When I was a young girl, I was taught to be nice, considerate, and accommodating towards others because that is what a good girl does. While these qualities are admirable, I think through that I learned that my self-worth was dependent on others and that I needed to sacrifice myself to be what was expected of me. Along the way, I developed some unhealthy patterns of behavior and by the time I was in high school, I was a full-fledged people-pleaser. The irony is that I’m finding it’s really not about pleasing people at all, but most often about me.

That awareness has opened my eyes to see that when I am people-pleasing I am usually trying to fill some need within me through external validation. I think that it is an innate human behavior to desire acceptance and belonging, as well as wanting to be liked and valued. However, this should not be the focus of my interactions with others. When it is, I end up living to gain approval and comfort, feel good about myself, and maybe even try to avoid rejection, conflict, or criticism. It is an attempt to gain myself through the loss of myself.

By constantly adapting and conforming to the expectations and desires of others, I am standing on shifting sand. Often, I don’t even really know what it is that will make that other person happy, I’m just doing what I think they want from me or what I think I should do. If I am trying to please more than one person, it will be even more challenging as I try to jockey and keep up, often being pulled in opposite directions. But I wonder if on some level this is what God asks of me in living for Him… to die to myself and serve others?  I think that God asks me to serve others out of the outflow of my love for Him and to die to myself. However, I think that often that is not what I am doing.  I can look at myself and know if what I am doing is self-serving by examining my motives and looking to see if I have expectations of the other person. I need to ask myself, as my friend says, if my kindness has a cost.

God’s love is free and completely unconditional. If I do something and am expecting someone to notice, or respond in a certain way with some sort of compliment or thank you, I have selfish motives. I am looking to get something from what I am doing and care if they are upset with me. As God began to work on my people-pleasing I began to stop caring what others thought of me and what they wanted me to do, almost to an extreme. God showed me how to bring that more into balance and I thought I was good with this people-pleasing stuff. However, God is showing me that it is much bigger and more insidious than I thought, affecting more areas of my life than I realized. For example, I find it means that often I struggle to assert my own opinions and be authentic with others, fearing rejection or conflict. I often hope that by being or doing what others want I will fit in and people will like me. I don’t typically tell people my truth as I experience life,  because I don’t want to upset the apple cart. What’s interesting is that although it would seem that all my efforts to people-please others would make my life more peaceful, really the opposite is true.

Constantly putting others’ needs before my own, I feel drained and overwhelmed as I try to meet the never-ending demands of others because I’m neglecting my own self-care and emotional well-being in the process. It is constant work to figure out what others want and exhausting to try to meet those desires. I know I will be at peace if I am doing God’s will. When I people-please, I am not loving as God loves and when I do that long enough, I don’t end up dying to myself, I end up losing myself.  I find I don’t even know what I want or like anymore, I only know how to do what others want. If I am doing what others want I have a divided heart. I can’t please God and man at the same time. If I am living for God, I am a servant of Christ; and while this means I will please some people, I will offend others. I will expect nothing in return, as the blessings God offers me will be more than enough.

Practice for Today

While the desire to please others feels natural to me, people-pleasing can have detrimental effects on my mental, emotional, and physical well-being. I will seek God and ask Him to reveal to me my hidden motives and expectations so I can have more awareness of when I am in the cycle of people-pleasing. I will choose to take my self-awareness and accept that I cannot stop people-pleasing on my own, I need God’s help. I will then take the action of choosing to leave my old habits at the foot of the cross and actively asking God for continued self-awareness to help me overcome by the power of His Spirit at work within me. When I find that I have done it again, I will offer myself grace and lay it down again.

Galatians 1:10 For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.