People-Pleasing

People-Pleasing Therapy | Psychologist in Maastricht | English & Greek

When keeping everyone else happy starts coming at the expense of yourself

Caring about other people's feelings can be a meaningful and healthy part of relationships. We naturally want to be considerate, supportive, and responsive to the people we care about. People-pleasing becomes more difficult when keeping others happy starts to feel like something you have to do in order to feel safe, accepted, or worthy.

You may find yourself saying yes when you actually want to say no, agreeing with people even when you see things differently, or taking responsibility for other people's feelings. You might spend a lot of time thinking about whether someone is upset with you, whether you have disappointed them, or whether you have done enough for them.

Perhaps you avoid conflict because someone being unhappy with you feels extremely uncomfortable. You may apologise quickly, explain yourself repeatedly, change your plans to accommodate others, or put your own needs aside because asking for something feels selfish or demanding.

Sometimes people-pleasing can look like kindness, generosity, or being “the easy one” in relationships. From the outside, you may appear very considerate and dependable. Internally, however, you may feel exhausted, resentful, anxious, or unsure of what you actually want because you have become so accustomed to prioritising everyone else's needs.

Therapy can provide a space to understand why other people's approval or happiness may feel so important, where these patterns may have developed, and how you can begin expressing your own needs without feeling that doing so makes you selfish or unkind.

Does this sound familiar?

You may find it difficult to say no, even when you already have too much on your plate. Someone asks you for a favour and you immediately agree, only to realise later that you didn't actually want to do it. You might worry about disappointing them, appearing selfish, or creating tension between you.

Perhaps you often change your plans depending on what other people want. You may be very attentive to other people's moods and quickly notice when someone seems irritated, disappointed, or distant. When that happens, you may automatically assume that you have done something wrong or feel responsible for making things better.

You might avoid expressing disagreement because you don't want to create conflict. Even when you have a strong opinion, you may find yourself saying that you don't mind or going along with what everyone else wants. Afterwards, you may feel frustrated with yourself for not speaking up.

You may also apologise frequently, even when you have not done anything wrong, or feel uncomfortable receiving praise or having someone do something for you. Being the person who gives, helps, accommodates, and takes care of others may feel much safer than being the person who has needs.

Sometimes you may not even be entirely sure what your own preferences are anymore. After spending a long time adapting yourself to other people, questions such as “What do I actually want?” or “What would I choose if nobody else were disappointed?” can feel surprisingly difficult to answer.

Understanding fear of criticism

People-pleasing is not simply being a kind or considerate person. Healthy consideration involves caring about other people's needs while still recognising that your own needs, limits, and preferences matter too.

People-pleasing becomes problematic when you consistently prioritise other people's feelings over your own, particularly when doing so is driven by fear. You may not be saying yes because you genuinely want to help. You may be saying yes because saying no feels unsafe, uncomfortable, or likely to lead to rejection.

The underlying fear can be different for different people. You may be afraid that someone will become angry, think badly of you, reject you, leave you, or decide that you are difficult or selfish. You may have learned that being agreeable is one of the safest ways to maintain relationships.

This can make other people's approval feel unusually important. When someone is happy with you, you feel secure. When someone is disappointed, you may immediately question yourself and feel compelled to repair the situation.

Over time, your behaviour can become organised around preventing other people from experiencing negative emotions. You may feel responsible for keeping the peace, making sure everyone is comfortable, or ensuring that nobody is disappointed with you.

But other people's feelings are not entirely yours to manage.

Someone can be disappointed with you and still love you. Someone can disagree with you and still respect you. Someone can be unhappy with a boundary you set without that boundary being wrong.

Learning to tolerate these realities can be an important part of moving away from people-pleasing.

When saying no feels much harder than saying yes

For many people who struggle with people-pleasing, the difficulty is not knowing intellectually that they are allowed to say no. They may understand perfectly well that they have too much to do or that a particular request is unreasonable.

The difficulty is what happens emotionally when they imagine disappointing someone.

You may immediately experience guilt, anxiety, or the urge to explain yourself. You might start thinking about how the other person will interpret your response and whether they will be upset with you. Even before you have said anything, you may already be trying to find a way of refusing that guarantees they will not feel disappointed.

But there is no perfect way to say no that guarantees another person will be completely happy with your decision.

This can make boundaries particularly challenging. A boundary is not a way of controlling how someone else feels about your decision. It is a way of communicating what you are and are not willing or able to do.

Developing the ability to tolerate someone else's disappointment can therefore be just as important as learning the words to say no.

How people-pleasing can affect your life

People-pleasing can gradually affect your relationships because it can become difficult for other people to know what you genuinely think, want, or need. If you regularly say that everything is fine when it isn't, the people around you may not realise that you are struggling or that something needs to change.

You may also begin to feel resentment. You give your time, energy, attention, and emotional support to other people, but your own needs remain unspoken. Eventually, you may feel that other people take too much from you, even though you have rarely told them where your limits are.

At work, people-pleasing can lead to taking on too many responsibilities, finding it difficult to decline requests, or becoming the person everyone relies on. You may appear highly capable while privately feeling overwhelmed and frustrated.

In romantic relationships, you may suppress your preferences, avoid difficult conversations, or adapt yourself around your partner's needs. You might become afraid that expressing what you genuinely want will create conflict or make you less desirable.

Friendships can be affected in similar ways. You may always be the one who makes plans, accommodates changes, listens to problems, or makes sure everyone is comfortable. Eventually, you may wonder whether people value you for who you are or primarily for what you do for them.

Perhaps most importantly, persistent people-pleasing can make it difficult to develop a clear sense of yourself. When so much attention goes towards what everyone else needs and expects, your own preferences can become increasingly quiet.

How we can work with people-pleasing in therapy

Our work would begin by understanding what happens when you consider prioritising yourself. We might explore situations in which you find it particularly difficult to say no, express disagreement, ask for something, or allow someone else to be disappointed.

We can also look at the beliefs underneath the behaviour. Perhaps you believe that being a good person means always being available, that other people's needs should come before your own, or that relationships will become unsafe if you disappoint someone. Understanding these beliefs can help explain why changing the behaviour can feel much harder than simply deciding to “be more assertive.”

Depending on your needs, we may draw from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Schema Therapy.

CBT can help us examine thoughts around guilt, rejection, responsibility, and other people's reactions, and consider whether you are taking responsibility for things that may not actually belong to you.
ACT can help you become more comfortable experiencing difficult emotions such as guilt, anxiety, or uncertainty while still acting according to your own values. Saying no may feel uncomfortable for a while, but discomfort does not necessarily mean that you have done something wrong.
Schema Therapy can be particularly useful when people-pleasing feels deeply rooted. We can explore patterns connected with approval-seeking, self-sacrifice, subjugation, abandonment, rejection, or the belief that your needs are less important than other people's.

We can also work practically with boundaries and assertive communication, gradually creating opportunities for you to express preferences, say no, ask for what you need, and tolerate the possibility that someone may not always be pleased with your choices.

The aim is not to become less caring or considerate. It is to reach a point where being kind to other people does not require being unkind to yourself.

Taking the First Step

You may have spent years being the person who is easy to be around, reliable, accommodating, and understanding. Perhaps people often describe you as kind or selfless, while privately you feel exhausted from constantly adjusting yourself around everyone else.

You may know that you need stronger boundaries but feel guilty whenever you try to set them. You might understand that you are allowed to say no, yet still feel compelled to explain yourself, apologise, or change your mind when someone reacts negatively.

Perhaps you have started noticing resentment towards people close to you, even though part of you knows that you have rarely communicated what you actually need.

Therapy can provide a space to explore these patterns without turning them into another reason to criticise yourself. People-pleasing often develops for understandable reasons, and changing it involves more than learning a few assertiveness techniques. It can involve developing a stronger sense of your own needs, becoming more comfortable with conflict and disappointment, and learning that relationships can survive your having boundaries.

You do not need to stop caring about other people. The goal is to create relationships in which your needs have a place too.

If you'd like to explore whether working together could be a good fit, you can arrange a short introductory call.

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