How To Stop Being A People Pleaser
The newly sharpened pencil makes a scratching sound against the paper as tiny checkmarks begin to mark their way down the page and inside the empty boxes. The perfectly lined notebook paper has a few crooked, hand-drawn squares with little activity, or no checkmark, giving me the slightest anxiety.
I like all the boxes to be checked.
The checked boxes mean little disappointment and minimum failure. I’ve completed what’s wanted of me. The unchecked boxes mean maximum disappointment and exponential failure- at least in my mind. The empty boxes, I assume, have let someone down- mainly myself.
I live to please people. I’m a people pleaser, well, recovering actually. I frequently find myself wanting everyone to be happy and satisfied, and I’ll do whatever it takes to get them in that place- even at the dispense of my own good.
It’s because of this that I sometimes have an unhealthy tendency to base my actions and decisions on wanting to please someone or myself. In return, it leads to an unhealthy cycle: Emphasis. Expectation. Pressure.
The emphasis on pleasing others leads to unrealistic expectations and the feeling that I can never quite meet that expectation. The expectation leads to feeling pressure to perform better. The pressure gives way to anxiety and is dependent on doing everything how I think others would like it so that they are pleased. The result of the cycle is low self-esteem and feeling like I’ll never be quite good enough to reach the bar I set.
And the cycle repeats.
In the middle of the repeated cycle, I go so far as to drive all of my focus on the task at hand that I’m blinded by my determination. I neglect to enjoy the actual journey I’m on and progress I’m making along the way. Hence, the reason for long lists and checkmarks beside them: A list keeps me more focused and makes me feel more accomplished.
I spend late nights on assignments I still have two weeks left to complete because I want to submit it early and make my professor proud. I write lists planning out details down to the minutes so I can squeeze everything in the day. Any minute not spent working towards one of the tasks, I feel guilty. I overwork, overanalyze, overthink, overachieve.
I’ll do anything to check all the boxes.
Don’t get me wrong, all of these things are great things, minus the “over” part. The pressure I put on myself turns into pressure I assume others have placed on me, which only propels my motivation and determination to stay focused on accomplishing the tasks at hand.
I think it mostly motivates me because this is where I mistakenly put a lot of my identity and find a lot of my value- in what I can accomplish and how well I can please others.
It’s a dangerous slippery slope when I begin daring to believe that my identity and my worth is in something I was never supposed to find it in.
It’s a dangerous slippery slope when I dare to believe that God does the same, too- expects me to check all the boxes to be good. Serve enough, say all the right things, be involved in this and that, do good- when I slip up and fail to check one of those boxes, He thinks less of me. I think we are all prone to that slippery slope.
We assume that because we have a checklist of criteria to meet before we are considered “good enough,” we presume God has a similar looking list. The checked boxes mean we are loved, chosen and adored. The unchecked boxes? Yikes. The unchecked boxes can bring guilt, shame and brokenness in all the ways we weren’t supposed to experience them.
The unchecked boxes have let us down, so we assume they have also let God down. And because we’ve let Him down, He doesn’t accept us, much less love us.
While we do need to live set apart in following Him because we have repented of our sin, this doesn’t mean we will never make a mistake. It’s called experiencing God’s grace.
I am currently studying the book of Galatians in my quiet time where the author, Paul, makes our role as Christians and salvation very clear: We cannot earn God’s love or our salvation through works alone. Rather, salvation is a gift we accept and works come as a result of our faith and This verse stood out to me the most:
“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1).
In this place of pleasing others and living for accomplishments, I find myself chasing expectations that need to be satisfied. I eventually realized these are lies I tell myself when I’m too caught up in what I think is good to listen to what God declares is good.
It’s a lie I tell myself when I believe I’m worth more if I maintain a certain status or achieve a specific goal. Setting goals is a great thing, but we must not become so focused on the goal that we forget the reason for setting the goal in the first place. Stay true to your mission, the heartbeat behind why you do what you do.
It’s a lie I tell myself when I think I can work harder to earn approval. We are all the same in God’s eyes because we were created in His image and shaped for His purpose. We are created to worship and tell others about Him. He created us differently, and that’s what makes us each unique- we bring our own gifts to the table.
It’s a lie I tell myself when I think I can work to earn God’s love. I don’t need to work for it. He sent His Son Jesus to die on a cross because He loves us so much. I can’t do anything to earn His love. He loves me unconditionally.
Galatians 1:10 says, “If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”
When I’m living to please people, I’m not living to please God. I’m selfishly living for my desires, and I’m not living in the full potential Christ has called me to live.
I am unconditionally loved by Him- no matter how many strings I try to attach.
We can let the lists we make guide us, but we cannot allow them to define us.
God doesn’t have a list of standards I need to meet before He loves or accepts me. He takes me as I am- someone who messes up daily and fails continuously. Yet, Jesus still gave His life for me.
Friend, we don’t need to have all our boxes checked perfectly. We don’t need to please anyone to be valued. We don’t need to achieve anything to be loved.
Life is more than making pencil marks in boxes on a list we’re eventually going to throw away and forget. Life is about living in the purpose we have and enjoying the journey. Life is about allowing the checklists to guide us on the path to making HIS name known and experiencing the freedom found in Christ.
That’s something a people-pleasing, achievement-seeking checklist won’t give.
One Comment
Ma
How smart are you???? I’ve been a people pleaser all my life so I know where you are coming from. I wish I had been (was) as wise as you. I could have saved myself a lot of self-disappointment. This is one of your very best.