Are you a devoted people-pleaser?
It is nice to please people. It brings in quick benefits such as earning you friends, making you popular in your office, locality or class and being called helpful and dependable.
But what if your peoplepleasing behavior comes at a cost of your personal wellbeing? If neighbors or colleagues start depending on the “ever helpful” you to help with their chores and tasks, take them out for shopping, bring their kids home from school or fix their vehicles… and you find you are hardly able to live your own life?
Psychologists call this excessive indulgence in “people pleasing” as Sociotropy and flag it as one of the personality traits that can have harmful consequences. Sociotropes suffer from a desperate need for social acceptance, and they do that by going out of their way to be nice and pleasing to others.
People-pleasers are often so worried about hurting others, that they are unable to take a clear hard stand at variance from what others around are saying; be it personal values or politics, they come across as “too flexible” to the extent they would say what they feel others want to hear.
The long-term consequences of people pleasing behavior are concerning. He suffers from social anxiety (did I hurt anyone?) and is more prone to depression. On the personal front, members of the family are often disappointed and hurt that he would attend an inconsequential party of a colleague even on his wife’s birthday (personal priorities go tops turvy).
Women are more often affected by this disorder. In* several cultures, girls are raised to be accommodative and pleasing, especially towards her in-laws after marriage. They are sometimes exploited, while being praised, to shoulder all the household work and chores, setting aside any personal goals they might have nurtured.
Steps to reset priorities need to start with introspection, followed by defining one’s own personal space, boundaries and goals. And most importantly, to learn how not to say “yes” every time one desperately wanted to say NO.
It is not always selfish to put your priorities first. Safety instructions in the aircraft before every flight reminds us “Put on your own oxygen mask first, before helping others!”