STOP TRYING TO PLEASE EVERYONE AND MAKE YOURSELF HAPPY

It’s OK to think about your own needs.

WRITER: BRIDGET WEBBER

Are you a people-pleaser? While it’s nice to help, your mission is impossible. You can’t keep everyone happy. Trying will leave you stressed. Stopping will empower you.

What creates a people-pleaser?

You may have learned to over-care as a child. Kids often are assigned roles by parents. One child is pretty, and another funny, caring, and so on. You take your label when you grow up, assuming the role you were given.

On other occasions, kids assume the role of caretaker when someone is ill. They might strengthen many positive traits at the time, like kindness and vigilance. Later, though, they apply what they’ve learned to all situations, trying to take care of everyone they meet with a need.

What’s wrong with caring for others all the time?

Although people desire harmony and strive for convivial relationships when they can, people-pleasers are different. They don’t know when to stop, even when it is detrimental to their own well-being.

Rather than lending a helping hand when people are in need, they try to fulfill every desire. The need never stops, nor does the people-pleaser.

You forget your needs, like relaxing, and then you feel overanxious. You fail to recognize stress-related symptoms and focus on the people around you.

You create such dependence that the ones you help have no confidence in their ability to cope. Since they continue to require attention, you struggle to please, creating an unhealthy pattern.

How to stop

Consider ways you help people that aren’t helpful to their well-being. For instance, letting your elderly neighbor fetch his newspaper might be healthy. He’ll exercise and socialize on the way. At the same time, he’ll realize he is capable.

Also, look at how caring too much for others influences your close relationships. Vow to nurture your special relationships and take care of yourself.

You might also ask a close friend or family member for their perspective and have them suggest ways to change

Consider how you might be stuck in a loop of too much caring and why. Next, take control of your well-being and slow down. Stop taking too much responsibility for others and do for yourself.