It is natural for humans to want to please each other. We are wired for social behavior and instinctively dependent on each other for survival. We want to feel that others approve of us, and we want to have a stable place in our social circles. It gives us pleasure to see, hear, and feel when other people respond with warmth and gratitude to our actions. It’s easy to see how behaviors that are received positively by others can be rewarding for us as individuals. 

However, a type of behavior known as “people pleasing” remains complicated and confusing. It can feel nice, it can look nice, and it can be perceived as the best type of human behavior available. I’m a person who has put a lot of effort into healing maladaptive behaviors from childhood, and during that process, I realized that I had been a people pleaser. Others saw me as someone they could say anything to, or do anything in front of, or demand anything of, and I would accept and laugh and never protest. I now understand that people pleasing isn’t very nice for anyone at all, and is actually one of the most frustrating and lonely modes in which an adult human can be stuck.

People pleasing behaviors are a survival mode response for children like myself, who were expected to manage adult emotions and respond accordingly to the adult, while also shelving our own identities and being careful not to make waves. People pleasers develop complacent behavior and exceedingly nice characteristics as a self-protective way to avoid negative attention from emotionally immature caregivers. We are “the golden child.” Children who spend a lot of time in freeze/flight/fawn states are very likely to become people pleasers. As children, they are often perceived as “mature for their age” and “grown up before their time.” This is generally because these children sense they are responsible for placating their parents and keeping their own needs hidden. They become responsible for being the mature figures of the household.

As adults, people pleasers can be perceived as popular, outgoing, “friends with everyone”, and “life of the party” people. They may seem great at hosting and entertaining, because they have thrown themselves into a frenzy to make sure everyone else is having the best time ever. They are great at planning and organizing, because they are not able to say no to anyone and end up juggling events, activities, vacations, and play dates for everyone. They have strong empathetic tendencies, and love to help you figure out how to fix all of your problems because they seem to have it all together. They are always masters of conflict avoidance, which is extremely socially acceptable.

They probably don’t realize consciously as adults that they want or need to be seen as perfect, and to receive approval from others. They have long since internalized the requirement for the approval of their parents, and it remains one of their main sources of nourishment as long as they continue to interact in the parent/adult child relationship. They probably don’t know they are trying to hide perfectionistic tendencies that would give them away as insecure. It’s my belief that this insecurity is one of the main reasons why people pleasers don’t have any personal boundaries or know how to enforce them.

The characteristics that they developed to keep everyone happy are more accurately viewed as manipulation. It’s a subconscious response to how they were raised, but it’s a manipulation, nonetheless. They attempt to keep everyone happy by making sure that no one is ever mad at THEM. It’s a very effective way to survive an unsupportive childhood, but it’s not a sustainable or healthy way for an emotionally mature adult to live. 

In an adult friendship, a people pleaser looks great on the surface. As time goes by, others can see that the people pleaser does not say anything about their own feelings or needs. They do not bring it to your attention when their feelings are hurt or they want something to be done differently in the relationship. This doesn’t mean they are not hurt or don’t have needs. They have a tendency to take everything personally because they have lived in survival mode for so long that everything must be processed through the self-protection filter. They tend to repress things that would need to be addressed within any healthy relationship until they “blow up,” and spew out months or years of unresolved resentments. Everyone else is surprised at that point, because the people pleaser never told anyone about the resentments. 

The people pleaser also functions the same way in work and romantic relationships. Every toxic duality is a reflection of their unmeet needs from the parent/child relationship. They magnetize towards people that will participate in the same dynamic. They need someone who will take advantage of their painfully obvious need for approval by demanding things a healthy person would not expect from another human. With a healthy partner (in friendship, work, or romance), a people pleaser will not have constant approval from the other person in the relationship. The partner will reasonably want to discuss elements of the relationship to strengthen it and improve the connection. It becomes obvious that the people pleaser considers the idea of change and growth as threatening. The people pleaser inevitably says or does something to sabotage or self-destruct, and the relationship is over. The partner has realized the people pleaser does not actually care about the relationship. They are only able to care about protecting themselves. They took responsibility for their caretakers during a crucial part of child development that prevents them from being able to take responsibility for themselves as adults. They were never shown how.

People pleasers will take a very long time to learn that they need to provide their own source of energetic approval from the inside. They will have to be taught how to not take everything personally and how to enact boundaries without controlling or manipulating others. When I finally sought help in adulthood, it wasn’t because I realized my own behaviors and how they affected others. It was because I believed what I had always been told – everyone else’s problems were my responsibility to fix. My depression was my own fault as punishment for not fixing things well enough. My therapist (a term that must interchangeably represent 4 or 5 different people when I’m writing) noticed that I did not have much sense of my authentic self or personal identity, and started working with me on putting myself first. 

As I noticed how much adult responsibility had been put on me when I wasn’t actually responsible for it, huge chunks of guilt and pressure and shame began to break off, leaving room for fresh growth.

I was as weak and wobbly as a newborn foal when I started the messy process of solidifying my values, learning how to align my behavior with my values, and speaking up for myself. I kept going, and it got easier to find and express my needs and wants. I also learned a lot about how people perceived me before, how people responded to my changes, and particularly how people struggled with reconciling their previous versions of me. For many toxic people I had allowed to remain in my life, it was to their utmost advantage that I wouldn’t speak up before. They didn’t want to accept or know me as the person who would speak up, because that put them in uncomfortable positions of having to accept their own bad behavior. 

I had become totally fine with their discomfort because I had learned to how to manage my own discomfort. I had learned how to recognize what I am and am not responsible for, and that was really scary for them too. Many of them “blew up” our friendships by repeating bad behavior that they knew I would no longer abide. Others crossed boundaries with the awareness that I would not accept the overstep. Most of them needed some way to make me the problem instead of acknowledging that they had been taking advantage of someone else’s weaknesses and emotional problems. Over many years, I learned how to give my inner child what she needs. I learned that I’m the only person who can accomplish that.

I’m over ten years into my therapeutic healing journey, and I’ve found that I can’t be friends with people pleasers either. I am estranged from many of my biological family members, and this is an especially fearful point for people pleasers. All toxic behavior types find estrangement a threat because it represents solid boundaries, but people pleasers specifically need parental approval more than they need to be valued in relationships. I have even seen multiple instances in which a people pleaser continues the behavior that requires and achieves parental approval after their parent has left our mortal realm, prioritizing the learned pattern of behavior over the real-life friend in front of them.

I understand that it’s my responsibility to hold myself accountable for my own toxic or maladaptive behaviors, source my triggers, and do the work to process and resolve damages and limitations. I understand that it’s not my responsibility to fix others or accept blame for their problems and wounds. People pleasers aren’t able to talk about feelings, hurts, changes, improvements, or needs. They won’t come to me with authentic voices that demand recognition, value, or validation. They don’t value themselves, which makes them fear my confidence. They don’t see what I want as valuable or valid, which makes them perceive my self-worth as a personal threat. Any perceived criticism of their own behavior is taken as complete disapproval rather than honest assertion and open communication, which also makes my integrity feel threatening. They don’t have any boundaries of their own, which makes my boundaries feel restrictive and confusing. 

I love to notice when people feel pleased, loved, respected, and valued. I believe that connections are strengthened when we have those difficult and uncomfortable conversations that bring us closer together in our vulnerability. I believe that I deserve an honest and kind human experience with those around me because we are all worth it. 

Love is an action verb.