Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #241| How Letting Go of People Pleasing Transforms Your Time, Energy, and Relationships
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: If you stop caring what everyone thinks, you'll become selfish, difficult, or less likable.
- 0:10Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
- 0:17Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
- 0:22Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's Working Woman experiences.
- 0:27Michelle Gauthier: And in each episode, you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease, and relaxation to your life.
- 0:37Michelle Gauthier: Hi, friend! We're here today to talk about what life looks like on the other side of people pleasing.
- 0:44Michelle Gauthier: I'm personally an expert on this because I've been on both sides of being a major people pleaser and being a major not people pleaser.
- 0:51Michelle Gauthier: And so have many of my clients.
- 0:53Michelle Gauthier: I think a lot of women believe that if they stop caring what everyone else thinks, that they'll become selfish or difficult or less likable.
- 1:01Michelle Gauthier: And nobody wants that, right?
- 1:03Michelle Gauthier: Because let's be honest, we all want to be liked.
- 1:05Michelle Gauthier: But what happens when you stop people pleasing is actually the opposite.
- 1:10Michelle Gauthier: When you stop people pleasing, your life doesn't fall apart.
- 1:13Michelle Gauthier: It gets simpler and quieter and easier and more honest.
- 1:18Michelle Gauthier: When you listen today, you'll learn the top three reasons why life gets easier, not harder, when you stop people pleasing.
- 1:25Michelle Gauthier: You'll learn how it impacts your thinking and the mental overwhelm that you can feel, your time and your energy, and your relationships.
- 1:33Michelle Gauthier: It improves all three of those things.
- 1:36Michelle Gauthier: Today's episode is sponsored by Friend of the Podcast Inspire Wellness.
- 1:42Michelle Gauthier: There are so many supplement companies out there, and I love using one that I trust.
- 1:47Michelle Gauthier: I know the owner personally.
- 1:49Michelle Gauthier: I completely trust the products that she has created, and it is so easy for me to reduce the overwhelm of what to choose, what to take, and how to take it.
- 2:00Michelle Gauthier: I simply subscribe to the bestseller pack, which is collagen and creatine.
- 2:05Michelle Gauthier: Two things that have made a big difference in my life.
- 2:07Michelle Gauthier: I have increased energy, less brain fog, I've built more muscle, and it's so easy for me to just have these on repeat.
- 2:15Michelle Gauthier: They just show up at my front door.
- 2:16Michelle Gauthier: I keep them right next to my coffee and I put them in my coffee every morning.
- 2:20Michelle Gauthier: So I get these easy results from a very easy process from a trusted company.
- 2:26Michelle Gauthier: If this sounds good to you, if you've been debating on taking these or you have a hard time keeping up with getting the ones that you need when, give the bestseller package a try.
- 2:35Michelle Gauthier: Christy the Owner has given us 15% off if we subscribe to the bestseller package.
- 2:43Michelle Gauthier: So go to inspire wellness stl.com slash ow for overwhelmed working woman to learn more about the supplements and to get your 15% off.
- 2:54Michelle Gauthier: Okay, let's jump into life after people pleasing.
- 3:00Michelle Gauthier: I love a good before and after.
- 3:01Michelle Gauthier: Half my Instagram feed is before and afters of houses and redecorating, etc.
- 3:06Michelle Gauthier: And one of the best before and afters that I've ever had in my life is before and after people pleasing.
- 3:13Michelle Gauthier: So one of the things that gets a lot better when you stop people pleasing is the chatter in your mind.
- 3:19Michelle Gauthier: It gets so much quieter.
- 3:22Michelle Gauthier: You just spend less time replaying conversations, wondering if someone is upset with you, less time trying to read between the lines and make sure everyone's okay.
- 3:31Michelle Gauthier: You stop constantly asking yourself, are they okay with me?
- 3:34Michelle Gauthier: Are they upset with me?
- 3:36Michelle Gauthier: And this shift alone creates so much peace.
- 3:38Michelle Gauthier: Just imagine how much time you spend thinking about what other people are thinking about you.
- 3:43Michelle Gauthier: Let's just say over a day that adds up to, I don't know, an hour, several hours, and you just subtract that from your daily life.
- 3:52Michelle Gauthier: Imagine how much peace of mind you would have compared to worrying about that all the time.
- 3:56Michelle Gauthier: The other day I was on a call and I was brainstorming with someone and we were sharing ideas, and I shared an idea that I thought was a good one, and she just said, hmm.
- 4:04Michelle Gauthier: And if you're a people pleaser, you know what that hmm can bring.
- 4:09Michelle Gauthier: Back in the day, my brain would have gone straight to, oh no, did I say something wrong?
- 4:13Michelle Gauthier: Is she mad at me?
- 4:14Michelle Gauthier: Should I follow up and explain it better?
- 4:16Michelle Gauthier: Did I upset her for not agreeing with what she wanted to do and proposing my idea instead and just replay that over and over?
- 4:24Michelle Gauthier: But instead, I just checked in with myself and I thought, I said what I wanted to say.
- 4:28Michelle Gauthier: I think it was a good idea.
- 4:30Michelle Gauthier: And if she doesn't like it, I trust her to tell me that she doesn't like it and doesn't want to do it.
- 4:35Michelle Gauthier: And then I moved on.
- 4:36Michelle Gauthier: I literally gave it no further thoughts for the rest of the day.
- 4:39Michelle Gauthier: So I didn't spend an hour thinking about it.
- 4:41Michelle Gauthier: I didn't burn any energy trying to manage her reaction.
- 4:44Michelle Gauthier: I just got that time back for myself.
- 4:47Michelle Gauthier: And a lot of times people will say, Well, I'm afraid that I'm gonna become unkind or a bad person if I stop caring about what other people are thinking about me.
- 4:57Michelle Gauthier: But it doesn't mean I don't care.
- 4:58Michelle Gauthier: It just means I'm not taking responsibility for something that isn't mine.
- 5:02Michelle Gauthier: Because what isn't mine is how she feels and how she responds.
- 5:06Michelle Gauthier: If she were to respond and say, I think that's a terrible idea, I definitely don't think we should do it, I would say, okay, cool, let's talk about it.
- 5:13Michelle Gauthier: But I'm not just gonna run through all the potential situations in my mind and try to manage it because that's not for me to do.
- 5:19Michelle Gauthier: She gets to have her thoughts and I get to have mine, and I'm not required to sit there and manage both of them.
- 5:25Michelle Gauthier: So instead of spiraling or really spending even a minute on it, I went on with my day and I was clear and focused and my brain was quiet.
- 5:33Michelle Gauthier: So imagine in the course of your regular workday and your day at home, if you were able to have your interactions be very present, be your kind self, tell the truth about what you're thinking, and then just not think about it again.
- 5:47Michelle Gauthier: Imagine how much time would be created in your life.
- 5:50Michelle Gauthier: The other win, huge win that you get when you stop people pleasing, is you get so much more time.
- 5:56Michelle Gauthier: And when you have more time, you usually have more energy.
- 6:00Michelle Gauthier: Because people pleasing isn't just an emotional problem, it's also a time management problem.
- 6:04Michelle Gauthier: Because when you say yes out of guilt or fear or obligation, you are filling up your calendar with what other people want you to do instead of what you want to do.
- 6:16Michelle Gauthier: And all of a sudden your calendar will be jam-packed with nothing that you actually wanted to do.
- 6:21Michelle Gauthier: So imagine the opposite of that.
- 6:23Michelle Gauthier: Imagine that over time, this is the way that I describe it to my clients when I'm working with them one-on-one and they're gonna make their first attempt at not people pleasing and saying no and going through the discomfort of that.
- 6:35Michelle Gauthier: But I tell them, this is the first one.
- 6:38Michelle Gauthier: And when you do the first one, let's say you create an extra hour of time for yourself by saying no to something, or depending on what it is, if it's like, hey, do you want to be the team mom for baseball?
- 6:49Michelle Gauthier: And that's gonna be like 50 hours in a season, whatever it is, you've just saved yourself that amount of time and energy.
- 6:56Michelle Gauthier: And then you keep going.
- 6:58Michelle Gauthier: Then you do that for a second thing and a third thing and a fourth thing.
- 7:02Michelle Gauthier: And over time, your calendar starts looking like something that you have created and that you really want.
- 7:09Michelle Gauthier: A tip that I give my clients too is when you first say no to something, to still put that thing on your calendar so that when you get to the day, you're like, oh my gosh, if I hadn't said no right now, I would be keeping the score at a baseball game instead of just sitting here chatting with my friends or instead of being somewhere besides the baseball game.
- 7:31Michelle Gauthier: When you do this, when you stop saying yes out of guilt and fear and obligation, you're automatically creating more time for yourself.
- 7:39Michelle Gauthier: And just the other day, I was working with a client and she was trying to decide if she should take on something that she really didn't want to do.
- 7:46Michelle Gauthier: And she was saying, it's not that big of a deal.
- 7:48Michelle Gauthier: I should probably just do it.
- 7:49Michelle Gauthier: It would be nice of me to help.
- 7:51Michelle Gauthier: I don't know if any of the other parents can do it as well as I can.
- 7:55Michelle Gauthier: And I could feel that she wanted to say yes, but that also she knew the future version of herself would be very annoyed if she said yes.
- 8:05Michelle Gauthier: So we talked all through it, and she realized that she actually did not want to do this, and that that is enough of a reason to say no.
- 8:12Michelle Gauthier: So I coached her on how to say no, and she did it.
- 8:16Michelle Gauthier: And when she came back on her next session, she was like, I did it, and it went so great, and they didn't even seem like they were mad at me.
- 8:23Michelle Gauthier: I said no, it was uncomfortable just like you told me it would be, but I did it.
- 8:28Michelle Gauthier: We've all been in that situation where we say yes to something when we actually want to say no, but when you start doing it even once, twice, three times, you start creating this beautiful schedule for yourself where you have plenty of time or you're spending time on the things that you want to spend time on.
- 8:47Michelle Gauthier: And then the third part where your life feels amazingly better when you stop people pleasing is your relationships.
- 8:53Michelle Gauthier: Your relationships actually get better and more honest.
- 8:57Michelle Gauthier: And I think it's funny because as women, we feel like people pleasing keeps relationships strong because we're not creating any strife or any conflict.
- 9:06Michelle Gauthier: We're just always saying yes and trying to make the other person happy.
- 9:10Michelle Gauthier: But really, what it does is it keeps relationships surface level or confusing or full of resentment.
- 9:17Michelle Gauthier: Because if you're doing something to keep someone else happy and you don't want to do it, that naturally is just gonna create resentment.
- 9:24Michelle Gauthier: But when you stop trying to manage everyone else's opinion of you and you get more honest, you say what you mean, you set clear expectations, you stop over-explaining, then people know where they stand with you.
- 9:36Michelle Gauthier: And the right relationships can handle that.
- 9:38Michelle Gauthier: What I see, I think I can seriously say 100% of the time, is they get better because of it.
- 9:44Michelle Gauthier: If you even just think in your life, do you have a friend or someone who always just tells you yes if they want to say yes, and no if they want to say no, and they're just really straightforward with you?
- 9:54Michelle Gauthier: I feel like everybody has that friend.
- 9:56Michelle Gauthier: And if you have that friend, think about how you feel about her.
- 9:59Michelle Gauthier: I think about my version of that friend.
- 10:01Michelle Gauthier: I'm like, oh, it's so great.
- 10:03Michelle Gauthier: I can totally trust her.
- 10:04Michelle Gauthier: I know she's telling me yes when she wants to say yes, no, when she wants to say no.
- 10:08Michelle Gauthier: She's not worrying about what I'm thinking about that, and it is just such a relief.
- 10:13Michelle Gauthier: Just recently, a friend asked me to do something and I said yes.
- 10:16Michelle Gauthier: And she said, Are you sure?
- 10:17Michelle Gauthier: Are you sure you have time for that?
- 10:19Michelle Gauthier: I said, Hey, you know, if I wanted to say no, I would say no.
- 10:22Michelle Gauthier: And if I say yes, it's because I really mean it.
- 10:23Michelle Gauthier: She's like, Oh my gosh, yes, I forgot.
- 10:25Michelle Gauthier: Oh, that's so great.
- 10:26Michelle Gauthier: It just makes your relationship so much better.
- 10:29Michelle Gauthier: When you learn to stop people pleasing, it has the most bang for the buck.
- 10:34Michelle Gauthier: It affects your whole life.
- 10:36Michelle Gauthier: So you will have more time, you will have clarity of mind, you will have better, more honest relationships with the people who you really care about.
- 10:45Michelle Gauthier: What could be better than that?
- 10:47Michelle Gauthier: It cleans up your whole entire life.
- 10:50Michelle Gauthier: People pleasing is one of the biggest things that I help my clients with.
- 10:54Michelle Gauthier: And if you feel like this is an area where you struggle and you know you want to stop, but you don't know how, I would love to help you.
- 11:00Michelle Gauthier: Reach out to me, set up a consultation for one-on-one coaching, and let's talk about how we can change this and make your life so much better.
- 11:11Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 11:19Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthier.com.
- 11:25Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.