People pleasers are one of the nicest people that you will meet in your life. They are always there when you need them and they will rarely say no if you ask them for something. They will sacrifice their well being in order to help you feel better. They have so strong empathy, they believe that they are actually feel the pain and burden of the other people.

They are the ones which you can call in the middle of the night and ask for any kind of help. And they will come. If they know that you are struggling, they will just show up and try to help you on their own, without even asking for their help. People pleasers are the best employees you can ever dream to have (until you have them). What ever you will ask them, they will do it. They will not be able to say “no”. If they need to work extra hours even when they have other important private obligations, they will sacrifice their personal life, just to help their manager or co-worker. Bottom line, they are always there when you need them.

Helping others is very honourable thing to do. However, in majority of the cases, people pleasers didn’t become who they are just because of the empathy they feel, this need to please others usually comes from different cause. Usually it comes from lack of self-respect and they are constantly looking for confirmation and praise. The cause of low self-esteem and constant search of confirmation then again lies in different place, usually coming from some kind of trauma they have experienced in the past or they were even experiencing it for a longer period of time.

If you are not sure if you are in category of people pleaser or if you suspect that someone you deeply care about is a people pleaser, here are some main patterns which are pretty obvious usually to notice:

• They can’t say no
• They will agree with others very easily (actually they are pretending to agree)
• They try to avoid any kind of conflict by all means
• They will hardly express that their feelings are hurt
• They apologise very often
• They will go extra mile, just to make you happy
• They are taking care of everything – home, work, kids, dinner, pets, family, friends, they always organise everything, etc.
• They are rapidly switching the attitude from people pleaser to a bitter lonely person.

If you are still not sure, there is even a very accurate people pleaser quiz which you can take.

The main issue for people pleasers lies in constant fear of rejection and failure. They strongly believe that if they will not do all those things, they will be rejected by the others. Sadly rejection is not the only issue, they feel they will be failures, because they weren’t able to get done all those 78 errands in the day plus all the care for others. In order to do all those errands, including all the things they feel they need to do for others, they have to sacrifice something. And that something is them. Their time, their strength, their money, their most valuable things.

This kind of pattern of constant search for validation will slowly, but surely bring a people pleaser to a situation where he’ll be completely drained out. It’s just like waking up one day and finding yourself in position where you don’t have any more strengths to fight. You simply give up and face the failure. In your head you are a complete failure not capable of anything. You are so drained out, that facing the failure is the last thing you can do. You are not able to get up anymore and to fight another battle. You just can’t. There is no more strength in you, feeling of failure took the last bit of power in you.

The failure in that time will have much greater impact than it would have if the people pleaser would just face with it from the beginning and understand that you can never please everyone. That even if you do something for someone, you shouldn’t expect anything in return, not even gratitude. Your expectations are your problems, not problem of others and you need to set your expectations right. You need to understand well the cause of your need for praise, work on it very hardly and most importantly, you must experience the failure and rejection. The sooner you experience the failure and rejection, the better. Failure doesn’t mean that you are stupid and not worth anything, it just means that you need to try harder or use another way. Failure is also one of the crucial aspects for success and without experiencing failure and rejection, you will most certainly not have a chance to grow. I would say to be grateful to have a chance for experiencing the failure, as the failure is that important aspect that will help you to develop yourself and to grow in unimaginable way.

So, putting your self in some safe bubble, where you will pretend to be someone else, where you will always say yes, where you will always do everything and more for others, will not protect you from anything. Actually, quite the contrary, it will destroy you. Not only that you will never get to do what you want to do in your life, you will also at the end be completely destroyed and you will never really take the chance to grow.

Remember, the only person you need to please in your life, is YOU. And if you are not yet putting yourself as a first priority in your life, you can start right now, no excuses and no fear. Fear in just in your head and you can control it. So go on, reach for that stars and if you don’t succeed, simply learn from the failure and try again and again and again.

Stay safe, be positive and work on yourself first!