Living Life for YOU: WHY Do I Always Put Other People Before Myself? + FREE Bust Your People-Pleasing Beliefs Worksheet

In my previous post, I told you why people pleasing eventually makes you feel unhappy, exhausted, resentful, empty, or dissatisfied with your life. (I also shared 7 ways to tell whether you’re a chronic people pleaser.)

But here’s the thing: It’s important to know that people pleasing hurts you in the long run. But just knowing this usually isn’t enough to make you stop doing it and start valuing yourself the way that you value the people around you.

That’s because the foundation of people pleasing—the reason WHY you invest so much time and energy into doing it—runs pretty deep. So to change how you prioritize and value yourself relative to others, you need to first get to the root cause of your people pleasing behavior. You need to first understand WHERE your people pleasing came from and HOW it affects your relationships today.

By gaining clarity on why you put so much effort into pleasing others, you’ll be able to heal yourself and let go of the underlying issues that have been keeping you on the people pleasing train.

Travelling back to your past and understanding how it has shaped who you are today can be challenging and uncomfortable. But it’s the best way to finally understand why you often push your OWN needs to the backburner and sacrifice what makes YOU happy for the sake of other people.  

That’s why I’m dedicating this entire blog post to helping you gain clarity on WHY you became a people pleaser.

Ready to start understanding yourself at a deeper level?

Let’s get to it!

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People Pleasing Starts in Childhood

Like many longstanding behavioral patterns or habits, people pleasing usually starts in childhood. The exact events and situations that give rise to it can vary. But in general, people pleasing starts out as parent pleasing. In other words, if you’re a people pleaser, you probably started off as someone who poured your energy into pleasing your parent(s).

Why were you so fixated on pleasing your parents?

Because you learned that it was the best way to ensure that your parents would love you and take care of you.

You see, kids (especially young ones) are dependent on their parents or caregivers for love and care. Until they get a bit older, most kids can’t make meals for themselves, pay for clothes, or drive themselves to extracurricular activities. So they rely on their parents or guardians to do these things for them.

But kids don’t need just any kind of love and care. For healthy physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development, they need unconditional love and care. When love and care are unconditional, it means that a kid doesn’t need to do anything to receive them. Their parents will love them no matter how the child dresses, talks, or behaves.

However, kids who become people pleasers don’t receive unconditional love from their parents or caregivers. Instead, this love has conditions placed on it. These kids may receive love from their parents but ONLY if they meet certain expectations that the parents have.

For example, let’s say that your parents were very particular about how you behaved in public. They were kind and loving toward you when you were well-behaved on trips to the grocery store. But if you whined while standing in the checkout line or ran down one of the aisles in the store, they yelled at you or gave you the silent treatment for the rest of the day. This is conditional love because your parents expressed love toward you only when you behaved the way they wanted you to.

Alternatively, maybe your parents always wanted you to dress in very feminine clothing. If you wore dresses or fitted, feminine tops, they were warm and loving toward you. But if you dressed like a tomboy, they would be cold and hostile toward you or even ignore you altogether. This is another example of conditional love because you had to dress in a certain way to receive love from your parents.

You Learned That You Had to EARN Love

If you received conditional love as a kid, you probably eventually learned that you had to earn love and validation from your parents. You couldn’t count on being loved and accepted even if you didn’t always live up to your parents’ expectations or if you sometimes made mistakes. 

When you’re an adult, you have more power to end a relationship or distance yourself from someone if they put conditions on their love and respect for you. But when you’re a kid, you’re fully dependent or highly dependent on your parents. You rely on your parents to keep a roof over your head, put food on the table, and give you the love you so desperately want and need.

So to make sure that you could receive love and care from your parents as much as possible, you made it your mission to please them as a child. You figured that if you focused on doing what your parents wanted you to do and making them happy, they would give you the love and care that you needed.

You Started to Lose Touch with Yourself

If you had to earn love and approval from your parents, you probably learned that who your parents were was more important than who you were. After all, it was by meeting THEIR needs, desires, and expectations that you could receive the love you wanted.

That’s why you probably poured your energy into tracking your parents’ moods, altering your behavior to meet their needs, and trying not to rock the boat no matter what. You did this even though it meant that you had to stifle your own needs and push your desires to the side.

Because you spent so much time focusing on who your parents were and what they wanted, you might have also started to lose touch with yourself. After all, it was more important to know what your parents expected of you and what they wanted you to be than what you wanted for yourself.

Your Parents Weren’t Necessarily Bad People

Keep in mind that if your parents loved you only when you met their needs or expectations, it doesn’t mean that they were (or currently are) bad people. Your parents probably weren’t intentionally putting conditions on their love for you because they hated you or wanted to hurt you. Instead, they were probably preoccupied with their own needs and expectations and unable to create space for yours.

There are a variety of reasons why your parents may have cared for you in a conditional way. For example, they might have been struggling with a mental illness or substance use problem. Or perhaps because of the way they were raised, conditional love is all that they knew.

In any case, your parents may have genuinely believed that they knew what was best for you and that they were helping you by holding you to their standards. Even if what they were doing wasn’t good for you, they were likely doing the best they could. This doesn’t mean that what your parents did was okay. But it may help you understand why your parents were the way they were and why they were nevertheless kind and loving toward you at times.

Parent Pleasing Turns into General People Pleasing

The parent pleasing dynamics in your family didn’t just influence your relationship with your parents. They also shaped the relationships you’ve had with others into adulthood. Why? Because as humans, we develop an understanding of relationships from the first relationships we ever experience—the ones we have with our parents.

So if your parents loved and cared for you only if you met their needs or expectations, you probably learned that people pleasing was the key to love and approval in any kind of relationship. You probably learned that you aren’t lovable and worthy just the way you are and that instead, you need to earn love and approval by doing what other people want you to or making them happy.

That’s why you stay quiet instead of speaking up when your partner does something that bothers you. It’s why you always say “yes” when your neighbors ask you to do something for them even when you want to say “no.” And it’s why you agree to take on extra tasks at work no matter how high your workload is. 

The people in your life whom you try so hard to please only intentionally or unintentionally reinforce your people pleasing behavior. People who are on the receiving end of your people pleasing benefit from the things you do for them—whether it’s doing a task for them or simply agreeing with them. So even if they don’t mean for you to put their needs ahead of your own, they end up reinforcing your people pleasing by showering praise or affection on you when you do things for them. And then, of course, there are the people who know they can take advantage of you and intentionally express love and approval only when you do what they want you to. That’s why people pleasing can turn into a vicious cycle that’s tough to stop.

Gaining Clarity Is the First Step

Many people don’t realize that when they’re “being generous” or “making other people happy,” they’re repeating negative patterns of behavior that they learned in childhood. If this is you, you might feel angry that you were raised to ignore your own needs and desires. Or you might feel embarrassed that you’ve spent so much time deprioritizing yourself because of what your parents taught you.

But remember, there’s nothing shameful about finally seeing your people pleasing for what it is. In fact, gaining clarity on why you always put other people first is important. Because once you’re aware of your people pleasing behavior and where it came from, you can take steps to address it right at its roots.

Specifically, when you understand how your upbringing has affected the way you approach relationships as an adult, you’re able to realize that to truly put yourself first, you need to give yourself the space to get to know yourself, heal from your past, and build up your self-worth. 

As I explained above, people pleasing stems from beliefs that the key to being happy is to meet other people’s needs and expectations. To help you break through these beliefs and gain confidence in your own internal compass, I’ve created a FREE worksheet for you called Bust Your People-Pleasing Beliefs. 

It’ll help you challenge and transform your people-pleasing beliefs so that you can put yourself first—instead of pouring all of your time and energy into making everyone else happy.

And if you haven’t done so already, follow me on my Facebook page Vera Velini – The Assertive Happiness Coach. That way, you’ll be among the first to hear about new blog posts, resources, and master classes.  

See you again soon!

Vera

P.S. Wondering how the people pleasing you learned in childhood is affecting your health and happiness today? Check out the video I made on why people pleasing is more harmful than helpful.

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