Setting Boundaries as a People Pleaser

Learning, learning and more learning is what I've been doing a lot of lately. It gets hard. I know that I'm not the only one of friends and other women who I have come across who deal with people pleasing and deal with setting boundaries. And I think those two kind of go hand in hand. It's something that I'm actively working on. I think when it comes to setting boundaries it gets really hard to set boundaries when you want to constantly please people. I know for me, I constantly want to be in everyone's good graces, I want everyone to like me or everyone to not think ill of me, especially the people that I care about, but even people that I don't even know. People-pleasing is something that we learn as kids and basically we learn it from our parents based on how we were parented and the way we adapted to it. And how we were parented and conditioned chases us into our adult life, and we now are conditioned to act that way or think that way and be that way. So now the work for us is to unlearn that, and that is the current work that I'm doing, and I hope that by talking about it will help you do too.

One of the things I'm realizing is that everyone is not going to like you...... and that's okay! But let me tell you, nine times out of ten most people will think you're completely pleasant. I think we get in our heads so much, and we think "this random person, or this guy I like, or my mom, or my friend" or whomever is judging me, but really what we have to realize is that that judgment is actually coming from ourselves so if we feel like "so and so may be judging me or thinking that I'm like this or that I'm acting wild at this party" or whatever that belief or may be in whatever situation that you're in - it's actually self-judgment. At the end of the day it's only you, and your opinion is the only opinion that really matters right? But we kind of self-project, we project our opinion on to other people. We feel - if we're thinking it, they must be thinking it as well, but that's not the case.

I think that ties into people-pleasing because you can't please everybody and I think taking a radical acceptance to that that approach of like I can't please everybody who I come across I can't please my parents in every situation I can't please my friends and every situation, my spouse, my boyfriend, girlfriend, I can't please them in every situation what I can do is be the best person that I can be, but also learn to set boundaries for myself.

I think when it comes to people pleasing we often abandon ourselves in order to please other people and in turn that only hurts us. I think as women we struggle with it more because we're taught to always be liked, always be pretty, always be put together and be perfect. We have this pressure for perfection as a woman, and so I feel like most women struggle with that people pleasing tendency because setting a boundary comes off as self-fish or mean or ego. Setting a boundary is simply taking care of self, and that's what true self-care really is. Whether that boundary is saying no to going out with your friends if you're super tired and really don't want to go out, but you want to keep the friendship going or you want to please them or they're begging you or something - saying no is such a hard thing to do, but so necessary. I know for me it is still hard to do sometimes, but I've learned to just be like "no I can't, let's make a plan for another time". I give another option as a way to lessen the blow. Learning to say no is powerful.

Setting boundaries will definitely be a learning curve at first, but the more you condition yourself to get comfortable with it, the easier it will be.

I believe in you!