searching for the approval of “good girl, good boy”, from something outside of me? We start to learn how to give ourselves that sense of approval rather than searching for it from some outside source.
I can’t remember exactly what you’ve asked, but does that answer it?
Ang: Yes that absolutely does. If you are somebody who has low self esteem or somebody who isn’t confident with themself then chances are 99.9999% that you are a people pleaser. I think that’s important to hear it from that perspective as well. There might be people thinking “I’m not a people pleaser, I just like to do good things for other people”. Because I’ve met a lot of people in my life like this, and don’t get me wrong I like helping people too, but at what cost. Is my confidence lowered? Is my self esteem lower, that I feel the need to have to go above and beyond for this other individual that maybe isn’t as important in my life, or maybe does have a huge importance in my life? It’s about remembering that you don’t need to go above and beyond in order to compensate for what you are lacking.
Syd: Exactly. I think all of us that would consider ourselves having those people pleasing tendencies, would see ourselves in that position of saying “it’s not a bad thing, I like it, it’s good, I like helping people”. This is because we grew up in a society that wants more people pleasers because with more people pleasers what we end up doing is we give our power away. We say that the other person is more powerful than us, so the people that are in power want you to continue to be a people pleaser because they want you to continue to put them first. All because it makes them feel more powerful.
If you are in a position where you are saying, “no, I like doing this, I like helping people”, you might not be ready to create a change. You probably aren’t ready to start doing the healing work of shifting your belief system because you still fully believe it’s a good quality. That’s okay if that;s what you believe, continue on your journey, you’re not at the position where you are ready to make a change.
But, for a lot of us, we are in a position where we are ready to make a change when we start to become bitter. We start to become bitter because we are not receiving the appreciation that we once were. We are expecting appreciation and approval and we aren’t receiving it. We are starting to go over and above and we are becoming exhausted. Plus, we are starting to lose ourselves. We don’t really know who we are because we are constantly showing up for the people around us. If you are in that position, where you feel this way, you are ready to start doing the healing work. You are ready to start healing your identity around what it means to be a people pleaser. Ultimately when we are people pleasers, what you are doing is that you are prioritizing somebody else’s values, belief system and desires over your own. That is when you start to lose yourself because as a people pleaser you want to show up as the person that they want you to be, rather than being your true authentic self.
Ang: Absolutely! I am a huge person for saying, I’ve been there. I was in a position where I was in a relationship and I 100% lost myself by prioritizing their values, their beliefs, all of their desires, their work careers, their own personal goals and aspirations. I literally put them on a pedestal because I thought they mattered more than me. I can totally see how you can lose yourself, because I did lose myself. I didn’t know who I was when I came out of it.
How in the heck do you get rid of those people pleasing tendencies, if you are in a position where you have lost yourself? Or you are starting to feel that lost sense of direction?
For my example, I was in a relationship for over 9 years. That’s a long time to be with somebody, but you get so accustomed and used to those values. It wasn’t until nearing the end of the relationship where I started to realize, hey my values are just as important. How would you help somebody, or what pieces of advice would you say to somebody that is trying to get out of their people pleasing tendencies?
Syd: This is actually something that I start with all of my 1:1 clients that I start working with because so many of us have those people pleasing tendencies. I always start our work together with learning about your emotions. Learning about the positive emotions that you want to experience and what activities help you to feel those positive emotions that you want to experience.
A couple episodes ago we started off talking about biking, it was very quick and very short. You had mentioned how you went on a bike ride and it made you feel very good and I had said that I love biking. Those are activities that you and I have uncovered that we absolutely love doing. They bring us joy, and for me it helps me feel more connected to Mother Earth. It helps me to feel adventurous. If you are wanting to stop the people pleasing tendencies, it’s not as easy as just saying no to people right from the get go. You need to start to build an understanding of who you are and what you like to do and how you like to experience life, and the kind of emotions you want to create on your own. Ultimately this people pleasing tendency is because you want to experience joy and you believe that helping other people brings you joy because you get to then see them joyful. You are actually limiting the amount of joy that you get to experience because you are saying your joy is dependent on whether or not that other person will then experience joy. It needs to start off with knowing what emotions you want to experience in your day to day life and what activities you can start doing that let you feel that emotion, then go do those activities. This is where you start to gain a stronger sense of self, of who you are, how you like to enjoy your life, and then you can build your values off of that. After this you start to see what beliefs you are carrying that aren’t aligned with how you actually want to move forward.
Ang:I literally love that so much because I feel like that is such an “easy” way to start. It’s as simple as well what do you like to do. We think that debunking these beliefs and all these things that we are doing “wrong” we have to do so much work, but it always starts with one simple thing. This simple thing is finding what we like to do in general and then doing that. As soon as we start doing that more often we start creating our own good emotions for ourself, as you are saying. Then as soon as we start becoming more accustomed to that, then we can start to see where we are going above and beyond and it’s not making you feel any good, you are starting to become bitter.
Just before we wrap up, because obviously this is what you do in your line of work. I’d love the listeners to know the best place or even the first place to work with you so that way they can start to debunk this whole people pleasing idea in their own life.
Syd: This is something that I help my clients with directly in my 1:1 mentoring program. If you are wanting more information, on my website I have blogs that I write and I have a few blogs that talk about people pleasing and give you more information on it. Including the habits you should stop people pleasing, the reasons why it’s bad, more information then what I’ve shared in today’s conversation you can check that out on the blogs that I’ve written.
If you are wanting to go deeper, you are starting to understand that yes you are a people pleaser and you are seeing that it does have a negative effect on your life. Maybe you feel like you’ve lost yourself or you’ve been in the caregiving role for so long and you are feeling exhausted, or you can really see that you are people pleasing because you are trying to reach success in the way that your parents deem success but you can see that it’s not aligned with what you actually want to create. You are exactly right for my 1:1 mentoring program. I work specifically with empaths, sensitive souls and people pleasers to break the habits that have led them into a space where they feel like they’ve lost themselves and they feel like they are stuck in their life. I work with them to break away from those habits, behaviors and patterns and to start creating a life where they feel peaceful, empowered and they feel like they can live as their true authentic self.
Ang: I love that! So first place to go is the blogs, but the best place to go is your 1:1 mentoring. I love that because it’s so straight to the point and that is exactly where people can learn how to debunk this for themselves. As we found out today, pleasing people is bad, so why not check in with Syd to see how we can get rid of it right now and we can keep creating that life filled with peace and joy.
So, thank you so much Syd. I think today’s chat was absolutely phenomenal, but before we close off because I do want to share a little bit of exciting news about what is happening next week. I’d love for you to share any last minute advice or something else that we haven’t touched on today. What is something that you think is very important for someone that is people pleasing to the max?
Syd: If you are in a position where you feel like you enjoy people pleasing because it allows you to share compassion and kindness with the world around you, you most likely have a very giving heart. One of the purposes that you carry in this lifetime is to take care of others, to help others, to offer compassion to the world around you. The reason why people pleasing is bad is because it’s rooted in the desire to receive approval and validation from the world around you. That is going to cause you more harm if you are taking action on helping someone because you want them to give you something in return. You are never going to feel fulfilled and you are going to constantly feel like you're lost and you are not receiving what you want. There is a way to continue to be a kind and compassionate person, to help others, to take care of others, from a healthy and an aligned way. You need to reroot why it is you are taking action in that space of being compassionate towards others. It doens’t come from needing approval, it comes from knowing deep down that this is your purpose and you are feeling called in that way.
If you are feeling called to help others, you are a caretaker and help others, but you want to stop feeling exhausted and drained like you are giving all your energy away, then it’s time to work with me. We will reroot your belief system and your values. It’s time to learn that being a people pleaser really is coming from insecurities and self doubt. You can still be kind and compassionate and you can belief in yourself and you can know you are worthy. You can validate yourself while still taking care of the people around you.
Ang: I love this! People pleasers, you are not too far gone. There is still a way.
Syd: There is hope! There is hope!
Ang: This is such great news! Yes! Oh that is so good. Well, thank you so so much Syd. Don’t forget listeners, all of our information, especially Syd’s information is all in the links. If you want to go right over to her website, or get into her Shifting Forward group, it’s a perfect opportunity for you to gain more information on where you can find those blogs. Of course you can go ahead and start that one on one call with Syd. All of that information is in the description below.
The exciting news for next week, oh me oh my! It is the 5th monday in a month. If you guys have caught on we do a little double double… trouble, because I had to say that. We do some check-ins then of course we share our expertise. That is our double trouble, but we have a 5th monday. So what are we going to do? We have an exciting bonus style episode. It’s going to be something totally new that you have not seen yet. I am so excited for you guys to hear exactly what we are going to be chatting at you guys with next week.
Don’t forget to tune in. Every single Monday at 3 am EST a new episode drops. We are going to love you and leave you until next monday. We will chat to you guys then!
Syd: Bye everyone!