Confessions on a people pleaser

As I have mentioned a time or two in my columns—and anyone who knows me or has interacted with me for more than five minutes has figured out—I am a people pleaser.
Like it’s bad. It’s a serious issue.
It dominates my thoughts. I’m constantly thinking about if people like me or not. And if I think they might not, what could I do to make them like me more. Or if they do, how can I keep that going?
A friend and I had a conversation about it not that long ago. He is an editor for another paper. I told him that I think it makes me not as good at my job because I am scared to let people down. I tell them what I think they want to hear and not necessarily what I should tell them.
I also said I think it makes me selfish. He argued that it just makes me nice and a good person.
I don’t think it does though. I think it genuinely makes me selfish. I mean there is some of the “I really do want others to be happy”. I do get joy from helping out someone and seeing them get something out of it whether that is relief, happiness or anything else. But if I am honest, there is always that underlying need to be liked.
And while often it is fine and no one gets hurt (and both of us even benefit), it can sometimes be pretty
bad.
In fact, I probably should have started this out by stating “My name is Laura and I am a people pleaser.”
Not to make light of alcoholism, because I think that people-pleasing can also wreak havoc on lives in very similar ways.
My cousin, who happens to be my very best friend in the whole entire world, had to call me out on it when my people-pleasing almost ruined our relationship and it caused some major issues in other family relationships. Okay, it wouldn’t have ruined our relationship because she is way
cooler than me and always has and always will love me more than I deserve, but it made me really
unlikeable.
The people-pleasing made me a lying, horrible person. She helped me see that while I thought that I was being this kind and caring person doing so much for others, I was letting down those who loved me most not to mention I was hurting myself—all to please people who really didn’t even matter.
And to me, that was the opposite of people-pleasing and so completely unselfish. She risked me not liking her at all to tell me something really hard. And we both, not to mention our relationship, gained huge rewards out of it. It really opened my eyes to just how selfish my people-pleasing is and how much it hurts those I care about the most.
So I am working really hard on this. I think the key, maybe a lot like overcoming alcoholism, is honesty as well as being able to face hard emotions. Like what is the worst thing if someone doesn’t like me? What will happen? Will the world end? Do I even like the person I am trying to please? Because sometimes I really don’t so how dumb is that?! And what is driving my need to be liked?
Feel free to ask me how this is going if you see me. Or let me know if you have this struggle. Do you
think this is a selfishness issue or just being a nice person? Or maybe a little bit of both? I would love to discuss it more. But only if it makes you like me! Kidding…mostly.

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