Latest / SECOND CLOCK™ / SEASON 7 | PEOPLE PLEASING - TAKE 2

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SEASON 7 | PEOPLE PLEASING - TAKE 2 · SECOND CLOCK™

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What's your true nature? Your essence?
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What makes you tick? This journey to find out is what
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I refer to as your second clock. It's a chance to discover,
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experience, challenge, and reconnect with what you value
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most. Through clarity, love,
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acceptance and reflection, you'll find your answers.
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And what happens when you do? Well, You'll find you.
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Join me. Click follow, like and
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subscribe, and let's see where this leads.
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A few seasons back, I touched upon what it was to be a people
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pleaser and how I was trying to get away from it, so I thought
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I'd start by defining it. According to Google, a people
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pleaser is someone who consistently prioritizes the
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needs, emotions, and opinions of others over their own to gain
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approval, avoid conflict or fear of rejection.
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They often struggle to set boundaries, find it difficult to
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say no, and may neglect their own well-being, leading to
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resentment and burnout. Yes, I would say that Google is
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accurate. For so long, I think many of us
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people pleasers traveled through life thinking that this was a
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great thing, maybe even a superpower.
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I used to think that being a perfectionist was a good thing
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until I learned that it isn't. As I venture more and more away
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from what used to be considered me and my ways and now discover
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what I'm actually like when I'm no longer conditioned by my
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upbringing or by society standards or expectations, I'm
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finding that people pleasing was exhausting and it was like I was
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swimming upstream. Constant friction that I
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unknowingly created for myself. It impacted all the decisions I
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made. I ran it through my people
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pleaser filter. How is this going to affect
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others? How will this be perceived?
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And never once considering how is this going to affect me?
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Why did I care about other people's perceptions or go out
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of my way to make things easy for others while making things
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harder for me? That's the trouble with people
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pleasers. We aren't Born This Way.
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Instead, we're reared this way by constant conditioning of what
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will make other people's lives easier, and that usually starts
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at home or in school or in social dynamics.
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If you can be easy and accommodating, overly helpful
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and responsive, give more than you get, well, maybe you get a
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seat at the table, or maybe you get an invitation to whatever it
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is that you want to get invited to.
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Or maybe you get approval or just a smile.
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Regardless, you sideline yourself and your needs.
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That's what you have to do. You can't be pleasing others
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while taking care of yourself. So what happens when you shed
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your people pleaser ways? Well, for me it's been equally
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complicated and interesting. Complicated because it's so
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different than what I was used to.
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My conditioned way or the way I perceived was my natural way was
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to say yes before I even thought about what I was saying yes to.
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Because being accommodating is crucial to being a people
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pleaser. It's part of the main
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ingredients. And after I would say yes, and
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then I would consider what that meant for me, what kind of
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concessions I would have to make or how lopsided the request was.
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Well, I just figured out what I was going to have to do to make
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it work. So the reason why it's confusing
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now and interesting is because I see the word work as the main
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part of the equation. I was always doing that, working
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to make other people's lives easier.
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I never saw it. I don't think it's easy to see
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it and continue to do it because if you did, you would see how
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lopsided things are, how these requests that are being asked of
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you aren't being asked of themselves.
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And if you ask these things of other people, they probably
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would say no. And when you play back all the
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requests you've been asked, from the simplest to the most
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challenging, it can be eye opening.
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At least it was for me. I quickly saw that reciprocity
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was missing, that I was giving more than I was getting.
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I think for a while I told myself that being a people
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pleaser was an altruistic act, a trait of a good person.
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Now I'm not so sure, because I always did want in return, and I
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always thought that one day things were going to balance
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out. How could they not?
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How could anybody just take, take, take?
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But I found that we're not like Willow trees.
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The more we bend, we eventually break in the form of burnout, in
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the form of resentment, just like the definition said, the
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definition given by Google. I reached so much resentment in
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relationships. I also reached resentment at
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work. I reached emotional burnout and
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work burnout as well. And it wasn't until all those
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things happened that I realized that non people pleasers, they
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were never looking out for anybody else but themselves,
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their interests, their comforts, their needs.
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And maybe that's exactly how it should be.
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Well of course, other than looking out for your kids best
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interest. And that's when I had to
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sideline my people pleaser ways. They had effectively become a
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liability to me and my well-being.
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I wonder if this is a normal phase for people pleasers to
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enter into this place where it bubbles over and it's not
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beneficial anymore, at least not to yourself.
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But how do you navigate your life differently, especially
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when you've lived so much of your life one way?
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That's where the interesting part comes in.
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Once you see everything clearly, you can see the imbalance and
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you know the resentment that's going to form if you keep going
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in the same direction. You realize you have to do a
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major shift. But first, it starts with the
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way you think. The way you see situations, the
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way you see people and relationships, the way you see
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where you fit in. I wasn't prepared for that,
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partly because I had always done my best to fit in, mainly by
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doing whatever was easiest for others.
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But then I stopped. I stopped making myself so
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accessible. I stopped saying OK when I
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thought it wasn't OK. I started speaking up, pointing
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out things that didn't work for me.
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Maybe I did an overcorrection, but maybe that's how it goes
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when you start seeing things, you start saying things,
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pointing out things, things that don't add up.
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I also started listening more, not just hearing what people
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saying, but actually processing what they're saying and what
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their intentions are behind what they're saying.
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So for example, if I'd say, let's meet up and they'd say,
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yeah, we should. That isn't a plan.
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That isn't anything and I would hear that and instead of me
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trying to push the ball forward and help them make a plan I
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would just leave it. In the past my people pleaser
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ways would have picked up the ball and run with it, laying out
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options and plans and availabilities and making myself
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accessible. Now I don't.
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I just accept and I move on. I also realized my values more
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in the situation when I put myself in the equation.
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And I realized I don't want to be a giver all the time.
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It isn't altruistic for me because I want to get in return.
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Maybe. Maybe I need to start by
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reassessing my values and getting clear on them.
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For one, I value communication. I value people that show up, put
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in the work, make an effort, initiate and respect other
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people's time. So many people don't.
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I was on Instagram earlier today and a friend of mine had
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reposted this. It said since everything vintage
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is back in style, can we bring back loyalty, manners, respect
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and gratitude too? It was posted by self-care for
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heart and yeah that's what I value.
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Simple things. Things that other people take
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for granted, especially when people pleasers are in the mix.
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Because people pleasers are so good at anticipating what you're
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going to want. They stay loyal even when the
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other person isn't loyal. They respect people's time even
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when their time is disregarded. They're grateful, and their bar
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is set pretty low for what they're grateful for.
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So when I reinstated my values and I weighed everything against
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them, I started to see what I had let in for so long and what
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now I was going to have to say no to.
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I had to say no to apologizing for the way I am, the way I've
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become. I won't apologize for any of the
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changes I've made in my life. I won't make excuses or downplay
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them. When you start putting yourself
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back in the mix, you start finding your true nature.
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You start reconnecting with what matters to you, with what you
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want. You can start setting intentions
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again, or maybe even for the first time, because when you're
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a people pleaser, it's very hard to have intentions that align
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with you when you're so busy aligning with everybody else's
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needs. I started thinking about what it
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is that I want. I started thinking about it
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before I even realized I was thinking about it.
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Maybe that's why I took steps to end my marriage.
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It wasn't because I didn't want to be married anymore.
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It's because I just felt like there was more life to live.
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I felt like I understood what marriage was all about, but
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there were things out there, life experiences that I didn't
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know that I wanted to find out and I was going to have to go at
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it alone. I also had two beautiful kids
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that I got from that marriage. So I felt like All in all, it
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was a success. But for a people pleaser, well,
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they would have stayed in that marriage, written it out for
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years and years, decades even. But I guess I was quietly
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quitting being a people pleaser after having the conversation
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with my former husband that kicked off the process of making
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him former. Well, I guess you start shedding
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not only labels, but who you used to be, who you thought you
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were, and you start realizing who you might be or might be
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becoming. I was going to be releasing so
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many labels and getting a whole new host of labels in the
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process, and none of them aligned with the people pleaser.
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I remember I was talking to this woman.
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I had met her. She was a creative too.
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We decided to go to dinner because we had a lot in common.
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While we were sharing life's notes, we got to the big divide.
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I had mentioned previously that I'd had my own company, but we
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never talked about our personal lives until we did.
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I told her that I had had two kids, had been married for
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almost 2 decades, and then I had chosen to end the marriage.
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And that's when she said the most curious thing to me.
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She said. So now the pressure's off.
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You get to just have fun, do whatever it is that you want.
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I sat there. I felt the heaviness enter the
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conversation. What was once a light and fun
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dinner had now quickly become something different, something I
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wasn't 100% sure I was ready for or comfortable with.
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I felt my people please their ways bubbling up, wanting to
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excuse the fact that yes, I had experienced a different life
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than others and yes, maybe now I could have permission to enjoy
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myself, have fun, maybe the pressure was off.
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I also knew that her situation was different than mine and what
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she wanted out of life was different.
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She had briefly told me that she hadn't been married or had kids,
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and that's something that she had desired.
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But again, I wasn't going to downplay the efforts I had made.
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That's how I knew that my people, please, their ways were
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tabled. I was now looking after myself,
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looking after what I wanted. But I had worked hard to get the
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bold moves I had made in life to get there.
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I may have fallen into society's norms and followed society's
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path and all the expectations that are put on us up to then,
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up to the point where I decided what would it be like to choose
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differently? Choose differently for a people
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pleaser. That is, what would it be like
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to choose me? What would it be like to choose
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you? What if making everything easy
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for everybody else is no longer a choice and the only choice is
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what do you want? What do you want out of romantic
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relationships, family, your friendships?
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What do you want out of your job?
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What do you want for your future?
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What are you doing to get there? What are you saying yes to and
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no to? And when you strip away
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everything else that everybody wants and making everything easy
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for everybody, what really matters to you?
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Thanks for listening. These episodes are unscripted.
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They're my free flowing thoughts as I reflect back on past
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conversations, experiences, what I've learned, would like to do
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better, and what's next. Join me on Thursdays for new
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episodes and catch up on past episodes.
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Click follow, like and subscribe.
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And let's see where this leads.