It took a while for me to admit it, but I am (and have always been) a serial people pleaser. To paint the picture for you, I called off my own 21st birthday party because my roommate was pressuring me to attend her boyfriend’s frat party instead. My friends couldn’t fathom why I’d skip out on celebrating a milestone birthday to hang out with a bunch of randoms I didn’t know. My roommate assured me it’d be ten times more fun than hanging out in the city like I planned, but the truth is, she didn’t want to go to that party alone. And my truth was that I didn’t have the spine to tell her no. I couldn’t stand the pressure of disappointing someone who was forcefully trying to sway me in a direction that was in their best interest, not mine. So I spent my 21st birthday as a wallflower at a belligerently drunk stranger’s house where no one spoke to me, much less wished me a happy birthday. I went back to my dorm and cried myself to sleep, knowing that in an effort not to disappoint my roommate, I had disappointed myself.
Fast forward to today, and so much in my life has changed. I’ve bossed up in my career, moved out of New York City and into the suburbs, and am taking the first steps toward buying a home. What I’m most proud of, however, is completing two years of therapy, which has been transformative in reversing my people-pleasing tendencies. I was able to trace it back to its origins: growing up with well-meaning yet emotionally unavailable parents, I was constantly starving for the assurance and validation that they didn’t know how to give. Displays of affection from my parents were never given just because; only when I achieved something like making the honor roll or doing household chores that none of my siblings wanted to do.
This transactional form of love became my blueprint. I believed that self-sacrifice was the price of admission for relationships. I didn’t like to rock the boat by speaking up when my needs weren’t being met, which kept me in a cycle of non-reciprocal relationships. It was easy in those situations to view myself as the victim, but through therapy and continued self-reflection, I realized that ending the cycle of people pleasing had to start with the woman in the mirror — and the first step was re-parenting the inner child within her.
I have unlearned people pleasing by taking four intentional steps towards living more authentically and using more discernment in how I show up for myself and those around me. To further explore the topic, I’ve also spoken to two Black women therapists: Joy Harden Bradford, Ph.D, founder of Therapy For Black Girls and author of Sisterhood Heals: The Transformative Power of Healing in Community, and Candyce “Ce” Anderson, mental health consultant and CEO of Revita Therapy and Wellness. These are the insights they had to share to stop putting the needs of others above your own.
Put “Future Me” First
There’s a reason flight attendants tell you to secure your oxygen mask before helping someone with theirs. It’s pretty much impossible to help someone in a crisis when you aren’t stable yourself. By taking a moment to assess my priorities before committing to plans, I find more balance, and I’m way less exhausted. How did I get here? By putting future me first (because pouring from an empty cup always sounds doable until it’s time to start doing the pouring).
These days, if I am asked for a favor, I stop to think about how future me is going to show up. Will I be too exhausted from the work week to take that friend to the airport? Do I have time to pick up that co-worker’s extra task during their vacation, or will future me be resentful and annoyed that I said yes when I can barely keep up with my work? Keeping future me at the forefront of my decision-making has helped me manage my life from a place of self-compassion and honesty. It’s also offered me the relief of being able to rest knowing I haven’t overcommitted to anything.
Professionally, Bradford has observed that when people overextend themselves, they are often left with feelings of resentment, which is a tell-tale sign that their boundaries need tightening.
“I think the first thing is slowing down when responding to requests,” she says. “A lot of us who fall into this people-pleasing trap, our immediate answer is ‘Yes, of course, I can do that,’ as opposed to giving ourselves some time to say, ‘Let me consider that, I’ll get back to you.’ Slowing down allows you to examine whether you actually have the time and bandwidth to take on a new task or consider whether it is something that you actually want to do.”
Get Comfortable With Conflict
Next to knowing your limits, learning to say no and mean it is essential to staying out of people-pleasing territory. As a peace-loving and conflict-averse person, I’ve had to accept that there’s no way to avoid the conflict that might arise from drawing a line in the sand. But saying yes to things you don’t really want to do to avoid conflict is rooted in fear and just keeps you trapped in a prison of overgiving. “People pleasing comes from exhausting and betraying yourself to satisfy others as a result of guilt or fear of adverse reactions from those people,” Anderson says. “[People pleasers] work really, really hard to prioritize approval from others and also to avoid conflict despite it being against their own best interest.”
Frankly, I’ve had to learn to put my big girl panties on and be ok with a bit of proverbial tussling. I’ve instituted more healthy boundaries by calling people out when they’ve disrespected me (intentionally or not) or crossed a line that I’ve explicitly made clear. People haven’t always respected or liked it, but it’s helped me sift through those who genuinely care for me and want to remain in community versus those who don’t — and this is nothing to feel guilty about. Adding to this, Bradford affirms, “Getting rid of some of the people pleasing means learning to be more okay with conflict and discomfort. Going back to the definition, I think a lot of people are trying to avoid that guilty feeling of having to say no. And I think [we should] be able to sit with the fact that people may be upset or it might be uncomfortable, but you’re not going to die from this feeling. Learning to be okay with the feeling lends itself to you being able to stand up for yourself more.”
By putting my boundaries on front street, I’ve helped others around me become clear about my needs, and I, in turn, am clearer about theirs.
Be Prepared to Grieve Relationships
The harsh truth is that many people in my life once benefitted from me being a people pleaser. I truly believed that all of my unwavering kindness would one day be returned, and in most cases, it was. Yet those one-sided relationships quickly evaporated once I pushed back and asked to be considered and respected. It was deeply painful to part ways with people who I thought were in my corner, but grieving those relationships with the understanding that we were simply not in alignment helped me heal and move on without any lingering resentment and anger. When it was all said and done, I was very grateful to be taken out of those group chats.
Don’t get me wrong — as humans, we need community. Part of being in the community means showing up for those who show up for you, which may sometimes require you to be inconvenienced. But Bradford says reciprocity should be your barometer. “[Ask yourself] does it feel like everybody is showing up for one another? Because I think when that happens, you aren’t even thinking, ‘When’s the last time this person did something for me?’ Because it’s the expectation in the circle. Whenever it starts to feel imbalanced, and you are the one who is doing all of the showing up or somebody else is doing all of the showing up, then I think that’s where the line is.”
Learning to let people go without the guilt is especially key. Anderson says this is something Black women, in particular, struggle with. “When women sit on my sofa, the first thing they say is ‘Yes, I’m overworked. Yes, I have hypertension. Yes, I’m going through this chronic medical condition. But I still have to show up for people and give to people because when I do not, I can’t deal with the guilt.’”
Let People Be There For You
I, like many Black women, grew up with the “strong Black woman” trope. I believed that my independence was my superpower. Being able to endure life’s hardships alone and carry the weight of the world on my shoulders felt like a badge of honor. I felt shame in asking for help because I didn’t inherently feel worthy unless I was acting in service to others. Therapy helped me to recognize that strength lies in being able to ask for help when you need it and lean on the ones who love you.
In speaking with Bradford, she agrees that Black women commonly have a hard time asking for help due to cultural norms, but we do more harm to ourselves when we keep our mouths closed. “We often don’t want to burden people,” Bradford says. “We don’t want to overextend other people because we know how busy we are. But I tell people, ‘How many times would you drop everything to be there for a person?’ A lot of us do that a lot, but we don’t give people the opportunity to drop things for us. And so, I think a skill that needs to be practiced is asking for help and actually letting people show up for you.”