Working on People Pleasing

[Master in Training]

Hi all - I am working on being less of a people pleaser. I've actually made a lot of progress over the last couple of years, but still have a lot of work to do. I have some ideas of how to practically work on this:

- I want to forcefully put myself around people that I know have a hold on me, that have the power to make me feel weak and not speak my mind. This could be frustrating, but it is a form of exposure therapy, and I'm thinking that if I do this consciously, I will gain insights regarding my own psyche during these exchanges. 

- Increasing the respect that I have for myself by tackling goals and objectives in life. You stick up for yourself because you have self-respect for yourself. This requires you to be proud of your own accomplishments

- Work out, get bigger. I've always been a small dude, and I think that this makes me cower when facing up against someone much bigger than me. 

Any other advice that anyone can give me would be greatly appreciated, thank you. 

[bliss54]

I struggle with this aswell, i'm pretty sure the root is living with our parents but I can't avoid that right now

One activity I am doing is a vlog challenge, where I go to a public place and record myself speaking to my phone talking about anything. Feel the judgement of other people and realize it doesn't matter

[Caoimhin]

Hey, fellow people pleaser! I want to commend you for starting this journey towards self-respect and self-love. It's not an easy task to unwire the people pleasing brain. I think you are starting on the right path. The methods you've come up with yourself are really powerful and if you stick with them you'll keep gaining insights. You're building your self-efficacy, which is huge in this work, and you are trying to observe your people pleasing tendencies in real situations, which is really powerful and direct. You might not even need advice, but because you asked, I'd love to offer my two cents and the methods I used to overcome most of my people pleasing. But first let me play devil's advocate...

It makes a lot of sense to want approval from others! Why would we not want that?? We are biologically programmed to want approval; it's essential for basic survival and mental health. Plus, people pleasing says a lot of good things about your character: you care about others, you want a loving respectful relationship with others, you are empathetic, you're kind and polite, etc(actually think about other good reasons to be a people pleaser and write them down). Do you want to give up all those great traits in exchange for whatever is on the other side (people displeasing? sociopathy??)? I hope the answer is no. So my first point of advice is to stop trying to not be a people pleaser. Instead, the goal should be to put your own approval above others. You don't want people to not like you, that is negative motivation and you'll keep backsliding when you get lonely and desperate. Instead, you want to trust that you can handle disapproval and love yourself regardless of what others think or say. This is a better foundation to work from because it is positive rather than negative. It will minimize backsliding because you are growing in self-love rather than shaming and suppressing parts of yourself. The deeper, non-dual insight here is that your relationship to yourself is exactly your relationship to the world, and your relationship to the world is exactly your relationship to yourself. You can keep the good parts of people pleasing by being a nice decent person, you just stop deriving your self worth from it. Here is a list of insights, mental reframes, and techniques that I've used to get over my people pleasing. It's not comprehensive and I invite you to experiment. 

• Stop internalizing others approval. Approval is a two sided coin. We tend to focus on getting rid of negative emotions, and keeping the positive ones. This is what keeps us stuck in the pattern. In order to stop being a people pleaser, let go of the dopamine spike of positive feedback from others. Don't let the opinions of others affect the way you feel about yourself, both positively and negatively. If someone gives you praise say thank you then continue as if it didn't happen.
• Reframe your goals. I relate to wanting to get bigger to build up confidence. I'm a hard gainer and have always been insecure about how skinny I am. Over the years I've put on muscle, and to an extent that made me feel better about myself, but the focus wasn't right and going to the gym became a chore. I was getting fit for approval. If you withhold approval until you reach a goal, you'll never reach your goal. That's because you're not deficient in your body or muscles, you're deficient in self-love. Self-love comes first. I had to reframe my health goals so that the motivation was to be healthy. I'm working out now because I love myself and love the growth I get from facing the challenge. I want to be fit and healthy to get more out of life. Now I don't care how big I get and, counterintuitively, I've been making some impressive gains with less effort.
• Practice self-love. This is the most important and life changing advice here. This is a simple yet powerful technique. Look up Leo's video How to Love Yourself. Don't underestimate this technique. Okay, here it is, look yourself in the eyes and genuinely tell yourself, "I love you exactly the way you are". Do this until you start crying, then go further. This simple technique has changed my life within the first few sessions. Everything else I've said derives from self-love. There is no cure all, except self-love. Ultimately, the only person you've ever wanted/needed love from was yourself. Go straight to the source and you'll never have a people pleasing problem again. 
• Don't give up people pleasing to gain approval. It's tricky how the ego coops this. Most people pleasers decide to give up people pleasing because they realize it is a bad strategy for gaining approval, and at least for me, I wanted to give it up so I could feel more confident and attractive around women. Rewire your brain to have different beliefs and they will inform your behavior. The other way around is just aping confidence without having it. People see through that very quickly, and what's worse, you can start smelling your own BS. The content is different on the surface but the structure of the behavior is exactly the same. Watch Leo's video called Content vs Structure to understand this more. 
• Social exposure. This one is more practical and you've been doing a version of it already, but let's expand on it.

1. Shame attacking exercises: (All credit goes to Dr. Abert Ellis and Dr. David Burns) This exercise is where you purposefully go to a public place and make a fool of yourself. The key here is to do this mindfully and observe how others respond to you. Here is a good list of examples: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=https%3A%2F%2Ffeelinggood.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F01%2FShame-Attackng-v-1.pdf. If you want to learn more, I recommend searching through the Feeling Good Podcast or searching Feelinggood.com. I've done many of these, my favorite one was singing Hark! The Herald Angels Sing in the mall food court in February. It's a very intimidating technique but it will transform your life. The number one rule is to only make a fool of yourself, never insult, hurt, or embarrass someone else.
2. Rejection collection: Again a technique popularized by Dr. Ellis and Dr. Burns when it comes to dating anxiety, but also popularized by Jia Jiang for a more general fear of rejection. This is where you go to random people and ask for something outrageous to get them to say no. The goal is to get rejected. If they say yes, it doesn't count. For me, I went to a bar or club and asked 10 women for their numbers. Again, I want to emphasize that the goal is not to make people feel uncomfortable or insulted, please do it respectfully.  
3. Full disclosure: This is similar to the others. This is where you walk up to strangers(or people close to you) and tell them something you are insecure about sharing with them. You can say something like, "hey, this is random, but I just wanted to tell you that I've been struggling with people pleasing my whole life, but I've been working on it and I'm not ashamed of it anymore". You can say something about your body image, or anything you are insecure about and wouldn't normally be open about sharing. This is also intimidating but very powerful. If you come up with your own disclosure, remember to keep it positive and self-empowering. Don't emotionally burden the other person. Don't bring the mood down lol. 

• Actively try not to impress people. This is good for first dates. It's simple, don't try to impress her. Say unimpressive things. It takes the pressure off.
• Let yourself be imperfect. Again, it's simple. Let yourself be a people pleaser sometime. Accept that some people will still make you feel insecure for now, that's okay, you're growing. Reframe it! People pleasing can be endearing. It does work sometimes. That's why we do it. If it never worked it would have never been reinforced. Going back to self-love! Accept and love yourself exactly the way you are. You're a people pleaser sometimes, love that. You'll find that you stop people pleasing as much when you allow yourself to do it sometimes. This is forgiveness.

Hope this helps and keep the faith!  

[Master in Training]

@Caoimhin Thank you for taking the time to write this up. Lots of great insights. I find the shame attacking exercises most fascinating. I definitely am always trying to "save face" in situations, when I could instead move into the discomfort of making a fool of myself and being okay with it. Very insightful. Much appreciated. 

[Caoimhin]

@Master in Training Of course! Glad to help out! Yeah, the practical exercises are the most exciting and also offer the most immediate results. Let me know how it goes if you try any of them! Good luck