7 Signs You Need People To Like You Too Much

There's nothing wrong with wanting people to like you. In fact, that's probably the most natural thing in the world. So if I were to introduce you at a party to some people you don't know, and you could walk away with them liking you or them not liking you, pretty much everyone I know would pick being liked. It feels better. It's much more pleasant. And so the issue here is not that desire. The issue is that when we take it too far and it goes from, I have a preference, I would like if they liked me, to, I need them to like me. I need them to like me or I'm not okay, or I'm not safe, or I'm not a good person. And that is the problem because then you can start to get further and further disconnected from yourself. You stop being fully yourself and you start either performing or hiding or holding back or pleasing or whatever it takes to get through the interaction safely is what it feels like. And so here are 7 signs that you might be crossing over that line from a preference of wanting to be liked To needing to be liked. And the cost of that is it's going to get you further and further from yourself, from being who you really are, from the freedom to be authentic in your relationships and in your life. And so when you see these signs, and if you start to accumulate more than one or two of them, that might be a signal that it's time to do some inner work to become more boldly and authentically yourself and to shed some of those years of nice training and nice conditioning. Are you ready? Let's dive in. So the first is that you replay conversations in your head, possibly way after the fact. Sometimes when I talk to clients, they're almost a little embarrassed about how long ago something happened and they're still replaying it months later, maybe even years later sometimes. And what happens in that moment is there is something that needs to be said. Usually the Client needed to defend themselves or stand up for themselves or say no to something, or I dislike that, or I disagree, and they didn't. And so what happens is there's this open loop spinning around in your head because you held back from saying what needed to be said. And then that conversation, it's just unfinished business. Do you have some of those rattling around? How many? Maybe a lot of those rattling around? And that might be a sign that you held back. Now, why did you hold back? Well, you can investigate for yourself, but often I didn't wanna upset them. I didn't want to sound defensive. I didn't wanna seem like a bad guy. I don't want them to be mad at me. I don't want them to be withdrawn or feel hurt. I don't wanna feel guilty. And all these are not signs that you, quote, did the right thing by holding back, but maybe that fear was underneath rather than kindness or authenticity or real connection. The second sign that you might be needing people to like you too much Is you agree when you actually disagree. So on the outside, you might smile and nod, or maybe even say nothing. And that's not you actively agreeing, but it's also you kind of implicitly agreeing, right? As opposed to saying something like, oh, I see it differently. Oh, you think that? How come? That's not what I think, right? Those are signs or ways of disagreeing. And do you hold those back? In other words, it might make you overly agreeable with other people. Now, you might disagree like crazy in your head, and it might get more intense because you're not saying it, right? So you leave, you're like, they're stupid. How do they think that? What an idiot. Oh, I don't like them. But on the outside, calm, agreeable. And why? Because we're coming from a place of, I need them to like me, or maybe I'm not okay, or I'm not safe. So I'll do whatever it takes to keep the conversation smooth and having it look like the appearance Of we're all cool with each other and good connection, which is really what niceness is about, by the way. It's about making the appearance of smoothness and connection, but it is actually not real connection, not real intimacy. We'll get to that more in one of the upcoming signs of being too focused on people liking you. Okay, so number 3 is you explain, maybe over-explain, when a simple no would do. You ever done this? So instead of just saying, no, I'm not available for that, it's, well, I would like to be able to come, but I don't know if I can. And maybe that's, eh, and it goes on and on and on. Maybe you water it down so much they didn't even know that you said no. And this, where is this coming from? Have you done that, by the way? Have you, can you think of a time recently that you've done that? Where is this coming from? Well, it's ultimately coming from a lack of permission to say no. It's somehow bad or wrong or mean, or I'm not allowed, or they're gonna be upset or they're gonna leave me if I say no. If I'm gonna do it, I have to really make the case for it. I have to justify it. I have to explain it. I probably have to convince them that I'm— it's okay for me to do it. And it leads to a lot of excess words. And so if you notice yourself overexplaining or just explaining a lot versus a simple, oh, oh, thanks for the invite, I can't make it, period. If you notice yourself doing a lot more than that, that's often coming from this underlying need to be liked, to keep things smooth between you and others. Okay, number 4. You feel responsible for people's moods. Ugh. I know this one. I know this one painfully well because this is the fixer approach to life. And if you're curious what that term comes from, it's from your approval type, which you can find out about if you go to my website, draziz.com, D-R-A-Z-I-Z.com, and you can take a 2-minute quiz and find out what your approval type is. It's what you default to when you're not sure how people are going to respond to you. And mine for so many years has been fixer, which means I'm gonna take care of everybody, everybody's feelings in the room. So if you notice that you're over-responsible for people's moods, that's the fixer energy. And it's coming from a need to be liked. It might seem like it's about caring about someone else, right? Well, I don't want them to feel bad. I'm a very conscientious, caring person. And I'm not saying you're not. And there's also a lot of fear driving that underneath. I know that from personal experience. So I could walk into a room and start to interact with somebody and notice that someone else is not interacting in the conversation. And start to feel like I have to bring them into the conversation. Oh, are they feeling left out? Oh, is this person upset? Ooh. In fact, just recently I had some family visiting in town and house full of people. And instead of just being relaxed and enjoying the people around me, there was this tightness in my stomach when I woke up in the morning. I was like, okay, there's my brother and his wife and my wife and my friends visiting. And there's my kids. And how's everyone? Is everyone going to get along? I have to make sure that everyone has every one of their needs met. And my brother wants to do this. My wife wants to do that. And I'm getting more and more nervous and upset. And I was able to notice what was happening at this stage in my life, but I've had previous periods of my life where I'd be in a situation like that and I would have stomachaches and constipation and stress and anxiety and just complete inability to be present with everybody because I was so focused on tracking everyone's mood. And again, is that me being super kind, super great leader of the environment? No, it's me being scared and saying, I need no one to get upset here because if there's If there's any tension or any upset, then maybe someone's not going to like being at my house, not like me. And if you follow these signs, they're all— even if they're looking like they're pointing at other people, they're all circling back to me and making sure that I'm safe. Because if you like me, then I'm safe. I really want you to get that, because when you see that, it goes way beyond these 7 signs. We could have 70 signs. This shows up all over the place in your life. And the key here is to notice when that's happening and see what's really going on so you can make a different choice. Sign number 5 is quiet resentment. starts to build up and you don't really know why. And it might show up as hot resentment, right? Where you feel inside, you feel this irritation with the person, upset with them, maybe a judgmental stream. Oh, they're so selfish, or they're inconsiderate, or oh, they're one of these kinds of people. And you feel it. There's an irritation and a dislike and kind of a push-away energy inside of you. That's hot resentment. There can also be cold resentment. People often might not even know that it's resentment, Or it just feels like, ugh, I just can't be bothered. I just don't want to get back. Oh, they just texted me. I don't know. I just don't really want to deal with that. I'm kind of busy. And am I upset? No, no, no, no, I'm not upset. I just don't really feel like it. And both of those can be signs of resentment. And where did the resentment come from? Usually there's an imbalance in the relationship. You have given more than you wanted to give. You gave because you felt like you had to give and couldn't say no. You started to feel like that there was an imbalance, and then you started to judge, like, why am I giving so much? And You're giving so little, and it starts to build that resentment. And that is a dynamic that you might end up creating maybe again and again, maybe with a lot of different people. And so that resentment is a sign of possibly you overextending yourself. Why? So that they're not mad at me, so that I'm a good person, so that they like me. And this can be another symptom of an overextension beyond what really feels good, not really listening to yourself, what you want to say yes and what you want to say no to. Out of a fear or a need to be liked. Number 6 is one criticism will outweigh 100 compliments or positive reflections towards you. Maybe more, maybe 500, maybe none of them matter when you get that one criticism. We zoom in on that and we take it to heart and everything else gets thrown out the window and you basically forget who you are. You forget your strengths, you forget your value, you forget everything you've done in your life and the relationships, all that. It's gone. And it's like, well, they didn't like this. And maybe there's a compulsion there to get them to change the criticism. No, no, no, no, you have to see me differently. No, no, that's not who I am. That's not right. That's not what happened. Ah, right? And that's very different than maybe clarifying it if there is a misperception and saying, oh, that's not what I intended, or I saw it this way. No, this is a very different energy. This is, it is not okay for you to see me negatively or to criticize me. And the reason it outweighs all those other things is because it's about the nervous system, right? It's a sense of safety. All of a sudden, I mean, this is This is the worst thing in the world. This is what I've been spending my whole life avoiding if I'm a nice person, is someone being upset with me. And if they're criticizing me, that sounds pretty like they're upset with me. And now it's happening. Oh my God, panic, jump out the window, the building's on fire. That's the energy that's happening in our nervous system. And that's why forget about all those compliments, forget about whatever I've done, forget about my strengths. The building's on fire. We gotta fix this. And that's what it feels like. And whether we can fix it or we go hustle to try it, and if we can't, we just spin on it for hours and feel bad and feel hurt and feel angry. Because ultimately it comes back to, it is not okay for someone to dislike me, right? That's the whole origin of this problem in this list is I need you to like me because it's not okay if you don't like me. So that's why the criticism can just throw you for a loop. Sign number 7 that you need people to like you too much is you feel like it's a performance versus connection when you're around people. And so when you walk away after an interaction, a meeting, a social event, instead of feeling a glow or a warmth, you kind of just feel relief, like you got through it. And maybe it felt nice, like, Okay, that was— that went pretty good. That went pretty good. But it was more like, yeah, yeah, I'd give that an 8.5 out of 10. That, you know, you got it, you did well on the paper kind of thing. As opposed to when it's real connection, real authentic intimate human to human, you're seen and you're known for who you are and you see and know them. That's real connection. It's a very different game than the nice pretending and playing like we're in connection. You leave feeling full in your heart and it feels good. It's very different than this kind of relief-based, I made it through. And you know the difference because when you go back in that interaction again, do you feel anxiety? I hear this all the time. It's like, well, the first date went well, I'm terrified about the second one, right? It's like, I gotta go really over the top, I gotta be awesome on that one. And that's a sign that you're in performance mode. And that is one of the biggest ways that people keep the niceness going, is they just keep being who they're supposed to be, keep smiling, keep nodding, keep pleasing, keep accommodating, keep saying yes, and they never get to feel Deeply seen, deeply known. They never get to relax or settle into connections and relationships. So how many of these are you resonating with? Are you seeing yourself in these situations and which ones? And you might be wondering like, this is a lot of my life. I certainly was really a nice person. Like I'd say all 7, probably more. That's because they're all just signs of the same root cause. And the root cause, you might say, yeah, the root cause is needing to be liked. You already said that. Well, really the root cause is your nervous system below the level of your conscious mind. Your body, your heart, your intestines, everything, your spinal cord, that's your nervous system. Your brain body is under a sense of threat or danger when someone doesn't like you. That is the real origin. And that is actually good news. As bad as that might sound, it's good news because our body can be retrained. Our perspective can shift when you really get on a deep fundamental level that the, the way out of this, if you're wondering what it is and why this list is not depressing but liberating, is because the— when you get to a place, not just in your mind intellectually but in your body, that says, I prefer to be liked, of course, and if this person is upset with me or criticizes me or disapproves of me or doesn't like me, I'll be okay. That's okay too. And that, that statement, that, that space that you create for you and for them is the beginning of a whole different life. I know that can sound dramatic Dramatic. But if you've been on this journey at all with me, I know this personally from my experience, it is a whole different experience of life. It might look like a different life, like different work, different relationships, different everything, or it could look the same. You're still with the same spouse, or you're still doing the same job, but your experience day to day of life is radically different. And if you want to be free from this, not just know you can just recite the 7 ways that you're overcommitted to making people like you, but you really want to shift this, that's the goal here, right? And I want you to go further with this. In fact, the first step would just be find out which approval type you're running. I have a 2-minute quiz you can take. Go to my website, draziz.com. You would take that quiz. There's a deeper training on what are the 3 steps to actually fundamentally change that in your nervous system. So if you recognize yourself in these symptoms, that is the next step that will set you free. It's absolutely complimentary for you. You can go further with that training if you'd like. And I also work with people on a deeper level in a mastermind program and one-on-one coaching to make these shifts Not just intellectual, but truly a different experience of life. So if you're drawn further, I would love to get to know you and find out your experience, your journey. And just know this: you might not see it now, but I was so deep in a cage of niceness and people pleasing and all these seven signs and more. And now when I read them, I mean, look, I'm not beyond all that and and perfect and never do those things. They'll come up. I just give the example of being with my family over the last you know weekend or two, but. But most of these, I'll say, no, I left the conversation saying what I wanted to say and it doesn't bother me anymore. And just that one shift is extraordinary. I can't tell you how much suffering I would have replaying conversations in my head for weeks or months afterwards, or the resentment. I used to live in like constant resentment and I was such a nice person, I couldn't even let myself feel it. So I just felt horrible body pain, which is a whole nother story. You can find out if you want to go back through the annals of my podcast and listen to some of those. But the, the purpose here is for you to realize that this, as long as this has been going, is a fundamentally changeable pattern. And I would absolutely love to support you in that. So share down below what you're finding most valuable. And until we speak again, may you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.