13 Things Mentally Strong People Don\'t Do: Take Back Your Power, Embrace Change, Face Your Fears, and Train Your Brain for Happiness and Success pdfdrive com

PEOPLE PLEASING DAMAGES RELATIONSHIPS
Angela didn’t try to please everyone in her life, just the men she dated. If she
was on a date with a man who said he liked women with a sense of humor, she’d
make a few extra jokes. If she was on a date with a man who said he liked
spontaneous women, she’d tell him all about the last-minute trip to France she
took last summer. If, however, another man said he liked smart women, she’d
talk about that same trip to France but this time she’d say she went because she
wanted to view fine art.
Angela did whatever she could to try to make herself appear more attractive to
whomever she was dating. She felt that if she said enough things that were
pleasing to her date, she’d get to go on a second date. She didn’t think about the
long-term consequences of her ever-changing personality. Eventually, she wasn’t
able to please anyone quite enough to stay with her for the long haul.
No respectable man wanted to date a shell of a woman who behaved like a
puppet. In fact, a lot of her dates got annoyed fairly quickly by Angela because
she constantly agreed with everything they said. Her attempts to say whatever
they wanted to hear were usually pretty transparent.
Angela feared that if she disagreed with a date or held an opposing opinion, he
would no longer be interested in her, which reveals her lack of trust. You won’t
keep me around unless I do what you want, she thought. If you truly care about
someone and you believe the person cares about you, you’d have to be willing to
tell that individual the truth. You recognize that even if that person doesn’t like
something you say or do, he or she can still enjoy your company.
It’s an impossible feat to always make everyone around you happy. Perhaps

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your father-in-law asks you to help him on a project. But if you leave to go help
him, your spouse will get angry because you had already made plans to have
lunch together. When faced with such a decision, people pleasers will often
choose to risk not pleasing the person closest to them. They know that their
spouse will eventually get over being offended. Unfortunately, this leaves the
people you love the most feeling hurt or angry. Shouldn’t we do the opposite?
Shouldn’t we work the hardest on the most intimate and special relationships?
Ever met someone who behaves like a martyr? Such individuals’ attempts to
please others actually becomes a turnoff. They’re constantly saying things like “I
do everything around here” or “If I don’t do it, no one will.” Martyrs risk
becoming angry, bitter people, as their attempts to make others happy backfire.
Whether you’re guilty of thinking you’re a martyr, or you simply struggle to
say no when you fear you’ll hurt someone’s feelings, there aren’t any guarantees
people will like you just because you try to please them. Instead, they may
simply start taking advantage of you without forming a deeper relationship based
on trust and mutual respect.
PEOPLE PLEASERS LOSE SIGHT OF THEIR VALUES
Bronnie Ware, an Australian nurse who spent many years working with patients
who were dying, cites people pleasing as one of the biggest regrets she heard her
patients share on their deathbeds. In her book, The Top Five Regrets of the
Dying, she explains how dying people often said they wished they had lived a
more authentic life. Instead of dressing, acting, and speaking in a manner that
was pleasing to others, they’d wished they’d been true to themselves.
There’s even research published in the Journal of Social and Clinical
Psychology that shows people pleasers in a study tended to eat more when they
thought it would make others around them happier. They were willing to
sabotage their own health if they thought it would help the other people in the
room even though they had no evidence that the people around them were even
paying attention to what they were eating.
Pleasing people will hold you back from reaching your full potential.
Although people pleasers want to be liked, they often don’t want to be the best at
anything because they fear being held in too high regard could make other

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people feel bad. Someone may not get that promotion at work because he
doesn’t feel comfortable taking credit for the work he’s done. Or a woman who
gets approached by an attractive man may choose not to reciprocate friendly
conversation because she doesn’t want to make her friend feel bad that he didn’t
start talking to her first.
No matter what your values are, you’ll stop behaving according to them if
you’re focused primarily on pleasing other people. You’ll quickly lose sight of
doing what’s right and try only to do what makes other people happy. Just
because it’s a popular choice doesn’t mean it’s the right choice.