In this episode Sarah & Pam discuss:

What people pleasing is and why it’s often misunderstood.
How to know if you’re a people pleaser.
The difference between being nice and pleasing.
The downsides of people pleasing.
How pleasing can actually drive people away.
The little ways that pleasing shows up in our day-to-day and creates a pattern that has a larger impact.
How pleasing affects relationships.
Where the desire to please comes from.
How empathy is related to pleasing.
That pleasing is easier in the moment but harder in the long run.
How pleasing is related to conflict avoidance.
Whether pleasing is more common in women than men due to societal conditioning.
How pleasing is a defense mechanism.
How motivation types relate to pleasing tendencies.
How to develop awareness of your motivations and pleasing tendencies.
Tuning in to when you feel whole, empowered, and authentic and when you don’t.
How our busy lives, lived on autopilot keeps us out of mindfulness of our patterns and energy.
How practicing radical self-acceptance mitigates the need for external approval.
Why speaking to yourself in the third person can help you get perspective on a situation.
How futurecasting can help you deal with a situation now rather than putting it off until later.
How to practice asking for what you want.
The infinite loop of giving and receiving and how you have to receive to be able to give.
How to practice setting boundaries.
How a spreadsheet could help you see results from making incremental changes.

Links, Corrections, and Whatnot

Take the free Four Tendencies quiz to discover your motivation style. The accompanying book, The Four Tendencies, is available at most booksellers. It’s a quick read that Pam found very helpful.

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Transcript

This transcript was generated by AI so please ignore any weird errors. If there is anything really terrible, let us know.

[00:00:00] Sarah: So it, we have this intended impact, like, oh, I wanna keep everyone happy and like belong, but in fact it can have the opposite result.

A topic that’s very familiar for both of us.

[00:00:19] Pam: Yes. I’m a people pleaser extraordinaire, .

[00:00:22] Sarah: Yeah. Both of us and many others. It’s so common.

[00:00:28] Pam: Yeah. I think it’s more common that a lot of people probably realize because you just have to get along with people, right? You’re not necessarily paying attention to things that you’re doing and thinking that you’re pleasing them.

You’re just like, trying to coordinate or work together with people. And until you see it as people pleasing, it doesn’t necessarily feel like something that is out of the ordinary or that has a name like that. .

[00:00:57] Sarah: Yeah. Okay, great.

So why don’t we start with what pleasing is what people pleasing is as a definition.

Cuz you’re right. It can just seem like, well, I’m just being a good person. I’m just being a nice person and I’m figuring out how to get along with people. Why is that people pleasing? So this is a definition I found that works for me.

It’s indirectly trying to gain acceptance and affection by helping, pleasing, rescuing, or flattering others. So I think that’s the piece. It’s trying, you’re doing it, your motivation for pleasing or helping others is that you’re trying to gain. You’re trying to be liked. What do you think about that definition? What would you change or add?

[00:01:39] Pam: Well, what I wrote down as you were saying, that was affection and rescuing. Those were the two words that really stood out to me. Being liked is something that I think everyone wants. Everyone wants to be liked, but it’s a stronger force in some people than others and it’s definitely something that I’ve been like consciously aware of it since I was a child.

I remember sitting in my like dentist’s chair when I was a kid and wanting so badly for him to give me an A+ on my dental care and just like a deep desire for him to like me and tell me that I was doing a good job and give me this great report card on my dental health at like five years old. And I remember being aware of it.

That is a presence in my life that I have known about for a long time. So definitely the idea of wanting affection or wanting to be liked stood out for me.

And the other one that I wrote down was rescuing, because that is definitely a tendency for me. I feel like I see people or situations where I’m like, I can help.

I want to help and I can, so I do and sometimes the other person, didn’t actually want my help. But I step in because I’m like, I can do this, I can help you. And then they’re like, I didn’t want any help . You know, so yeah.

[00:03:12] Sarah: Who asked?

[00:03:13] Pam: Right, right. I didn’t ask.

But the other outcome is that I do help and then I end up feeling taken advantage of, or I resent the other person because I am doing things for them and making them happy, and it’s going against what I actually want. So I’m putting all my effort into taking care of them, pleasing them, and it’s to my own detriment.

[00:03:39] Sarah: Yeah. And so I like where you’re going because you’re leading right into, well, what’s the impact right? When we’re motivated by this by a desire to do something, to gain somebody’s affection, the impact is that we can lose sight of our own needs, right? We lose sight of our own needs and that can lead to feeling resentful. Right?

Also you know, we’re doing it cuz we wanna be close to people like we’re doing it cuz we wanna stay part of the group and belong. But ironically, being too much of a people pleaser can actually alienate, right? So, we have this intended impact like, oh, I wanna keep everyone happy and like belong, but in fact it can have the opposite result.

So I wanna like dive into that. A little bit later too. Like the different kinds of impacts it can have both on ourselves and on our relationships. Cause I think it’s true, like you just brought one up. Like you, we can go “oh let me help, I can totally help with this” and we might end up feeling depleted and also we might end up really pissing off the other person

They might think I had it on my own or I didn’t actually want your help. So it can have. Pretty negative impact both for ourselves as the pleaser and the others with whom we’re involved.

[00:04:52] Pam: Yeah. I definitely see that in my own life. I wrote down a few manifestations of how people pleasing has shown up. We went through a couple of there for me. But I also have noticed it in little tiny ways like, last time I was getting my hair done, I needed more shampoo and conditioner, and there’s the one that I wanted to buy, and then the one that my stylist liked, and I bought the one that my stylist liked because, that was gonna make her happy.

I didn’t realize it in the moment, but then I got home and I was like, why? Why didn’t I buy the one I wanted? ? It’s just like little things like that where it’s like, I didn’t even make my own decision. I was like, oh, this is what, this is what she wants. So this is what I’ll do. And it’s harmless, you know, it’s so meaningless, but it’s like making…

[00:05:39] Sarah: But then it becomes a pattern.

[00:05:41] Pam: Right.

If that’s your default of like, this is what the other person wants.

[00:05:46] Sarah: Yeah.

That’s so interesting. And I think those sort of small example examples are so rampant. . I remember when I first started dating my now husband, so at the time, my boyfriend and he’s much less of a pleaser than I am . And I remember him, you know, sending, he would, you know, order like it was like ordering this big salad with all the ingredients when you’re picking all of the things and got it home and then realized they hadn’t put in the avocado.

And he actually called the place and said, “you forgot my avocado”. And you know, then they apologized and they said, well, what we’ll do is we’ll leave a note here so that next time you come back, you’ll get it for free. And this whole interaction took, I don’t know, a good 10 minutes of him calling and negotiating.

And you know, it wasn’t about the money or the avocado was just like the principle of it. Like why? And I remember being struck cuz I thought I would never, it would never even dawn on me as an option. To call, I just would’ve brought it home and thought, oh, well, I’ll just do without, it’s not a big deal.

Yeah. And then and so many times in restaurants where I just wouldn’t send my food back would have to, no. I’ve had, you know, basically I’d be like, have to be getting food poisoning to sort of send it back.

[00:07:04] Pam: Yeah. I’ve had two very specific meals that stand out in my head that they were terrible and the waiter repeatedly was like, do you want something else?

Do you wanna send it back? And I’m like…

[00:07:15] Sarah: literally offering

[00:07:16] Pam: …no. Yeah. I’m still like no, it’s fine. Because I didn’t want the chef to know it was, I didn’t like it, or, you know, whatever.

[00:07:24] Sarah: But it’s crazy because it’s not wanting somebody else to feel. Bad, and then, but that’s sort of us thinking we have some kind of responsibility over the how they feel.

[00:07:34] Pam: Right. And it’s also dishonest.

[00:07:36] Sarah: It’s completely dishonest. Yeah. It’s completely dishonest. And so then if we think like we’re never, that’s one of the biggest problems with it, right? , because if we’re never being truthful, what we want. The big, the little things right now, these are silly little examples, but the big things too, then our relat in our relationships, we’re not showing our true selves.

Like we’re not. We’re just presenting the person. We think the other person is gonna like best.

[00:08:04] Pam: All of my relationships. Whether they were friendships or romantic, I would start out being the person that I thought they wanted me to be. I would take on their interests. I would do everything for them. I would, you know, cook and clean and do all the things to make them happy.

And two things, well, a few things would happen. One, I would not be happy because I would be doing all these things that I didn’t necessarily want to do. Two, I had no identity of my own because I would just take on their interests and do what they wanted to do and go where they wanted to go.

And so I never had any idea what I actually enjoyed doing or who I was. And then three, after a while, I would either resent them so much for me being in the situation that I actually created, but they were super happy to be in cause I was doing everything for them . Or they would not like who I was because I wasn’t being an authentic person.

I was just being this, you know, puppet that I thought that they wanted. And so none of it was authentic. None of their relationships were ever true to me and never made me happy because I wasn’t being a real person.

Yeah. Wow. So when did you realize that?

I think, I didn’t realize it until my current relationship after we had been together for a long time and both did a lot of work on ourselves and on our partnership, and then it was like, oh, this is what a relationship should be, this is what it should feel like, and then looking back, I was able to say, oh, none of those were real.

I never actually loved someone and no one actually loved the real me. They loved who I was pretending to be. And it was also a big transition in my relationship with CK because I was doing that people pleasing thing where I was always helping him and he didn’t want help. He wasn’t asking for help.

So I was always stepping in and like, I’ll take care of this for you. I’ll take care of this for you. And he was like, “Stop you’re not actually helping. I don’t want what you’re doing.” And our relationship actually got way better when I just like removed myself from whatever situations I was trying to help with and just let him be an autonomous adult who can handle things on his own. And if he needs help, he can ask for it.

[00:10:45] Sarah: Yeah. Wow. So it’s such a good, you know, such a good example and it’s so relatable and you know, I resonate with that and I can think of so many instances in my own personal life and in work, especially when I was in organizations where I fell into that pattern of just wanting to please others. And not ever what’s the word I’m looking for? Like stir the waters. I just always wanted to have smooth sailing and keep the peace. and how that actually was to my detriment. But I wanna pull it back and think. You know, we’re both self-aware and fairly, you know, we’re smart and aware, and yet we both fell into this and can fall into this and it’s so common.

So let’s talk about where this desire comes from to sort of please others because it is so common. So the first… I have a comment and then I wanna hear what you think. The first point I wanna make about that is that it comes from a good place, right? It actually is based on our strengths.

One of our great strengths, which is being empathic and being tuned into the needs of others and loving connecting with others. So I think it can come from a really good place of connection and love and empathy. And then the problem is left unchecked, left without boundaries it can start to wreak havoc. But first it’s not a bad thing. It’s not a weakness per se. It comes from a great, beautiful strength left unchecked.

[00:12:21] Pam: I resonate with that quite a bit. I have the ability to meet someone or even just walk in a room and immediately know the mood, the vibe, what people want, what they will respond to. Like I can be a chameleon like that. And I’ve had a lot of people comment on it as being a strength. I had an employee once tell me that he thought that I would be comfortable talking to anyone from eight to 80.

Like he’s like, you can just slip in and immediately have a conversation with anyone. And it is a strength. It has benefited me in myriad ways , personal and work. But because of that, because I can almost immediately tell what someone wants and needs from me, it’s very easy for me to give them that.

[00:13:11] Sarah: Yes.

[00:13:12] Pam: And not check myself and say, is it what I want? Is it what I need?

[00:13:18] Sarah: Yeah. And so why do we do that? Like it’s just a quick hit, it’s a quick reward.

[00:13:24] Pam: It is, it’s a quick reward and it’s also easier in the moment to do what they want or what they need rather than having conflict or or not, or, you know, have an uncomfortable interaction or say no or, you know, anything that comes out of interacting with people and not giving them necessarily what they want in the moment.

I think it is… I would be interested to find out if this is a stronger tendency for women than it is for men. I think that we are conditioned to. please and care for, and make people comfortable and kind of be the person in the room that is making sure that everyone’s getting what they want.

Whereas men may be less conditioned to have that role in society. So I think that it, I would go out on a limb and say that it probably is a greater tendency for women. So that may be somewhere that it does stem from, is that kind of conditioning in society.

[00:14:28] Sarah: Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, for people who are socialized as women , we are taught in most societies anyways to make people comfortable above all else, and we’re rewarded for that.

I certainly took that on just like you remember being at the dentist as a little girl and wanting to please your dentist by, you know, flossing your teeth. I remember as a young girl wanting to please both of my parents and they had their own stuff going on and separating and I felt a huge responsibility for wanting to make them each happy when I was with them that now as an adult working with a therapist, I can sort of unpack that a little bit more. But I see, now I can look back and just see, oh yeah, I was just such a little girl so young, and I took that upon myself wanting to please them, and also wanting to please my teachers. I never would pick a fight whenever there was any sort of argument going on with anyone in the schoolyard or in the class.

I would feel deeply uncomfortable and unsettled and scared. Even though objectively I wasn’t in danger, I would have a feeling of fear because it was so uncomfortable for me to witness conflict and I just so desperately wanted to put an end to it. And like, had I been born a little boy, I don’t know.

I don’t know. If I had been, you know, socialized as a boy, if I would have developed different coping mechanisms. I’m not certain. But I know that the one that I really gravitated to when I was little and has certainly stayed with me. I mean, now I can work with it and I have so much more awareness of it.

But it is that pleasing. So I agree completely. Certainkly I work with both men and women in my coaching practice, and plenty of men with whom I work also have the pleasing tendency. It’s not exclusive to women. Though I concur with you. In my experience and in the reading that I’ve done as well, so not only my own experience in my practice, but the reading that I’ve done, the research that I’ve done on this topic, it is very prevalent for women to wanna please others and make others comfortable above all else, because we’re rewarded for that. Societally we are, and we’re certainly not rewarded for challenging the status quo.

[00:16:52] Pam: It also feels safer.

[00:16:54] Sarah: Yes.

[00:16:55] Pam: It feels safer to make people happy than to potentially have conflict or to make them unhappy and then deal with those repercussions. Like it’s easier to put your own needs and wants aside and deal with yourself being unhappy than it is to deal with someone else being unhappy.

[00:17:14] Sarah: In the short run.

[00:17:16] Pam: Right.

[00:17:17] Sarah: Yeah. Wow. So then what happens? What happens? So in the short run, it can feel easier to put our own needs and then we get used to it, right? We’re like, oh, I know how to do this. Oh, it’s not a big deal for me. I’m easygoing. I’ve said that a lot in the past because I am, I’m like very, so I’m like, it’s fine you guys can decide because I’m super easy. So I’ll just be able to cope instead of thinking “Why? You can learn how to cope too!”

[00:17:50] Pam: That’s funny because as you’re saying that I am remembering that last night I had a dream that I was with people and we were going to see an air show and I had a specific plan that I wanted to have go the day go by and they. They knew the plan. I had told them, this is what I want, and they were like intentionally doing exactly the opposite of what I wanted.

And so it’s really funny that we’re having this conversation and talking about not asking for what you wanted or not doing what you want because you wanna please other people. And last night, I had this exact dream and I remember in the dream thinking like, I don’t… this doesn’t feel right… I don’t feel… I actually had one moment where I was like, I don’t feel safe because of one of the decisions that they made. So it’s like my subconscious pulling out this people pleasing. It’s really funny.

[00:18:36] Sarah: And so in the dream, what did you do? Did you like, do you remember if you advocated for your own desires?

[00:18:44] Pam: I think I tried, but I didn’t successfully remove myself from the situation. I just remember thinking like, this isn’t what I want. This isn’t what I asked for, but not actually being able to do anything about it.

Yeah, it’s funny.

So earlier you mentioned work and how it has manifested for you there. I have a lot of thoughts on that. Do you wanna talk about how it’s come up for you in work?

[00:19:16] Sarah: Yeah. I mean, going back to a previous chapter in my life when I wasn’t self-employed. When I was working as project manager and events manager and worked in a lot of big organizations, I would often, I didn’t realize that it was pleasing at the time.

It was fear, sort of married with people pleasing and when big, uncomfortable sort of sandwich that I was having, you know, it was that sitting in meetings, I would often think, oh, well, I don’t know. I don’t know as much as these folks. I haven’t been in the sector for long, for as, as long as they have, and I should just listen to them and then sort of agree and then help build their ideas up versus seeing.

You know, “yes, and-ing”. “Oh, that’s true… and…”. Cuz I did have other ideas, right? So it’s not to take over, not saying that I should have taken over. I still should have listened to their expertise and made my own contributions. And when I didn’t understand something, ask for more clarification without thinking that meant something about me.

So at the time, I think that I would’ve rationalized it to myself as I was being respectful. But I realized that there was pleasing, you know, I, in this kind of making myself smaller and really being like a champion from behind only. Only. That was like my exclusive role.

That I gave myself because I didn’t realize it was up to me to show up in other ways and ask for other opportunities to speak, share, contribute, learn. I didn’t realize that was really manifesting like this pleasing another manifestation of this pleasing tendency.

[00:21:15] Pam: Interesting.

[00:21:15] Sarah: Cause I thought that was my place.

[00:21:18] Pam: The supportive role.

[00:21:19] Sarah: Yes.

I thought it was my place to listen to their ideas and make their ideas great and kind of, yeah, just be a support person.

[00:21:31] Pam: For me, it has manifested in taking on projects that I maybe don’t want to take on or volunteering to do everything. So when I was also in an in-house role before I was working for myself, if there was a project, I would volunteer to do it. And part of that sounds great because I learned a lot of things and I got a lot of opportunities to try and do different things.

But looking back, I know that a lot of it was, “no one else is gonna do it”. And if I do it, it’ll make my boss happy. Even if I don’t actually wanna do it, I’m not interested in it. I don’t wanna learn whatever it is, or I know that it’s a terrible project. I’ll be the one that volunteers cuz no one else is gonna do it.

[00:22:16] Sarah: Yeah. And that’s still so prevalent for so many, particularly women. Again, we’re getting back to that, that women end up taking on those extra projects, driving the committees, driving the volunteer program programs and projects. Doing that sort of extra above and beyond work because we want to help.

AKA please, aka be liked.

And so what impact did that have on you when you were doing that? In that role?

[00:22:46] Pam: I definitely ended up feeling very taken advantage of. And I had a male counterpart in another department, but we were basically the same level and he just did his job and got paid three times what I did, and I did my job and everyone else’s job got paid a third of what he did, and by the end of my term there I was just you know …I cried in my car every day on the way home and I was so frustrated and I just really felt taken advantage of and overworked and undervalued.

And I didn’t see, well, it was a very toxic environment. But I didn’t at the time see how what I did helped create it. I think that it could have been slightly less toxic if I hadn’t been so willing to participate in the environment.

The other way that it has manifested now that I’m working for myself is I have a lot of friends who run businesses or I will, you know, go to a service provider who is like, “oh, you’re in marketing. Do you wanna trade? So you’ll do our marketing and I’ll do, you know, whatever for you”. And it’s really hard for me to say no. And most of the time I have said yes and it never ends up being a good situation because, if someone isn’t paying you for the work that you’re doing, the dynamic is not the same as it would be if they were actually your client.

Usually the trade situation doesn’t end up being as equitable as it, it would be if you were both paying for each other’s services and I end up devaluing the work that I’m doing because I want to help this person that I now know on more of a personal basis. And it always ends up being a relationship that I can’t do my best work for them and they don’t get their best results because of the relationship.

But I wanna help. So it’s really hard when they ask to say no. That is a lesson that I’ve learned over and over again. And I think that this week, literally this week, I just successfully learned the lesson and said, no.

[00:25:02] Sarah: Yeah. Bartering is tricky.

I’m trying to think of in my current. how it’s manifesting, pleasing. Less to do with the bartering, cuz I did do bartering at the beginning, but yeah, it’s ever present.

[00:25:20] Pam: Do you ever find that you have that tendency in a relationship with your clients? Or do you find that being in the coach role and kind of having that hierarchy helps you have better boundaries and be more in control of that tendency.

[00:25:39] Sarah: Oh yeah. With a client, it’s completely different Yeah. In the coach – client relationship because there’s such a structure around what a coaching engagement looks like. And it very deliberately looks very different than a friend relationship.

Yeah. So there’s a lot of structure in terms of how I engage with a person, how frequently, the kinds of conversations that we have. And even, you know, in a pure coaching relationship, it’s not consulting, so I’m not even giving advice. It’s really helping the other uncover their answers.

Within a coaching context, it’s a lot more clear. That said, there’s always that because I do a lot of coaching and I also do a lot of teaching. So within the container of a classroom, if I’m working with a group of adults for six weeks or 12 weeks, you’re getting to know each other.

So there, you know, you have, yes, I do have to maintain, okay, well this is the role, this is the relationship. And sort of manage those boundaries. Yeah, for sure.

[00:26:51] Pam: I’m wondering if you have had this same experience that I have become very aware of over the last couple years, which is that I will be a people pleaser with someone as long as I respect them or you know, have a positive feeling for them, but as soon as I don’t respect them anymore, or like if in the case of a teacher, which I had recently over the last couple of years when I first started going to his class, I was very much a people pleaser and I was constantly trying to get his approval.

And then over the course of a couple of years of taking his classes, I really lost respect for him and did not like how he taught his classes and just really had a negative experience. And I realized the switch flipped and I did not care what he thought and was it had no interest in pleasing him whatsoever because I didn’t respect him as a teacher anymore.

Have you had that experience?

[00:27:46] Sarah: I’m trying to think. What’s coming up for me is almost like the motivation of wanting to please someone else, you know? Yeah. Because sometimes, it can still be good to wanna make someone happy, right? So it’s what do we want in return?

So if we’re just like wanting to please, like if you just wanted to please the teacher cuz you thought they were wonderful and like you wanted to make their day better and you wanted nothing back in return. Because this kind of pleasing that we’re talking about is really like losing sight of your own needs for the sake of getting someone’s approval.

But if you’re just like literally pleasing out of the joy and love of your heart and you don’t, you know, you don’t want anything back, that’s like a different energetic thing. So it’s like if we’re going into this, you know, situation with, you know, a teacher or a mentor or anyone where we’re like, oh, I’m gonna do all extra nice stuff for them. It’s not even really nice. It’s just like, I’m gonna do stuff cuz I want them to like me. Then there’s that condition versus like, I just wanna do this because I feel called to do it because I’m, because it makes me happy to do this for them.

[00:28:56] Pam: Oh, it definitely was doing it to get approval and to be a straight A student and to be called out as the most brilliant student in the class. To get a gold star.

[00:29:08] Sarah: So maybe it was actually a gift when you sort of happened to lose respect for this teacher because then you were able to see what you were doing yourself.

[00:29:17] Pam: It was, yeah.

[00:29:18] Sarah: Right. And then you could use your goodwill for like a situation that you’re not doing it to win someone’s praises. You’re just doing it cuz it feels good to give. Cuz you’re in, you want to.

[00:29:31] Pam: So you brought up motivation. Have you read The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin?

[00:29:37] Sarah: No. I like know about the four tendencies, but I haven’t actually read it.

[00:29:41] Pam: Okay. So this was another one of those life-changing books for me.

It’s a really quick and easy read, and the quiz is free online. You can find out what your tendency is, but the idea behind the book is learning how you’re motivated, whether you are externally motivated, internally motivated, a combination of both, or whether nothing motivates you. And I was very highly correlated with being externally motivated.

Which I think is very strongly intertwined with people pleasing . And so I need external motivation. I need coaches, I need people to work out with. I need people to see the work that I’m doing and to give me, not even feedback, but just accountability. Yeah. I need accountability to really accomplish anything.

And so I had this story my entire life, which we’ve talked about before, that I was a quitter and that I couldn’t accomplish anything, which was obviously completely BS because I’ve accomplished a lot in my life. But I had that story, and once I realized that I needed external motivation, and that was not a fault that’s just how some people are. That was a huge switch flipping for me.

But that external motivation, like I said, is so intertwined with people pleasing that having to figure out when is it positive external motivation and when is it people pleasing? That has been a journey for me over the last couple of years, and I think that kind of the way to approach that is focusing on what is aligned with your goals and your values, and “am I doing this because it’s helping me get to this thing that I want or this thing that I value?

Or am I doing this to get this person’s approval or to make them happy.”

[00:31:48] Sarah: Right. So in the case of, for example, do you have a workout buddy?

[00:31:52] Pam: Yeah. CK .

[00:31:53] Sarah: Oh, CK, okay.

So in that case, I mean, is are you doing it to get Ck’s approval or is it just because it helps you achieve your goal?

[00:32:03] Pam: I would say like 80% that it helps achieve my goal and then 20% that I would feel like he would be disappointed if I wasn’t taking care of myself and being physically fit.

[00:32:16] Sarah: And then like, I don’t know I’m genuinely curious. Do you think that’s a problem? Like, , what about if that, in that instance, it’s not sort of losing sight of your own needs?

[00:32:32] Pam: Sure. I don’t think that it’s necessarily a problem in that sense in , in having that kind of blended or that positive external motivation to do something that I definitely would not do on my own

Yeah. But if it’s like, I don’t know. If I started training for a marathon to make someone else happy I probably wouldn’t be happy because running 26 miles really sounds awful and I don’t think that my knees would let me run 26 miles. But, you know, the kind of workouts that we do or the things that, that I am motivated by him to do are things that I also want to accomplish.

So that is the holy grail, right? Of getting external motivation and making him happy and making me happy at the same time.

[00:33:19] Sarah: Yeah, I love that. And

I think the resonant part for me around that is, it’s something that feels good. Why? Because it’s aligned with your personal goals and values, but you’re aware that you’re doing this in service, not because your primary goal isn’t to be accepted by CK in this instance.

You want to do this, these workouts because it feels good for you, right? And then he’s sort of helping facilitate that. So I think it’s not because you have this a personal agenda. Like, I have to do this so that he’ll like me. Yeah. Though it’s an extra motivation sort of to have him there.

[00:34:00] Pam: Yeah. So you mentioned awareness there briefly, and I think is, as with everything, I know I sound like a broken record, but every one of these things that we bring up, awareness is the first step to dealing with it, seeing how it shows up in your life, mitigating it if you need to, identifying if it’s a problem or not.

Like we were just talking about. , it’s awareness is the first step to changing anything and everything. Anything.

[00:34:29] Sarah: Anything you can’t skip that step.

[00:34:31] Pam: Yes. . So just thinking about it and thinking about how has people pleasing come up in my life? If it has, and I don’t think that anyone’s immune to it, but just, paying attention to when does it come up?

When am I doing things that maybe don’t feel authentic, don’t feel good, don’t feel like they’re achieving my goals? When am I doing things? Purely to make other people happy or to make them like me or to get approval or rescue them or help when they’re not asking for help or I don’t actually want to give it all of those manifestations that we talked about earlier.

Just really paying attention to when that comes up for you and if it’s a problem.

[00:35:15] Sarah: Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent. And so, how do we do that, right? How do we. Raise our awareness of our, of ourselves and our habits and behaviors. The first step is really spending time regularly to check in with what our values are and what we want, and what our vision is for our life in this moment and for the next chapter.

And then so having that big vision and then also the awareness of self every day. And I love what you were saying, like noticing like the subtle shift in energy. Like, oh, that felt really good when I was, you know, at that meeting with those people earlier today or when I was, you know, chit chatting on the walk going to the park with so-and-so and that felt really good. What was it about that? Who was I being in that moment? Or after that conversation, I just sort of felt off, right? Like there was like a subtle energy shift. What happened? So just noticing the times in the day when you feel empowered and whole and like yourself.

It’s not even necessarily like you’re being celebrated and honored. You just feel like, oh wow, that felt like a great moment. I felt really good. Versus feeling off right and then noticing like, well, was I being myself in the moment? What did that look and feel like? Because it can be a little bit nebulous, like know yourself and know when you’re pleasing others.

So I think, you know, really committing to… which is so important so important… Committing to a regular practice to keep in touch, to stay in touch with what you want and what your vision for your life is. And then to stay in touch with yourself and how you’re feeling in the different moments of your day to notice , what’s going on and how your energy is impacted by different environments, different situations, other people, how you’re responding to them. And then start noticing and then pulling out the themes because you’re right it’s not so obvious always when we’re pleasing, or when we’re doing anything. It’s not… our brain isn’t like, oh, I’m gonna go into people pleaser mode.

Right. It’s like, we don’t really know. We just might know after. Like, that kind of felt weird. Why?

[00:37:34] Pam: Yeah. And it, it is usually a pattern that you can look back and realize, oh, I always feel like this after I do X. And if that is a pattern that you can tease out, it may not always be the same situation.

It may not be always be a work thing or a friend thing or a romantic partner thing, but you can always go like, Ooh this always, like, I, I know this feeling and it always happens after I have this sort of interaction. And you can kind of start to build up the awareness of that pattern and then start to tease out like, what is it that I’m doing that’s creating that?

But it’s also going back to what you were saying about being in your day-to-day and really feeling your energetic shifts. It’s really about kind of coming out of autopilot. We live so much of our lives where we’re in a time crunch. It’s chaotic, there’s so much to do, and you’re just kind of rushing around and you’re doing one thing and running to the next and shooting off an email and quick conversation, and you really get in autopilot and aren’t slowing down, taking a breath and like, how am I feeling right now?

Is this the situation that I wanna be in. Do I wanna say yes to this? Do I wanna say no to this? And really getting back into your body and getting out of autopilot. Really being more mindful of how you’re feeling and how you’re communicating.

[00:38:53] Sarah: So much. Yes. And then so , that’s that mindfulness, the awareness of yourself and your energetic shifts throughout the day.

And then a few other specifics in terms of how to I guess mitigate the tendency of people pleasing. It’s really to start practicing unconditional self-acceptance, right? Because the tendency to please comes from the belief that we need someone else’s acceptance and approval of us, right?

We’re scared that we’re not gonna get that. Which is natural. We wanna be safe, we wanna belong, right? So to sort of meet that with a practice of really cultivating a belief that we’re worthy of our own acceptance, our own unconditional self-love. It doesn’t have to only come from the outside, it actually comes from within first.

So that, that can really help. And that’s also a long term, a long-term practice to begin cultivating today and work on every day.

[00:40:07] Pam: And you can ask yourself what advice you would give a friend in that situation to kind of separate who you are and what you are worth, how you feel about yourself from the situation. Because like you said, that is a lifelong practice to build up that worthiness and that feeling of self worth internally, and looking for external validation in that way. It helps to create a little bit of separation from yourself and the situation. So you can look at, you can kind of talk to yourself.

Actually, you can use your first name and speak to yourself and say, you know, Pam, do you want this? Pam, do you care what this person thinks?

And when you address yourself by your name, rather than saying I, it actually does create this weird mental separation between you and the situation so you can get a little bit of perspective on it and separate yourself from the emotional part of the situation.

[00:41:11] Sarah: I love that. I love that technique.

So what are the techniques we’ve talked about so far? We talked about sort of daily mindfulness and noticing our own patterns and our own sort of emotional responses to different settings and then finding habits. So that’s one thing we talked about. Beginning or continuing a self-practice of unconditional self-respect, unconditional self-acceptance, unconditional self-love as an antidote to trying to find it elsewhere.

We talked about the power of speaking to our ourselves as we would a best friend , using our name, sort of removing the eye, but look and that as a way of sort of seeing a situation more objectively, unloving.

What else? You go and then I’ve got one.

[00:41:59] Pam: Okay. . One thing that helps me is thinking about the long term.

So we talked earlier about how it’s easier in the moment to say yes or to do what the other person wants rather than what you want. But long term, it’s not easier. Long term you have to deal with the consequences of taking the easier route right now. So I will ask myself, do I still wanna be doing this in six months?

Do I still want to have this client in six months? Do I still wanna have this friend in six months? Do I still wanna be in this situation in six months? And if I know right now that in six months I do not wanna be in this situation, then I don’t wanna be in this situation now.

So it makes it easier to think about the long term and then be able to make that decision now rather than dealing with it in six months when it’s probably gonna be a much worse situation to deal with.

[00:42:52] Sarah: I love it.

Okay. So asking ourselves, will I wanna be doing this in six months? Or what will future me say about this situation? Yeah. I love it. Okay. I have one last one, which is developing a practice of asking for help and asking for what you want and desire. Yeah. So that’s a way of really developing that muscle.

Saying like, every day I’m going to make one to three requests.

[00:43:26] Pam: And you can start with little things.

[00:43:27] Sarah: They can be little, they can be little or big. Yeah.

Right. Little or big, everything. Right. But just to get into the practice of saying, I’d like this, please, let’s do this. This is my suggestion. I’d like to request X or calling a friend and asking for help for something.

So just really getting into that practice.

[00:43:49] Pam: That one really resonates for me because I have a tendency to, when someone offers something, I immediately say, no. No, I don’t need it. I don’t, that’s okay. And maybe I do want it, but my immediate reaction is, no, I don’t need it. I don’t need the help.

I don’t deserve or whatever, whatever the reason is for saying no. That’s my default response. And I feel like I’m talking about my dentist a lot in this episode, but I realized this the last time I had my teeth cleaned. At the end, they ask you if you want like a toothbrush and some travel toothpaste and floss.

And I always said no.

[00:44:23] Sarah: What? I love that travel toothpaste!

[00:44:25] Pam: I know. And I would always leave and be like, man, I really wish I said yes. And it’s so dumb. It is so dumb. But last time she was like, you know, do you want, and I was like, yes I do. Yes, I want that.

[00:44:36] Sarah: And then next time you can up the ante by being like, can I actually get the orange toothbrush over there?

[00:44:41] Pam: Oh, that’s so silly.

[00:44:42] Sarah: I had a previous teacher who once shared this visual of giving and receiving and it’s like the infinity symbol. The idea that giving and receiving is really like an infinite loop, right? So you wanna practice giving generously and then receiving generously to allow it to continue to flow.

Remember that. Yeah. As like a reminder that you’re allowed to receive.

[00:45:09] Pam: Not only are you allowed to. Giving and receiving is what makes society work. It’s what makes people collaborate. It’s what makes groups happy. It’s not one person giving everything. Yes, we’re supposed to.

[00:45:26] Sarah: Yeah.

[00:45:26] Pam: Well then, and that brings up the last things that I had on my list in all caps, which is boundaries and saying, no.

[00:45:34] Sarah: Stop it.

I want to show you the last thing I have in all caps.

[00:45:41] Pam: Too funny.

[00:45:43] Sarah: Setting boundaries.

But I don’t have any notes under it. So you go .

[00:45:49] Pam: Well, it’s the same principle as what you were just saying about practicing asking for what you want. You also have to practice setting boundaries and it has to be something daily. You can’t just like one day wake up and be like, I have all, I magically have all these boundaries.

You have to have baby steps and practice saying no, and practice setting your boundary and testing out what your boundaries are because you may set a boundary and then go, actually that doesn’t feel good either. So this is what my boundary is and really it let it be a practice in finding what feels good for you and finding what you’re comfortable with.

But you have to practice standing up for yourself. You have to practice saying no when you wanna say no. You have to practice setting those limits and just doing what feels good for you, even if it may not be. What you think other people want or is even maybe what you think is acceptable.

[00:46:45] Sarah: Yeah. And I love, you know, that you are emphasizing the word practice because all of these five or six or seven suggestions that we sort of are ending off with right now involve practice. It’s not like I’m bad at, I’m horrible at setting boundaries, or I’m horrible at noticing my, you know, emotions… My energetic shifts during the day, or I’m not good at giving myself unconditional self-acceptance. I’m always hard on myself. It’s like you have to practice it. Nobody’s born good at it, right? Our society… We live in a highly judgmental society where our worth is measured by our productivity and so many other standards that are complete baloney, but we’re part of this world, so we’ve absorbed that, right?

So it really is a practice to say, no, I’m intentionally gonna be in touch with myself, my own needs. I’m gonna advocate for my boundaries. I’m gonna practice asking for help. It’s all available to us, and it’s not gonna feel easy at first for those particular techniques that we have less practice with. It might feel super uncomfortable at first, and with time it gets easier and feels more comfortable and more natural.

[00:47:59] Pam: Yeah. I’m just remembering one of the most ridiculous manifestations of people pleasing for me. CK and I went to a few sessions of couples therapy years ago before we dealt with his anxiety, and I literally went into this therapy thinking, I wanna win therapy. I wanna be the best patient she has ever had. I want her to tell me there’s nothing wrong with me and give me, you know, an A+. So I was going to get help , but then actively working against getting the help because I wanted her to like me and just tell me that I was so great.

[00:48:46] Sarah: Yeah. There’s some of your hyper achiever in there too.

[00:48:51] Pam: Yeah, there definitely is. So you can have awareness, you can get help, you can do all of the things and then still have this come up and have it actively working against you as you are trying to deal with your stuff. So you have to forgive yourself. You have to… I laugh at it because I’m like, my god, brains are ridiculous. They are ridiculous. They’re just, I mean, at every turn it’s something else where you’re like, , really brain?

So it’s a lifelong practice to work on whatever it is that you are feeling is causing issues in your life. And I think the most important thing is hearing stories like this, hearing that everyone deals with things like this and being reminded regularly that this is just the human condition.

This is just how people are, some people to greater extremes than others. Other people have different issues than you. That doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you or that you are defective or less than in any way. Everyone’s got their own stuff to deal with, and some days it’s gonna be easier, some days it’s gonna be harder, and you could even think that you’ve like fixed something and then five years down the road it shows up again and you’re like, oh my god, I thought I dealt with this.

But we’re constantly being tested or introduced to situations that bring up those old patterns and it’s just something that you have to have that constant awareness of and be okay with it coming back up and knowing that you now have tools and strategies that you can use to mitigate it.

[00:50:45] Sarah: Yes. So much. Yes. It’s, as you said, it’s not a deficiency after all. It comes from our wonderful, great strength able to connect with others. Yeah and listen, practice. Practice makes progress. That’s it. Practice makes progress and I think the best motivation is trying something out and seeing results, even small results, you know, noticing.

With some of my clients they’ll create a spreadsheet, for example, trying to have more boundaries, advocating for more boundaries, especially if they’re in a workplace where many requests are being made for, to join extra committees and sit in on extra projects and take leadership roles.

You know, tracking well, this request was made of me and I said, no, and this is how I felt. You know, it felt like really shitty. I felt scared, or I felt empowered, whatever the feeling is, right? And then what’s the impact? Oh, ultimately I saved five hours. I saved 10 hours, I saved 30 hours of my life, freed up time to do X, Y, and Z.

So really tracking, then you can really see the results. That’s a huge motivation. And a huge way to kind of, , I guess crystallize. What does, you know, what does practice mean? There are different ways of, you know, saying, well, this is one thing I really wanna work on and see how this might shift, make some shifts in my life and make my life feel better, right?

Make my life feel better. Pick one or two and then find a way to sort of commit to tracking it. And then just notice the small and big shifts that it has in your life.

[00:52:17] Pam: Yeah. Because ultimately that is the goal, is to make your life feel a little bit better.

[00:52:22] Sarah: A little bit easier.

[00:52:23] Pam: A little bit easier.