The Power of No: 3 Steps to Stop People Pleasing

This is episode 305 of the Empowered Team podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider.

Welcome. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast. I'm excited to bring this topic to you today because I think it affects all of us in one way or another, either as a recipient or our own behavior. And it is the topic of people pleasing. There's a book called the Disease to Please. It's just fantastic. I really recommend it. And this topic today is going to be about understanding people pleasing, but really how to stop people people pleasing. How to really make this a part of your life in a way that works for you. There's a quote that Tony Robbins said, and he. He actually did this as an example in a live audience presentation. And he had everybody paying attention to this one question. And the question was, ladies, you like to be pleased. Is that correct? And every. All the women put their hands up who like to be pleased. He said, but do a pleaser. And nobody put their hands up. And so for the men in the room, they're like, what the heck? Ladies like to be pleased, but they don't like a pleaser. What's the difference? So today we're going to understand that pleasing behavior that we have as humans. I've done it, you've done it, we've all done it. And how to really stop that people pleasing behavior and why it doesn't work for us. What are these impacts that it has on our lives? So first off, let's take a look at the first steps. Recognizing the behaviors, what are they? They're things like difficulty saying no, agreeing with others to avoid conflict when you may not agree. And there's a past episode that I've recorded called the dirty. Yes, this is several episodes back. However, this one plays into people pleasing. We're going to go a little deeper today because we want to look at the research as to why this is happening and what the impacts are so that we're really, really understanding how powerful it can be when we understand our behavior and can make the differences, make the changes that will have us behave in a way that gets the outcomes we really want instead of doing it to maybe control others or avoid conflict. So difficulty saying no, agreeing with others to avoid conflict over apologizing. Those are people pleasing behaviors. Is this one of yours? Is this someone that you know avoiding expressing true feelings or opinions. That's a big one. What are your true feelings? Or your true opinions, you should be able to express them freely without feeling like you have to agree with others all of the time. Taking on too many responsibilities. This is a symptom of saying yes too many times when it's just too much. Seeking validation and approval from others, ignoring your personal needs and desires. And then also this is stemming from a thought pattern. The thought pattern is a fear of not being approved of, really a fear of rejection and a belief that the self worth is tied to others being pleased or their happiness about you. And at the same time there's anxiety around any sort of conflict or any confrontation. So really thinking, believing or doing anything different than those around you that you might either respect or care about. And then overthinking others perceptions, other people are going to have reactions, thoughts, perceptions, and then overthinking what those could be and adjusting behavior accordingly when you really don't even know what their reactions, actions or their thoughts or their perceptions are about any of it. So there's research around this and I'm really digging into understanding this so that we don't miss what's really going on. Sometimes we're saying that we're being polite or it's nice to be this way to other people, but really it's a disservice to them if they don't know how you really feel. And it's a disservice to you if you're not expressing what you really believe. And so it's not something that really is helping. It's not being polite, it's not being helpful. What it really is doing is causing disconnection instead of real connection. So here's what some of the research says around the prevalence of people pleasing these behaviors are common, especially among individuals with high levels of social anxiety and low self esteem. This was in the Journal of Counseling Psychology. Another research study in Psychological Science indicates that approximately 40% of people exhibit people pleasing behaviors regularly and it's influenced by the desire to be liked and accepted by others. Behavioral indicators. So people who are prone to people pleasing often exhibits high levels of agreeableness, a personality trait characterized by being cooperative, polite and friendly. Who doesn't love the person who's cooperative, polite and friendly? So here's the question I would pose. The question is can we still be perhaps collaborative, polite, friendly and at the same time authentic to our own beliefs and thought systems so that we're not prioritizing with everyone else over ourselves that there's a collaborative effort in the communication? All right. Underlying causes so oftentimes, when I'm coaching. We're not going to the causal zone, but oftentimes we are going to the causal zone. I want to share this part because this might be the aha moment for you to go, oh my goodness. That's why I tend to people please in that area of life, but not in that area of life. So some areas, some context maybe in your work environment you tend to be more in that people pleasing behavior, whereas in the home environment you feel freely expressive, you are confident and authentic and polite and collaborative, all of the things. And there's nothing really in that people pleasing zone. But in the work environment maybe there is. So this is why I want to point to some of the underlying causes and why it might affect the context that you may people please in. So childhood experiences, if you had overly critical or demanding parents, that could tend to promote the people pleasing behaviors. Conditional love and acceptance. So if you were. We call it horse trading where it's a transactional version of love. A child is taught that they will receive love if they behave a certain way or if they do certain things and then also early responsibilities and expectations. That was definitely, all three of those things were definitely there in my life. And so I know that those are some of the causes for me to have some of the people pleasing behaviors. And what I've discovered over time and over a lot of hard lessons that they just don't work for me anymore, they are not something that I'm interested in. I'm interested in authentic and assertive communication that serves all parties and I'm not willing to pretend to be someone that I'm not in order to please somebody else. Psychological factors. So these are some of the psychological factors that contribute to people pleasing and their low self esteem, fear of rejection or abandonment, perfectionism and codependency where that partner or that co worker, their happiness is what's going to contribute to our happiness. Now that codependency is, is when it. It's when it's detrimental to the relationship or detrimental to one individual, that's when it's really in that codependency world. And I say this not as a psychologist or a psychiatrist or anything along those lines. I am a strategist, a life strategist, a coach. And so these are just some of the informational bits that I can use to help you. Although I'm not diagnosing anything or sharing anything as a psychologist. Another one is societal and cultural influences. So gender roles. We have a society that expects women to behave certain ways and men to behave certain ways. And that may not be true to that individual's nature, no matter what society says. And realize that I'm diving into this research because I like to know what has been studied, what the research shows, not just my personal experience or the many, many experiences of my clients, but rather what does, what does the research say about this situation so that we can gain further insights, not just gender roles in society, but cultural norms valuing harmony over individual expression. Now I get it. We live in groups, we live in families, we live and we work with other people. Individual expression only goes so far when there has to be some level of collaboration and work with a group. However. However, if we're constantly putting our individual expression behind someone else or behind the group, and we're behaving in a way that's inauthentic, it has a cost. And that's what's important to understand so that we can be as effective as we can in that collaborative communication. So I'll give a couple bits of information here from the research in. This is old research. Back in the 60s in developmental psychology, studies suggested that children who grow up with critical or demanding parents often develop those people pleasing behaviors as a coping mechanism. So if you're criticizing yourself for some of the things that you're doing, remember that this was a way for a child to survive when they felt that they weren't doing anything right for a way for them to survive when they feel that they need their love, the love from their parents in order to survive. So it's an important thing to understand that even though you may not like the behavior now, or it may not be working in certain circumstances to realize that it came from a place that was very needed at a time in a young child's life. That's typically where it's coming from. And attachment theory, and this is again, research from the 60s shows that individuals with insecure attachment styles are more likely to engage in people pleasing behaviors, to seek, seek validation and to secure a relationship. And then once that relationship is secured, you can imagine what some of the fallout is after when some more authentic behavior starts emerging. So it can be very problematic. And it's linked with low self esteem as well as perfectionism and fear of failure. So what are the impacts? Because we want to get to how we can stop this people pleasing behavior. But some of you may be thinking, like myself, I was thinking, wait a second, I love to help people. I love when they're pleased with what I've supported them with. I love making a difference for other people. And that's where I had to make a real distinction to understand that positive impact and making a positive difference for other people is not dependent on them liking me. It's also not dependent on me pleasing them. I can still have a positive impact and do what I'm meant to do and a purpose in my life and be fully self expressed and not be stepping into behavior that values their opinion more than my own or values their opinion or them more than myself. So this is where the impacts when someone continually tries to serve someone else in a way that's only focused on on pleasing them, then there is the impact of burnout and stress. And that's one of the ways that highlighted for me that whoa, I didn't think I was a people pleaser, I thought I was serving people. But that was one of the areas that I realized that I had burnout, I had stress, and yet here I was living into my purpose. But I realized that some of the behavior wasn't about serving someone else and taking care of myself at the same time. It was leaning more heavily to pleasing someone else and then over pleasing or over performing because that's where I was trying to derive some worth in my life. And once I got real and once I got authentic and once I got assertive and very self expressed, I realized that oh, they can take me or leave me. I'm not going to bend and contort in order for them to accept me. If they don't accept me, they don't accept me. I'm still going to be serving people to the best of my ability, but not trying to become what they want me to be. So that's the distinction that I really discovered for myself. But the impact, as I say, burnout and stress. Here are some of the other impacts. Resentment, frustration, loss of personal identity. Why would you lose your personal identity? Because you're contorting and changing yourself in order to please the other person to literally become who they want you to be. And that's where the loss of personal identity comes in. Decreased self esteem. There's also professional impacts as well because this behavior really goes into the workforce and it's over commitment with reduced productivity. When somebody is over committing they can't possibly fulfill on the things that they need to get done. That's where the reduced productivity comes in. Lack of recognition for personal contributions, difficulty in career advancement, strained professional relationships and difficulty or also associated with diminished self esteem along with the identity loss. And this is where the research points it's occupational health psychology found that individuals who constantly Prioritize others needs over their own experience. High level of emote, higher levels of emotional exhaustion. And you can feel this as I'm saying this and I'm sure that you know of a situation. I'm going to give you a couple of examples as well. The Journal of Applied Psychology showed that people pleasers are more likely to experience role overload and decrease job satisfaction due to their inability to set boundaries and decline additional responsibilities. I want you to really hear that one again. This was published in 2005 in the journal of Applied Psychology. People pleasers are more likely to experience role overload and decrease job satisfaction due to their inability to set boundaries and inability to decline additional responsibilities in the work environment. You know the person who's most likely to say yes. And then you go to that person and have say yes. And then you wonder why they can't quite complete on the other tasks that were there. This is a common thing and it builds resentment in them, but resentment in the people who are expecting the performance, expecting the productivity. This is a problem in work environments. And if you hear that, that role overload also decrease job satisfaction. If you have employees who have role overload and decreased job satisfaction, but they're constantly saying yes, help other people, but to the detriment of the role, to the detriment of the productivity, to the detriment of the job satisfaction, it's not a good thing to have. It's lovely to have that employee that seems to be saying yes to all the things and overdoing all the things, but it ends up costing them and costing you if you are employing them. So be very careful that they can communicate. Teach your employees to communicate back. What's, what's in their realm of ability, what's in their realm of preference, doesn't mean they're going to always have the things that they prefer, but it does mean that they can express that. So you understand and they understand what is within their role, what boundaries need to be set. People pleasers often face difficulties in career advancement simply because their efforts are undervalued. They're constantly saying yes, they're constantly trying to please and they're not holding their own to really authentically show where their value is in the work that they've put in, in what they've contributed. In other words, sometimes their efforts are often being taken advantage of by other people. And that happened to me in the workforce as well. I was, the work that I had done was being, was being, the credit was being taken by other people. And then so what Happens when someone's perceived their efforts are undervalued. They be they're perceived as lacking in assertive assertiveness and leadership qualities. That's the impact. They don't advance. They don't advance as frequently. That was shown in in the A study in Leadership and Organizational development journal in 2010. So I want to run by just an example because you might be wondering well what does this look like in real life? And this is where the person might be planning an event and someone makes that last minute request and the group decides to do whatever and they volunteer to help out with all the things but then the cost is is that they didn't follow through with what they really wanted to do for themselves. This is a scenario let's call this person Matt. And Matt is a 50 year old high school teacher, very busy in that role but also extremely heavily involved in their community. Loves to give back, loves to help out. So one Saturday Matt is in the yard and Matt's neighbor Mrs. Thompson comes and says hey, can you help with this charity event? And Matt who loves to be involved with the community. What does Matt want to do? Say yes. However, Matt already has plans to spend the day with his wife Susan who has been feeling neglected due to his very busy schedule. So what does this look like? Despite his plans, Matt agrees to help. Thinking it would be rude to decline Mrs. Thompson, he spends the entire day at the charity event managing logistics and ensuring everything runs smoothly. Susan, his wife, spends the day alone, feeling the hurt that was their day to spend time together. That evening when Matt returns home, Susan expresses her frustration. Matt feels guilty and apologizes. Deep down he knows that his inability to he realizes that his people pleasing is not only affecting him but also the people he cares about the most. How now I describe this scenario because it's been one that I see in my clients. It's been one in my personal life. I've experienced myself and it's one that I'm certain that there's something similar that's happened to you. And the problem comes in, in that we were never taught how to value ourselves enough to learn how to say no, learn how to set boundaries, to learn how to communicate with assertiveness that still values ourselves and the other person simultaneously. So what does that look like? Let's take a look at this. We want to do three things, three main things that are going to make a real big difference in stopping the people pleasing behavior so that we have the power of no. So we have the power of our own authenticness and value that we're putting out in the world instead of being undervalued because we're constantly saying yes in a way that doesn't show who we really are. So the number one is assertive communication. I know I've pointed to this already in this podcast. However, assertive communication is so vital. Now what this looks like, I'm going to give you four steps. We've talked about this in communication steps in, in previous episodes. We go over this really extensively in our coaching calls, in our mastermind, in our team mastermind. So some of these things aren't new, but they're key reminders. So I'm going to go through the four most important ones in this assertiveness. In this assertive communication, the first one is I statements. Use the I statement so that you are reminding yourself about how you feel about something and communicating to another person how you feel about something. So it might sound something like, I feel overwhelmed when I have too many tasks and I really need to focus on my own priorities right now. That would be an example of I statements in assertive communication. That's number one. Number two in assertive communication is clear and direct language. And when I say clear and direct language, I mean emphasizing the importance of not making blanket statements. Oh, I'm really busy. No, be very clear. I am booked from 10am to 11.30am and I won't be able to commit to the thing you're asking me for. Be very clear, very concise. Avoid using vague expressions. That ensures that the message is more clearly understood. That's number two in assertive communication. Number three, we're going to go with the body language. This one. You've heard the statement that body language is more important than what's actually said. Well, that's context dependent. It's not, it's. That's not exactly what the research shows. However, body language is extremely important. And how we show up with our bodies, how we lean, how we should hold our posture, all of those things communicate what we really mean. So this is something we want to maintain eye contact. We want to make sure that we are holding a strong presence. Whatever that looks like for you is authentic to you, specific to you. So make sure that you're doing this in a way that doesn't feel awkward or, or inauthentic to you. We want a calm tone of voice with that body language. The calm tone of voice expresses that you are clear, you are certain in what you are expressing verbally. So that's. Number three is the body language. Number four is Active listening. We've talked a lot about active listening skills, and this one involves paying full attention to the speaker, acknowledging their message, responding thoughtfully. I want to emphasize this in that a lot of time people who are pleasing or going into that people pleasing behavior believe that they, if they are listening and active listening for the other person, that's part of people pleasing behavior. And it's not. It's not at all. Being an active listener and an assertive communicator is part of amazing communication. It's part of the foundation for incredible collaboration. So being that, that authentic, that active listener that allows you to really understand what their needs are, if you really understand their needs, then your communication can reflect that. And that's the biggest thing that you can do, especially if you're positioning to say no to something. So that's assertive communication. The next one is practice saying no. We, instead of saying no, oftentimes there's a yes and it's a dirty yes. But the other part of what happens if the person doesn't say yes, they just avoid answering and we need to practice saying no. So if we're not going to say yes, and then we just really don't want to say no, then there's this blank space where someone's waiting for an answer and they don't know what it is. So practice saying no, and practice saying no while you've been that active listener. And with that assertive communication, what this can sound like is literally making a scripted response. This is really helpful. Here's an example. I appreciate you thinking of me, but I can't take on any additional tasks at this time. It acknowledges the other person that they've thought of them and clearly, concisely, assertively says, I cannot take on any additional tasks at this time. You can also use some buffer statements. This really helps. I also like to call them bridge statements. It helps cushion the response. Because when you're telling no, one of the reasons we avoid saying no, or we say yes when we really don't mean it, it's because we know it's hard to hear no. And we don't want to have somebody hear no. We don't. We're. We're being really sensitive. In fact, we're being overly sensitive. So one of the gifts that you can do is really create a bridge statement or a buffer statement that helps the no land a little more softly. And this sounds something like, I understand this is really important. However, I must decline to focus on my current commitments. I really appreciate all the work that you've put in. I wish I could be a part of it. I simply can't. When we don't practice things like this, then we often struggle in the moment. So by all means, practice saying no. It is a gift to yourself. It's a gift. The person receiving the no because you're doing the assertive and concise and clear communication. Okay, now we're in a scenario. We've practiced saying no. The last part, the third step of stop people pleasing really is self respect and boundaries. We want to have the boundaries in place and the boundaries look like identifying what you want to have as boundaries. For instance, this might mean that you just don't take on any work after 6pm ever in your life, whether it's at work or on at home. It might mean that you don't speak on the phone after 8pm it might mean that you only dedicate your Saturdays or your Sundays to your family and nothing else. Nothing. And you only dedicate Friday afternoons to your own personal wellness. I don't know. But whatever your boundaries are, you can make some rules around them. But boundaries are not threats. Boundaries are something that when you express them, you express what your actions are for yourself, not to someone else. So what this can look like is you can encourage yourself or your friends to set boundaries in their lives and ultimately reinforce your personal well being when you are setting that boundary. For instance, I need some quiet time in the evenings to unwind, so I won't be available for work calls after 6pm or 8pm, whatever it is for you. But it's your boundary. You get to decide authentically figure out what that number, what that time is for you. Is it 6? Is it 6:30? Is it 7? Is it 8? But hold to it because then you're holding yourself in high regard. You're holding the value for yourself. Enforce the boundary. This is where you get to discuss strategies with another person for how you're going to enforce something. If you're calling me after 8pm, I just won't reply. So don't take that as I'm not interested in what you have to say, but I will get back to you the next day, simple as that. If the behavior continues and they keep calling and calling and calling, I just won't have my phone on. Sorry, that's just the way it is. So I want to remind you about Matt and Matt saying yes to Mrs. Thompson and Matt saying no, ultimately to time with his wife and breaking a promise that he'd made. And in this scenario, if you recall, he helped Mrs. Thompson with the charity and neglected time with his wife. And there's an alternative approach. So let's say she still asks him to help with the charity event. He still loves being involved in the community. He's still a busy professional. He still loves being a husband as well. And he planned to spend time with his wife, Susan. He has an alternative response. He can say something like, I really want to help, but I've already promised my wife that we would spend the day together. Perhaps I can assist with another event in the future. Please ask again. So notice there, there's. There's a buffer or bridge statement, I really want to help. So it expresses that there's some pleasure that they were asked to help Michael, or, sorry, Matt is, is excited that he was asked to help. I really do want to help. I've just made a previous commitment and it's with my wife and I love my wife and I want to be asked again. So it's using that clear and concise communication. It's being assertive. There could, could have been body language used in that. It's an answer of no with some softening to it, with active listening as well, that respects the other person and also expresses a desire to be in the future because this is something that they love to do, but they have a boundary around it. Now look at the outcome here. Mrs. Thompson then understands that Michael's not available. Sorry, Matthew, I keep saying Michael. Michael enjoys a much needed day with Susan, Matthew's wife, and that their relationship ends up being strengthened and maintains a balance with his commitments because he's got a lot of commitments like many of us do. So the point here is that oftentimes we don't speak assertively and we don't say no and we don't honor our previous commitments because we think that we're going to hurt somebody else or we're going to cause a problem. And I give this example and this outcome so that we can really. Outcome that's wonderful is possible and we can follow through, we can make boundaries, we can say no. And it especially works when we've practiced it. So by all means, practice the assertive community, practice even a script to say no, practice ahead of time and also create the boundaries that you know will serve you and protect you in the areas really value, especially with your loved ones, especially with your time, especially with taking care of yourself. Because if you've done that, that empowers you to, to be able to then serve other others better, with more energy, with more authenticity and with clean, clean yeses. You know you're in and you're in and that is living an empowered life. That is how to stop people pleasing. Take the notes. Listen to this again. If this serves you in a way that you think is valuable, by all means share it. If you know somebody who's people pleasing and you know that it's cost them in various way, share this. These are the steps that will really create better outcomes for a more empowered life. That's what I wish for you is your best life, your most empowered life. I hope this serves you today and all week long and in your future. You can keep practicing these steps in order to be your most authentic self. Live your best life. Have a wonderful day and we'll speak with you next time.

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