How to Stop Being a People-Pleaser

Imagine that your sister calls out of the blue and announces, “We’re visiting you this weekend. Get the guest room ready!”

You mentally go through the many reasons this is a terrible idea: Your spouse has been sick, your kids have back-to-back sporting events, and you’re hosting your book club on Saturday night. Still, you respond brightly, “Great! We can’t wait to see you!”

You spend the weekend stressed, ­exhausted, and resentful. Your guests spend the weekend wondering why you’re aloof, exhausted, and grumpy. They leave confused.

You were trying to be generous and kind, but you ended up feeling cranky and hostile.

This is often how it goes with people-pleasing.

“When we people-please, we’re trying to be nice,” says Melissa Urban, author of The Book of Boundaries: Set the Limits That Will Set You Free. “Though our intentions are good, being ‘nice’ often hurts our relationships.”

People-pleasing can be so subtle — or so habitual — that you don’t even recognize it in yourself. Maybe you let your friends do all the talking every time you hang out, or you routinely claim to be neutral about where to get dinner when you genuinely want Tex-Mex.

Or you’re so afraid to offend that when someone hurts your feelings, you stay silent about it — or go out of your way to apologize to them.

All this focus on the wants and needs of others almost inevitably leads to exhaustion, disconnec­tion, and bitterness on your part. Fortunately, with time and effort, it’s possible to unlearn the people-pleasing habit.

The High Price of People-Pleasing

It might look like generosity, but the reality of people-pleasing is less sanguine. When you reflexively agree to things you can’t really afford or obligations you can’t easily honor, it takes a toll on your time, energy, and wallet.

There’s also a psychic toll. Ignoring your own wants and needs can leave you feeling hollow, anxious, resentful, and sad. “When we’re not being authentic to ourselves, when our self has no expression, that’s basically what depression is,” says trauma therapist Jane McCampbell Stuart, MA, LMFT, CPCC.

The more habitual concessions you make to others, the more your authentic self will start to recede into the background. This can lead to isolation and loneliness.

Chronic people-pleasers are also hard to read. “The other person ends up feeling exhausted and overwhelmed because they’re constantly having to do the work of reaching you and decoding what you’re saying,” says ­McCampbell Stuart. “They’re always second guessing: ‘Is this really you? Or are you just trying to make me happy?’

“It’s a lot of work to be in a relationship with somebody who’s not holding their own weight in the world.”

On top of that, ­McCampbell Stuart adds, people who minimize their own needs and make themselves small often attract others who take advantage of them. “That’s when we get those repeated relationships where people are not taken care of, not treated very well.”

The Roots of People-Pleasing

The tendency to people-please usually begins in childhood, often very innocently. If you learn that saying yes — even when you don’t mean it — earns you affection or praise, you’re apt to keep up the behavior. It feels good to please others.

In other cases, people-pleasing may start as a coping mechanism; it helps you feel safe when the world around you feels scary. “Many of us learn to people-please in childhood in order to get safety or affection from preoccupied, unavailable, or abusive caregivers,” explains life coach Hailey Magee in her book, Stop People Pleasing and Find Your Power.

When a childhood behavior gains attention and support from caregivers, it makes perfect sense that the child’s psyche would pack it up and take it into adulthood. “We don’t want to shame anybody for people-pleasing,” says McCampbell Stuart. “People come by the behavior really, really honestly.”

Children are dependent on their caregivers for everything — food, care, shelter, and affection. “If we have parents who are overwhelmed or angry or unable to regulate their own emotions, that puts us in danger. We run the risk of not getting those needs met,” she explains. “So, in order to get our needs met and keep ourselves safe, we learn how to tiptoe around our caregivers. We become experts at not tripping their emotions or being a burden.”

Caregivers who struggle with addiction or who are caring for someone with addiction can add fuel to the fire. “Children learn that tending to the addict is their primary responsibility, and they don’t receive the support they need to identify or communicate their own basic feelings and needs,” writes Magee.

Cultural expectations can also lead to people-pleasing. Women are routinely socialized to put the wants and needs of others first, while men are usually conditioned to hide their emotions at the risk of seeming needy.

People from marginalized communities, meanwhile, may adopt people-pleasing behaviors to offset potential danger. “When acts of violence and harassment against members of your identity group are commonplace, becoming as small and unnoticeable as possible is a survival strategy,” Magee notes.

Traumatic experiences them­selves can trigger people-pleasing. In fact, some experts have identified exceedingly deferential behavior — dubbed “fawning” — as a fourth trauma response, after fight, flee, and freeze. “When threatened, a person with the fawn response will try to please, gratify, or accommodate the source of threat instead of fighting back, running away, or shutting down,” Magee explains.

Finding the Line

The very concept of people-pleasing raises questions about what it means to be in relationships. Where does healthy kindness end and people-pleasing begin?

The difference between the two is in your motivations, explains Magee. People-pleasing behaviors are typically not born out of kindness but out of four decidedly less prosocial feelings: obligation (“I’m doing this because it’s expected of me, and I’ll feel guilty if I don’t”); transaction (“I’m doing this so you will do something similar for me”); compulsion (“I’m doing this because I’ve always done this”); or loss aversion (“I’m doing this so you’ll still love me/let me be part of the group/not reject me”).

“For many, this pattern is based upon a covert contract or ­unspoken agreement: ‘I will overgive and tres­pass my own boundaries for you, and in ­return, you will make me feel loved, wanted, and needed,’” Magee notes. “The problem is that others never agreed to this transaction. . . . This transactional mentality imbues our ­relationships with piles of invisible debt.”

An act of healthy kindness feels different. It allows you to satisfy your own needs and enhance the lives of others. It is rooted in goodwill (“I want to do this for you because I care about you”); choice (“I’m choosing to do this”); and abundance (“I can give this to you because my own cup is full”).

“When we give out of kindness, it’s because we could say yes or no, and [we] choose, of our own free will, to say yes,” Magee explains. “We aren’t necessarily expecting anything in return.”

If you’re not sure about your motives, McCampbell Stuart suggests,  check for the telltale sign of people-pleasing: resentment.

“Resentment is often the first thing people-pleasers start noticing,” she says. “They feel bitter and angry and really ticked off with a person or with the world, but they can’t put their finger on why, and they don’t believe they have the ability to change it.

“But actually, you do. If you notice what you’re feeling resentful about, it will point you to your unmet need. And if you start meeting that need for yourself, that can help you to break the people-pleasing habit.”

Getting Real

Giving up the people-pleasing habit takes time. You’re unlearning a behavior that’s served you in the past and may have become second nature. But the rewards are myriad. Get started on the path to greater integrity and self-care with these strategies.

Look inward. People-pleasers are forever looking outward, having often spent their lives focusing on other people and trying to determine whether they’re safe. This can make it hard to feel one’s own feelings.

“When we people-please, we’re not really in our body,” explains McCampbell Stuart. “We leave our body as we try to manage the other person’s energy.”

Moving beyond people-pleasing starts by turning your focus inward, she adds. This can feel unsafe at first, and unwise — like driving with your eyes closed. Still, looking inward is what allows you to begin using your own feelings to guide your decisions.

We all have an internal guidance system; yours can help you find your way without constantly checking in with others.

Cultivate feelings of safety. The brain is a predictive organ. If you’ve experienced threatening situations before, your brain is more likely to anticipate threats in your environment — even if you’re not in immediate danger.

You can overcome this hypervigilance by making the automatic process of scanning for danger more explicit, says McCampbell Stuart. Sit for a moment, scan your environment, then ask yourself: Is there anything here right now that’s life-threatening or dangerous? Is there a bear coming to get me? Is there an angry person coming at me? No? OK, then right now, in this second, I’m OK.

This can delay the fear response. It trains you not to automatically fear the person walking toward you, which frees you to see them as an equal rather than a threat. “We give ourselves a different experience,” she says.

Learn your own wants and needs. It sounds so simple — know what you want and need.  But for those accustomed to putting others’ needs first, it can be shockingly difficult. Asking someone prone to people-pleasing what they need right now can legitimately stump them.

To get in touch with your core needs and preferences, begin paying attention to your body. It can be easier to identify physical needs than emotional and social ones — at least at first. Ask yourself simple questions: Am I tired? Am I thirsty? Am I hungry? Am I restless?

“Meeting our basic physical needs may seem like a small thing, but by tending to these needs time and time again, we slowly increase our sense of self-trust,” Magee explains.

Soon you can expand your awareness to needs that are more emotional or social, like relaxation, support, creativity, community, and solitude.

Tend to your self-esteem. Low self-esteem is another barrier to effectively communicating your wants and needs. To express those wants and needs, you must believe that you deserve to occupy some space in the world. If low self-regard is a problem for you, consider working with a therapist who can help you see yourself more accurately.

Change your self-talk. Start telling yourself you’re someone who can set boundaries and advocate for what you want, and it will become easier to be that person.

“Breaking the people-pleasing pattern requires us to update our self-concept,” notes Magee. “Someone who believes they’re a slacker will avoid studying for a test, and someone who believes they’re a people-pleaser will avoid setting boundaries or speaking up.” (Learn how to soften self-criticism and change your internal dialogue for the better at “6 Strategies to Improve Your Self-Talk.“)

Address anxiety. People with higher levels of anxiety are more sensitive to other people, worry more about others’ reactions, spend a lot of time trying to mind-read, and tend to crave attention and approval, writes Kathleen Smith, PhD, LPC, in True to You: A Therapist’s Guide to Stop Pleasing Others and Start Being Yourself. So, anything  that helps quiet your anxiety — including therapy, ­exercise, nutritional strategies, and interventions like EMDR and somatic experiencing — can ­reduce a propensity for people-pleasing. (For more on EMDR, visit “How EMDR Helps to Treat Trauma.”)

Pause before you answer. When people-pleasing is your default setting, your instinct is to reflexively agree to any request in the moment. There’s no pause to think, What would make me happy? That’s why waiting a beat before submitting to a request can make all the difference.

“If there’s one tip I could give people-pleasers, it’s to pause before responding automatically,” says Urban. “You deserve happiness just as much as they do.”

This does not require an elaborate explanation, she adds. “If your best friend says, ‘I need you to babysit on Saturday,’ pause and say, ‘I’ll let you know later today if I’m free.’”

You can wait for a moment, an hour, a day, or a week, depending on the situation. Just make sure you pause, Urban says. “Use this time to ask yourself, Do I have the time, energy, and capacity to say yes authentically? Will saying yes lead to resentment, anxiety, frustration, or burnout? What could I say yes to that meets their needs and my own?” (Establish high-integrity relationships and a reputation for trustworthiness by learning how to stay true to your word.)

Set boundaries. People-pleasing may be nice, but setting boundaries is truly kind. Urban explains how this might look in response to your sister’s sur­prise announcement of a visit.

“Being kind means saying, ‘This weekend doesn’t work, but the next weekend and the weekend after that, we’ll all be home and would love to see you,’” she suggests.

This boundary helps ensure your sister’s visit is a success. You’ll be more relaxed and more welcoming, and everyone will have a better time.

Inviting her when you really don’t have time or energy is a recipe for resentment, adds McCampbell Stuart. “Resent­ment tells you that you are not honoring your own needs.”

It also poisons the well of good feelings in a relationship, which is the opposite of the people-pleasing goal. (Try the strategies at “3 Ways to Create Better Boundaries” to help create strong, clear boundaries.)

Get comfortable with disappointment. Setting healthy boundaries and advocating for yourself ­requires ­accepting disappointment from others. Doing so can feel awkward and scary at first, but this will pass.

“When you start setting boundaries, you’re often taking away a privilege the other person was never meant to have, like access to your kids whenever they want, or a built-in babysitter whenever they need one,” says Urban.

If someone is really upset when you say no, it might be worth asking yourself if that relationship is a balanced one. “If someone only likes me because I roll over every time they demand it, is it a healthy ­relationship in the first place?” she asks.

The habit of ­people-pleasing won’t vanish overnight, but it can be unlearned over time. As you become more authentic about what you want and need, you’re likely to feel freer, more alive, and more like yourself. And that is one of the greatest gifts you can give to others — and the world.

This article originally appeared as “Escape From People Pleasing” in the November/December 2025 issue of Experience Life.