People pleasers just want to be loved. So it’s shocking to learn the truth: that people pleasers are actually big fat LIARS!
If you’re a people pleaser, don’t be ashamed! I’ve been there too. But part of the healing process is waking up to our TRUTH (aka actually being real and telling people what we think or need).
If you need extra inspiration to kick your people-pleasing habit, this week’s episode is for you!
In This Episode:
Learn why people-pleasing is so common & what we’re really avoiding
Find out the two ways people-pleasers are liars
Get inspired to stop self-abandoning & start prioritizing YOU
Much more!
Listen Here:
Why People-Pleasers Are Liars | Episode #42 Transcript
I know how it is, babe, you want people to like you and approve of you all the time.
And unfortunately, that is just not how life works.
One popular method that we turn to in order to get people to like us and to approve of us
is through people pleasing. This is an extremely common way we do with the potential discomfort
of somebody not liking us or not approving of us. But today I want to talk about one of the
downsides of people pleasing. So if you are a chronic people pleaser and if you tend to put other
people’s needs ahead of your own to your own detriment, then this is the episode for you.
Recently I read something about people pleasers, which is the uncomfortable truth. And that is
really what today’s episode is all about. And that line is that people pleasers are liars.
So let’s get into that for a moment. I already said at this top, people pleasing is so common.
This is one of the ways that we turn to time and time again in order to deal with our own mind
drama. We think that we are trying to get somebody to like us. So we’re going above and beyond
to ensure that they’ll do that. But what we’re really doing is looking for a way to avoid
a potential discomfort in our own mind. At the end of the day, you can try as hard as you want to.
You can push. You can be as nice and accommodating. You can go and do so many favors for somebody.
And they still might not like you or approve of you. And I know that that is a scary thing to
think about because when you are a people pleaser, you are convinced that if you just do enough,
say enough, compliment enough, are there enough that that person is going to like you back.
So one of the problems here is that people pleasers attend to overdo it more they can overdo it,
I should say. People pleasers can sometimes put themselves out there to such a degree that it makes
the other person uncomfortable. So I find that this happens a lot in the beginnings of relationships
like as a person now who is very aware of my own people pleasing tendencies in the past. I can
spot this now when I see somebody else doing it. Like maybe you meet somebody and you’re vibing
and you’re thinking, Oh, I really want to be friends with this person. So you go above and beyond.
You do something, you invite them to something, you do a favor for them, you bring them breakfast or
I don’t know, you do something that is a bit above and beyond the normal scope of a friendship at your
level. And in your mind, you have nothing but the good intentions, right? You’re thinking, if I do
this for this person, of course, they’re going to love me. But what’s really happening here, it is
that it’s a form of manipulation. And many times the other person can feel it. It’s like if you are
doing this thing for that person, you are pulling them further into your world. And you think that
by doing this, treating them this way, that you are guaranteeing a spot at their table, that you are
working your way into their world. And in this light, you can look at it as a way that we force
intimacy or force friendship, right? Like you’re doing this thing, but you do really have an ulterior
motive, even though that ulterior motive doesn’t seem that nefarious, right? It doesn’t seem like an evil
thing that you’re doing. You’re certainly not trying to harm this person. And on the surface,
everything looks very nice and peachy, right? But sometimes you might find that the other person is
withdrawing and pulling back and not receiving the gift very well. And that is because even if they
don’t know it, even if they can’t consciously tell what’s going on, their subconscious mind
knows something is up. They are feeling the strings of manipulation, as subtle as they might be.
They are feeling that they are being coerced and pushed into something. And ultimately,
if they’re the kind of person who guards themselves and takes time, getting to know people, which
is the way that we all should be doing it, right? We should warm up to people gently over time,
and give people our trust over time. Like that is the way a normal, healthy relationship is built.
So if you’re trying to rush the timeline by people pleasing, by going above and beyond,
you might get the exact opposite effect that you were looking for. So what does this have to do with
lying? So like I said at the top, people pleasing is lying. People, pleasers are liars. And so in this
situation, you are doing a couple of things. First off, you are lying to yourself when you are people
pleasing and you’re thinking, Oh, I just want to do this thing for this person. I just want to do this
incredible favor for this person that I just met. And I’m just doing it out of the goodness of my
heart. You are lying to yourself a little bit. And again, it’s not because you’re doing something evil
or a little intentioned. It’s not like you’re really trying to do something terrible to somebody. It’s
not like that at all. But you are lying to yourself above what your own motivations are. You are
telling yourself, this is normal. You’re telling yourself, this is cool. You are telling yourself
all kinds of different things that make it seem like the action you are taking is worth it. And I
know I’m using a very extreme example here right now, but this really applies to all cases of people
pleasing. We tell ourselves that we are going to do this thing out of the goodness of our heart.
And just because we like this person, just because we love this person. But the real motivation is
not the like or the love. The real motivation is us trying to avoid our own negative thoughts or
the own possibility that we might be faced with somebody who doesn’t like us or doesn’t love us or
doesn’t approve of us all the time. That is the thing that you’re really avoiding. And so this is a
two-part series here. So you are lying to yourself about what your motivations are. But you are also
creating this fake front. You are creating this fake front that you are presenting to this other
person. So you are now showing up to this person pretending that this is the kind of person you are.
Like I am just this person who is doing this out of the goodness of my heart. And really there’s no
ulterior motives. There’s no motivation behind it. So again, that person might already be sensing that
something’s off and they might be withdrawing because this energy is weird. When you see the manipulation
for what it is, it is very weird. It is very strange. It is very strange that society has taught so many
women in particular that this is what we need to do. However, people policing goes hand in hand with
the patriarchy. We’re gonna stay out of that pot for today. But this is very much the way that you
were taught to behave. So don’t blame this on yourself. Don’t use this as further ammunition to tell
yourself that you’re a terrible person. That is not what the point of this episode is. So I just want
you to think about that. So when you are showing up as this people-pleasing person and you’re doing these
things even at your own expense. Like you’re volunteering for something that nobody asks you to do
and you don’t really have time for and you don’t really want to do. But you’re feeling like if you don’t
do it, this person might be disappointed in you, right? Like it’s just these kinds of situations we
get ourselves into. And then we create resentment and bitterness. Sometimes we feel like we’re that
person who does so many things for everybody else. And why doesn’t anyone else do something for us?
And half the time when you hear that kind of complaint from somebody, they are doing it to themselves.
They are chronic people-pleasers that are stuck in the cycle that feels so forced to do these things.
And they don’t really realize their own power in the situation. So that was a little bit off topic.
But let’s get back into it. So when you are showing up and doing these things for other people,
you are presenting this as your true self to them even though that isn’t the real you. And that is
the second way that a people person is a liar. We are lying to ourselves and we are also lying to
those people. And this can be very damaging. So if you have been a people-pleaser in a relationship
for a very long time and you have gotten to that stage of bitterness and resentment,
you feel so put upon when you feel like you were always the one doing the things, doing things,
and you never get anything in return. Like again, there are usually two parts to the story.
Usually it’s a little bit of you volunteering and putting yourself out there and not speaking
up for yourself and not setting boundaries. But the other part of that is that the other person,
you think they are going to figure it out and you are really bitter at them or not figuring it out.
But in fact, you have shown up as a completely different person, then is the real you.
So of course they don’t know that you are feeling stressed out or that your energy is low or that you
just really don’t want to do this this week. Of course they don’t know that because you’re not telling
it to them. We think that maybe if we do this, they will see how much effort we put in. They will see
how hard we tried to make this happen for them and that we will get credit for that as well,
right? We will do the thing and we will get extra credit because it really wasn’t comfortable.
It really wasn’t what we wanted to do. And unfortunately that’s not the way life works.
We barely get credit for the things that we do, right? Like there’s many things that you have done for somebody and you’ve never gotten credit for. Never mind getting extra credit because it was so difficult for you that week or because you do it for them all the time, right? We don’t get that extra credit like that that’s not how life works. So when you’re showing up and pretending everything’s fine, pretending you’re happy, pretending that this is such a great thing for you to be doing, you are really lying. You are lying to this other person and if that other person started to take people at face value, which is what I suggest that you do, what I suggest we all do, this is a very big learning lesson for me. I am no longer going to put myself in somebody else’s head and try to find out the real intention. If you have ever had a friend that plays these kind of mind games, like I’m
going to tell you one thing, but I actually want you to do something else and I’m really expecting you to jump in and figure out what the right thing to do is because then I’ll know that you really love me. If I get into any of that kind of mind drama with somebody, like I’m out, like I do not have time to play these games anymore. So that’s a little bit of a different story. But the people pleasing is a similar path, right? Like you were doing this thing, you’re pretending it’s okay, you’re volunteering, you’re showing up, you’re going above and beyond and you are presenting this image of this person to your friend, to your partner, to whomever that isn’t actually real.
So this is very harmful in a few different ways. One, if you started to put down that boundary, of course the other person is going to be surprised or they might even feel like you have changed so much they can no longer be friends with you. It depends on the scope of the people pleasing in a length of the relationship and what exactly the dynamics were, right? And maybe sometimes that is a relationship that time has come to a close.
If you can only exist in that relationship under the principle of people pleasing, maybe it is not the right relationship for you. So that is very much a possibility. However, if you have just shown up as this kind of person and you’ve never set a boundary, you’ve never said no, you never spoke it up about what your true desires and intentions and needs are, then the other person, yeah, they might not have room for that at all or they might be surprised to even hear it or they might be feeling like, “Hey, oh my gosh, you changed,” which is not really true, but it is true that you did change one thing.
You stopped lying about who you really are. In turn, when we show up for these relationships
pretending to be somebody or not, when we are literally sacrificing our own comfort for the comfort of somebody else over and over and over again, the other downside to this dynamic is that we are preventing ourselves from receiving true love, our lies about who we are and what we accept and what we tolerate create a mask. And that mask prevents us from being seen for who we really are. It prevents us from telling people what our needs are, our desires are and it prevents the other people in our life who might love us so much, but it prevents them, it actively blocks them from being able to meet our needs and desires. This is all because of the lying, the lying you’re doing to yourself and the lying you’re doing to other people. So I see so many people talking about people pleasing and people pleasing is just so stressful. It is so hard to live with your attention constantly outside of yourself. It is so hard to be put on this treadmill because you feel like no matter how fast you run, you just never are fast enough. You can never get ahead of everything. That is what it
feels like to be a people pleaser. So it is overwhelming, exhausting, it creates a lot of stress in our body and over time that can of course lead to other health issues, right? So people pleasing is a very big topic.
There’s a lot of nuance to it and I just really want to underlie the fact that it is not good for you. If you are engaged in people pleasing in a toxic way, like I don’t know, sometimes maybe there’s people
pleasing that maybe is not so toxic, but most of the time is toxic, right? When we abandon ourselves in
order to make other people comfortable, that’s toxic. Lying, misrepresenting ourselves,
misrepresenting what we need and what we want and misrepresenting who we are. These are lies
that we are telling that are getting in the way of our happiness. At the end of the day,
humans crave connection. We want to be seen and we want to be heard and supported and loved for who
we really are. And the lie of people pleasing is part of a mask that keeps all of that away from you.
So today I just wanted to talk about the lying part of people pleasing because I think it is so
important to understand our own motivations. And because I’ve been there, I’ve been that person
in intimate, supposed relationships who felt completely under-nurtured. I was not getting my needs met.
I was not feeling seen or supported and heard and part of that was not only the toxic dynamic that
I was in, but there was a lot to it that was really me not being brave enough to beam myself,
not being brave enough to say what I needed and what I wanted and to not fall into the trap of
people pleasing. So if you can relate to any of this today, I hope that this has illuminated something
within you. I hope that this has inspired you to look a little bit deeper into your own people
pleasing patterns. People pleasing usually goes hand in hand with perfectionism, low self-worth,
allowed inner critic voice. Many of these things work in tandem together and many of them are
issues that women face as a group, right? This is part of the socialization process. We have all
learned to cope with that in very similar ways. And if you need a little bit of healing on this path,
I have a perfectionism workshop inside of my Heald program. I’m going to leave a link for that in
a show notes. If you need a little extra help, that is the perfect place to get started with
workshops and perfectionism people pleasing and so much more. So I’d love to see you in there
and I’m wishing you the beautiful week.
