What is people-pleasing and why is it so damn hard to stop?

What Is a People-Pleaser?

In short, a people-pleaser is a person who puts others’ needs ahead of their own, and they do this not wholly from an altruistic place. Rather, people-pleasers are often driven by their own insecurities, and their actions rarely align with their true desires. While people-pleasers may be viewed by others as agreeable, helpful, and kind, people-pleasers often resent their overextended commitments and often feel taken advantage of.

Signs You Might Be a People-Pleaser

There are a number of characteristics that people-pleasers tend to share. Some common people-pleasing behaviors include:

You have a difficult time saying “No“

You are preoccupied with what other people might think.

You feel guilty when you do tell people “No”

You fear that turning people down will make them think you are lazy or selfish.

You agree to things you don’t like or do things you don’t want to do.

You want people to like you and feel that doing things for them will earn their approval.

You’re always telling people you’re sorry.

You take the blame even when something isn’t your fault.

You never have any free time because you are always doing things for other people.

You neglect your own needs in order to do things for others.

You pretend to agree with people even though you feel differently.

Did you know that people-pleasers are also highly intuitive? They tend to be good at tuning in to what others are feeling and are generally empathetic, thoughtful, and caring. In part, this is what makes them so good at people-pleasing. But these positive qualities may also come with a poor self-image, a need to take control, or a tendency to overachieve.

Why is it hard to stop?

Our natural survival tendencies are part of the reasons people-pleasing is hard to stop. The primary purpose of your brain is to keep you alive. Both humans and animals have brains that focus on three simple motivations to increase the odds of survival:

Focus #1: Avoid pain

Focus #2: Seek pleasure

Focus #3: Be efficient and conserve your energy

These three tendencies comprise our brain’s motivational triad. The net result is that we are always driving to do things that won’t hurt us, feel good, and require the least amount of effort. These primary motivations are how we have, historically, survived.

We were motivated to hunt, have sex, and seek warm shelter by our desire for pleasure. We stayed vigilant to avoid any potential danger/pain. We didn’t waste energy lifting weights or running just for the fun of it because we were motivated to conserve our energy. (This is why exercise can feel so daunting until you can start being motivated to pursue the resulting endorphins — it’s your brain’s fault, not yours!)

Now that we have evolved into modern society, the motivations of this primitive brain don’t necessarily “fit” into our society. In fact, those parts of our brains can stunt our development —

The desire to avoid pain will result in you avoiding new experiences or potential risks. This is what drives many of us to avoid conflict by people-pleasing. Furthermore, we often people-please because it’s easier and feels better (in the moment) than saying “No” and potentially damaging the relationship. People-pleasing also gives us that temporary endorphin rush that often arises when we feel needed. But as many of us know, those positive effects are short-lived and quickly spiral into overwhelm, frustration, and resentment.

While we are well aware of the negative effects of people-pleasing, why is it so hard to stop? That one is also attributable to your primitive brain and the drive to be efficient.

Given the chance, your brain will stay on autopilot rethinking the same old thoughts and beliefs you have relied on since childhood. All of those beliefs that formed the basis of people-pleasing — “I can’t say no, people will get mad at me, they will stop giving me work, they will think I’m not a team player, I might get fired, they will judge me, they won’t like me…” — will continue to run on autopilot in the background, driving you to continue to show up and act in the same way, continually recreating the same result. In other words, our brain’s desire to remain efficient will continually remind us why we can’t stop people-pleasing. Our brain’s efficient patterns will keep us sticking to those same old beliefs that created this problem from the outset.

Other Reasons We People-Please

In order to stop being a people-pleaser, it’s important to understand some of the reasons why you might be engaging in this kind of behavior. So what else is driving this tendency? There are a number of factors that might play a role, including:

• Low self-esteem: Sometimes people engage in people-pleasing behavior because they don’t value their own desires and needs. This may be due to a lack of self-confidence which drives a need for external validation where we feel that doing things for others will lead to approval and acceptance.

• Insecurity: In other cases, people might try to please others because they worry that other people won’t like them if they don’t go above and beyond to make them happy.

• Perfectionism: People-pleasers often want others to think and feel about them in a certain way — someone who can do it all seamlessly. That drive for perfection is at odds with setting healthy boundaries and saying “No,” so we fall into a people-pleasing pattern.

• Past experiences: Setting boundaries and using our voices isn’t always well received. If we have painful, difficult, or traumatic experiences around times when we tried to stand up for ourselves, it may also play a role. People who have experienced painful feedback in the past may try to please others and be as agreeable as possible in order to avoid triggering that same behavior in others.

How You Know It’s A Problem

Being kind and altruistic is not necessarily a problem. However, if you are trying to win the approval of others in order to shore up weak self-esteem or if you are pursuing the happiness of others at the expense of your own emotional well-being, you are creating a pattern that will only result in self-destruction.

Side effects of people-pleasing include:

• Anger and frustration. Excessive people-pleasing can often leave us feeling taken advantage of and unimportant. We feel like no one seems to care about our wants and needs, which breeds frustration and resentment.

• Depleted willpower. Devoting all of your energy and mental resources toward making sure that others are happy means you are less likely to have the resolve and willpower to tackle your own goals. This tendency can also create a harmful pattern of self-sacrifice or self-neglect where the people-pleaser resists advocating for themselves.

• Lack of authenticity. People-pleasers often hide their own needs and preferences in order to accommodate other people. This makes us feel like we are living a lie — we become disconnected with our own true wants and needs and sometimes forget them entirely. This inauthenticity also breeds its own form of frustration.

• Relationships suffer. When we don’t share our true feelings and needs, it’s difficult for other people to get to know the real you. Vulnerable honesty is important in any close relationship, but it can feel impossible if the relationship is founded upon people-pleasing.

If you find yourself caught up in people-pleasing tendencies, check out the Lawyer Life Podcast episode on People Pleasing to learn how to deconstruct that pattern. If you are ready to dig in and do the work to stop people-pleasing for good, sign up for a free coaching consult to see what we can do together!

In this particular circumstance, we were discussing a friend whose only contribution to the group had been decades of chaos and destruction. As we lamented the other person’s (obvious) shortcomings, I found myself slipping into a black and white position. I found myself saying that I will never forgive her and I will never move past what has happened.

Later on, I found myself reflecting on this discussion and asking myself whether that positioning was consistent with who I truly wanted to be. Was there a better way to deal with our challenging friend than to simply write her off?

As part of this exploration I started asking myself why I was closing the door on the relationship. I realized that I no longer wanted to give her the gift of my love, compassion, and friendship.

I believed that if I forgave her and loved her despite the past, I would be condoning her past actions and giving her more than she deserved.

I felt righteous in my conclusion and unmoving in my resolve. The idea of showing up with this person in anything other than a suit of armor seemed unfathomable. Give them my heart? No thanks, hippee, move along.

In my deliberations, my mind began to wander and I started to fantasize about an epic showdown with this person, where I would undoubtedly leave them speechless with my righteous and cutting oration! I was fully consumed in an indignant hypothetical battle.

I sat there in silence for quite some time, observing my thoughts and my physical responses. Making note of where my mind ran off to. At the conclusion of it all, I felt terrible. There I was, sitting alone with myself, fists and jaw clenched, poised for a battle that was not coming. I felt miserable and bitter.

Nothing had happened. I haven’t spoken to this person in years and there’s no prospect that I will see her anytime soon. In that very moment, I did not know with certainty what she was doing or how she was feeling but what I did know with absolute certainty was that I was feeling lousy and I wanted to lash out at somebody.

What was this anger getting me?

Absolutely, freaking nothing.

(Okay, it actually just made me more angry and all rage spiral-y.)

Why was I so resistant to showing up with love and compassion for this person? Because I didn’t want her to feel that love and compassion. I didn’t want her to benefit from my willingness to be the “bigger person.”

But that theory and that logic contradicts everything that I stand for. It presumes that I am actually capable of making her feel any particular way and vice versa.

I know that when we show up in love and compassion for other people whether they feel that love and compassion as well is completely outside of our control. They may even receive that compassion with complete disdain and disregard. They may not trust it, they may not believe me, and they may not care how I show up for them. But the critical point here is that when we show up in compassion you feel it. You are the only one who benefits from showing up in that way. So why do we show up in love and compassion for people? Because it feels good FOR US. Because it feels so much better than how I was currently feeling.

Instead of sitting alone in a mental ju jitsu match, clenching my fists and grinding my teeth, I could have been experiencing compassion in that moment. My choice to be angry wasn’t punishing this person who was oblivious and miles and miles away. I was only punishing myself.

“Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things.” Thomas Merton

Choosing compassion instead of white hot rage didn’t mean that I forgave her. It didn’t mean that I wasn’t hurt by her actions. It simply meant that I wasn’t going to dwell on it and be a victim to it. I was going to focus on how to show up in a compassionate manner. I was going to try and see her good qualities just as much as I saw her bad ones. I was going to contemplate clear boundaries with her and give her space to be whomever she wants to be. I was going to stop wishing and hoping she was something different than she was. I was just going to let her be her and stop trying to change her. Not because it gets her anything but because it gets me everything.

Do you have a challenging human in your life that you are tempted to cut out? Is it possible that this person is in your life to teach you something about yourself? Sign up for a free consult and let’s see if there’s another way — a way to evolve.

When we operate from our prefrontal cortex (the grown-up part of our brain that’s good at planning, strategizing, and anticipating challenges) it’s easy for us to see where change needs to happen. It’s easy for us to identify areas of our life where a new boundary would be helpful. We can look at our To Do List and the tasks that we take on and easily come up with things that we could take off our plates. Logically, this all makes sense but executing is where the battleground begins.

Once we’ve started something we have a hard time backing out. Once we’ve developed a pattern of saying “yes” we struggle to develop a new pattern. Even if we know intellectually that a new pattern will benefit everyone in the long run.

When we know that we need more “no” in our life, the only way we are going to get there is if we can deconstruct the rationale that got us to the place of overloaded to begin with. The next time someone asks you to take on an additional project or to sit on an extra board or help them through a problem, whatever it may be, we must pause in those moments and ask ourselves what rationale is driving us to accept these requests. It likely sounds something like this:

I should help

It’s the right thing to do (meaning, if I say “no” I’m not being a good person)

I don’t want to disappoint anyone

If I don’t say “yes” there will be a negative consequence (I won’t get anymore clients, I will lose out on work, people won’t trust me, people won’t like me, etc.)

All of these thoughts are incredibly persuasive in the moment. All of these thoughts are also rooted in fear. We worry that if we don’t help, others will judge us. We worry that others will think we’re not a good person or we’re not a team player. We worry that something bad will happen if we don’t follow through on all of these requests.

Sound familiar? Setting boundaries and time management is a huge part of my work with my clients. If you want to change the way you respond to requests and manage your time, grab a free consult and let’s get to work. You deserve better!

Those fear-based thoughts spring from our fight or flight brain that wants us to continue our usual routine of saying “yes” and chasing the endorphins of people pleasing. When we consider saying “no” and deviating from this pattern, our survival brain goes on the defensive. It starts offering to us all the reasons why this new approach will be catastrophic for our lives and our reputations. Knowing this, we must look at all of those fear-based thoughts and challenge them (using our prefrontal cortex).

I should help.

What does that even mean?! How do you know when you should help?! Who decides? Would everyone agree with that?

When we tell ourselves that we “should” help we often get ourselves into scenarios where we’re overloaded and we do a poor job in the end. In fact, it would be more of a service to the person making the request if we actually didn’t help because it’s possible they would find someone with more capacity who could do a better job. In other words, when you find your brain telling you that you should help the exact opposite is typically true: you should not help. Back away! Let them find someone else who will be more engaged and more available for the task.

It’s the right thing to do.

Again, says who?! What does that even? Is it right to help people when you don’t really want to? Isn’t that just dishonesty in a prettier outfit? Besides, when it comes to the “right thing” to do, shouldn’t your wants, needs, and sanity be the primary driver of those decisions?!

I don’t want to disappoint anyone.

The only way we disappoint people is when we overcommit ourselves, overextend ourselves, and do not show up in the manner that the requestor knows we can provide. When we say “yes” even though we mean “no,” we set ourselves on a clear path to likely disappoint not only the requester but other people who have similar requests already sitting on our plates.

Similarly, when we tell ourselves something bad will happen if we don’t say “yes,” it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. We are likely to take on something that we don’t have capacity for and we do a bad job and create a negative consequence simply by doing a bad job and not being able to show up as our best selves. It’s a lose-lose scenario.

All of these thoughts are red flags that we are setting ourselves up to create the exact opposite result than what we’re wanting. More failure, disappointment, and chaos await us when we allow those thoughts to drive our actions.

Rather than allowing ourselves to be persuaded by these thoughts, we must remain rooted and grounded in our commitment to ourselves, our balance, and our happiness. We must reconnect with our prefrontal cortex that knows we already have enough on our plate, we’re already overextended, and some things just have to start coming off the list. Allow our prefrontal cortex to make those decisions ahead of time and go into the day knowing that any new request will be met with a simple “no”.

That is power.

That is having your own back.

That is putting yourself in a position to show up as your best self every time and ensuring that when people rely on you, you will have the time and energy to rise up and meet those expectations because you’re caring for yourself first.

Photo by Isaiah Rustad on Unsplash

As attorneys, we are hired to advocate for our clients–why do we struggle to advocate for ourselves?

During our lives…

We learn to walk.

We learn to ride bicycles.

We learn to cook for ourselves.

We learn how to navigate new cities.

Our lives contain so many examples of how we have overcome failure to learn new things. Babies fall repeatedly as they learn how to walk. We all had a few bumps and bruises as we learn how to ride a bike without training wheels. I conducted numerous pathetic and indigestible kitchen experiments whilst learning how to cook like my mom. I nearly died the first time I drove in a big city.

When I was in high school, I moved to the state capital to work as a page in the House of Representatives. It was the first time I had lived on my own and the first time I had to learn how to navigate a big city. I remember the first few times I made a wrong turn onto downtown one way streets. Where I came from, we didn’t have one way streets! We barely even had stoplights! I wasn’t used to paying attention to those things and I quickly learned all the new rules that come with inner city driving. I didn’t give up and decide living in the city wasn’t for me. I just did it. I kept trying and learning and not letting the fear about dying in a fiery car crash keep me stuck.

But isn’t everything else in life the same way?

I often find that my clients want to stand up for themselves and advocate for what they want–better balance, more flexibility, different work, a different supervisor, etc. They struggle to work up the courage to show up and ask for what they want because it’s uncomfortable. Sometimes, it’s because they’ve had bad experiences in the past where their honest requests were met with criticism. Whatever the case may be, they struggle with the discomfort of not being good at using their voice in an authentic and vulnerable way.

What we fail to see is that we are not going to be “good” at using our voices right out of the gate.

We are going to make some wrong turns and have some experiences that might feel like driving into oncoming traffic. But that doesn’t mean we have failed. It simply means we are learning something new.

Today, commit to using your voice in a way that is authentic to you–ask for what you want, say what you mean, say “no” when you want to.

It’s not going to feel good.

You’re going to be uncomfortable.

With practice, it will get easier.

Allow yourself opportunities to learn and fine tune that skill so that in the future, when it really matters, you won’t hesitate because it will be as natural as riding a bike (or navigating one way streets).

One of the things I do with my clients is develop a plan and strategize around asking for what they want. We experiment and practice with different methods until we find an approach that works best for them. If you struggle to say “no” or ask for what you really want, invest in developing that talent. Work with me and start living in your voice (schedule a free consultation now and reconnect with your voice and your power).

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Their minds are constantly re-hashing conversations, reconsidering strategies, worrying about what’s in their email.

The build-up of anxieties drives them to obsessively check their emails to see whether they have missed anything or gotten any feedback on their most recent projects.

Every time they check their emails, they are either “rewarded” with radio silence–Wahoo! I can relax for a minute!–or they receive more evidence that they cannot, ever, disconnect–Good thing I checked my email and can respond to this emergency right away!

Over time, this pattern disconnects us from our friends, family, and loved ones and creates an obsessive compulsive relationship with our phones and our jobs.

My clients want to be able to disconnect. They want to be present with their loved ones.

They want to enjoy a nice meal with their spouse and talk about something other than work.

They want to silence the chaos in their minds and focus only on what is happening in that moment.

They want to be able to put down their phones and make time to relax every day.

They know that if they don’t stop this pattern, every relationship outside of work is going to suffer and their mental well-being will erode.

But they BELIEVE they can’t stop. They BELIEVE disconnecting isn’t an option.

Sound familiar? Work with me and learn the foundational steps to protect your well-being and learn how to disconnect.

In order to fully commit to our profession, it means also making a commitment to show up as our best selves. It means investing in rest and life outside of work so that we can be fully engaged when we are working. To do otherwise is to cut our careers off at its knees because what we create is not sustainable.

Obsessive commitment to anything is not sustainable.

Recognize where your life is out of balance and endeavor to find pockets of rest and disconnection. Allow your brain to freak out every time you step away but honor yourself and your long-term wellbeing by making disconnection a priority. It WILL get easier with practice.

Your future self will thank you.

When we don’t practice disconnection and rest, we instead practice NOT disconnecting and NOT slowing down. We strengthen those muscles which ultimately makes any kind of balance even more difficult.

Today, I encourage you to find a pocket of space to reconnect with yourself.

You are not the job.

You are so much more than that.

Spend some time with your real self today. She might have some things to say to you.

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I got in the habit of ignoring most of his calls unless I had the time or was in a good space to chat with him. I would often send him brief follow-up emails —

Saw I missed your call, I’m tied up for most of the day but if you send me a note, I can get back to you between meetings.

Which is really code for: If you’re calling just to chat, I’m busy. If you’re calling for legal support, I’m available. Even when I ignored his calls, I was irritated and distracted afterwards — Why does he DO THAT?! I’m not his buddy, I’m his lawyer!! (But dealing with the peccadillos of other humans is another challenge I had to sort out later on. Another story for another time.)

I didn’t ignore his calls and incessant messaging because I didn’t like him, it was because the calls were unnecessary and inefficient. They interrupted whatever else I was working on and they didn’t further our primary goal which was to GET THE JOB DONE. Usually, he was just calling to vent or talk through something. He liked to work through things verbally. As an introvert, I do not. I believed strongly that by screening his calls, I was allowing myself the opportunity to do a better job than I would if I allowed myself to be constantly interrupted.

After a while, I started to feel guilty about constantly putting him off. My brain was badgering me: He is going to get upset with you…He is going to think you don’t care…He is going to complain about your service…He’s going to say you are always unavailable.

One day, I gave in to those nagging thoughts.

He called me. I declined the call. Then he IM’d me about 5 minutes prior to my next meeting: Give me a call when you have a second. I decided to call him. No, rather, I concluded that I should call him. So, I called him. I called him because I believed that I should and I was irritated about it. When he answered, I instantly regretted it. I was not engaged; I was defensive, abrupt, and annoyed. It was evident. After the call, I felt terrible. I was everything that I was trying not to be in that relationship!

After thinking through the exchange, I realized that acting from “should” never yields me the results that I want. Forcing myself to do things when I’m not in the right mindset, when I’m feeling rushed, or when I’m acting from a negative emotion, never drives me to act in a way that I’m proud of.

Instead, I choose to believe that no one is going to fire me for being busy and I can ask people to interact with me in a way that is most effective and efficient for me (boundaries, anyone?). People might not like this approach and people might get frustrated but I am committed to being available in a manner that allows me to show up at my best and I would rather have people frustrated with my communication approach than be frustrated with me for being a jerk.

I choose to believe that I never have to answer a call if I don’t want to.

I choose to act when I want to and not because I believe I HAVE to.

I choose not to concede my schedule and my time to anyone other than myself.

Feel like your days are at the mercy of someone else? Schedule a free consult and get support to set (and execute) better boundaries.

I anticipated the possibility that he might be put off by this approach so I scheduled regular, brief check-in meetings that provided him an opportunity to talk about whatever was moving him that day and I could anticipate that interruption. After the project concluded, the client raved to everyone in the company and at my firm about our partnership. That’s how it is supposed to work, he told everyone. Not because I was at his beck and call 24/7 but because I put in the work to show up as my best in that relationship despite my discomfort and nagging worries.

It’s not about pushing people away. It’s about honoring yourself and your needs.

It’s about being committed enough to the relationship to be honest in the moment — no, I don’t want to talk right now — so that you can show up as your best in that relationship. It’s about being so committed to the relationship that you are willing to do something unpopular. In the end, it’s about being willing to be your authentic self in all of your relationships and letting go of any other notion of how you are “supposed” to act in relationships.

In sum, when we show up authentically, relationships flourish.

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Saying, “No, ” is always an option available to us to make more time for ourselves. To make time for the things that actually matter to us. So that we can find some space and happiness. We know, logically, that if we want more time, more balance, and more peace, boundaries are part of the deal but we are reluctant to flex those muscles because we fear the consequences.

There is a difference between not knowing how to resolve a problem and being afraid to implement solutions you know exist.

When my clients consider the possibility of not responding to an email at 8:30pm on a Wednesday night, it doesn’t seem like a real option. Their brains tell them that those kinds of boundaries will get them fired, demoted, judged, and “into trouble.”

Possibly.

We set boundaries because we know what is good for us; that doesn’t mean others are going to like it.

But let’s explore that. My clients that are learning to set boundaries and say “no” continue to meet their hourly obligations to the extent those obligations are clear. They continue to do good work, often times even better work. They continue to be a team player. And with these changes their attitude and energy change dramatically as well. Is it reasonable to believe that a firm is going to fire someone performing in this manner simply because they are not willing to be a doormat, on call 24/7? It’s possible. But it’s also possible that the firm will swallow that pill even though they don’t like it.

If this resonates with you, grab a free session and commit today to start living differently.

Furthermore, when we tell ourselves that setting these boundaries, pushing back and saying “no” is going to cause us to get fired, I don’t believe that result differs from the alternative. I work with attorneys all day long, every day. Attorneys who are burnt out and unhappy. Attorneys who have implemented the rage quit or attorneys who are tap dancing on the edge of it. What I submit is this:

If we continue the path that we have historically been on, where we ignore our boundaries and forget how to say “no,” the ultimate result is that we leave. We leave burnt out, unhappy, and disillusioned, believing that practicing law is just not right for us. That path may take several years to trek but ultimately the lack of boundaries ends with a sad exit.

In contrast, we can choose a path where we speak our truth. We’re honest about our availability, we set clear boundaries and make time for what’s really important to us. If that path were to result in us being terminated, we must also ask:

Is that so much worse than the alternative?

How long do you think you could flex those “no” muscles, set boundaries, stand up for yourself, and make more time for what’s really important to you before the firm steps in and decides that they no longer want to employ you? Six months? A year? What would that time be like for you? To have more time, more balance, to have the ability to workout and spend time with your family instead of constantly feeling on the edge and on call. Wouldn’t that six months or one year of balance and peace serve you in a much better manner than those years of burnt out frustration?

The ending is the same most certainly but the person at the end of either of those journeys is absolutely not the same person. And the sacrifices each of them would make during those journeys could not be more different. The choice is yours. What do you have to lose?

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When you get that phone call late at night, you are choosing to value it more than your time at home with your family.  You are choosing to place greater value on not being yelled at than getting a full night sleep.

You are always making choices where to spend your energy.

Your job is not robbing you of the balance you seek. You are opening the doors and burning down all your guard towers. Why then are we so surprised when they keep doing it? You set the precedent by communicating where these types of interactions fall on your list of priorities: right at the top, above all else.

The only person you need to be mad at for constantly pushing your boundaries is you. Other people will not naturally violate our boundaries — they are taught what is acceptable. WE teach them what is acceptable by our actions. When they continually do so, it is only because they have become the monsters WE CREATED.

We’ve all seen those attorneys who just don’t give a F about not responding immediately to calls and emails. Everyone knows it, everyone gossips and gripes about it, and everyone is secretly jealous that they don’t have the guts to do the same. Not only do those attorneys still have a job but they also have all the balance we’ve been craving. People learned not to call them after 6 and deduced that they won’t respond to late night emails unless it’s truly an emergency.

They made a choice about what they valued more — not being gossiped about or having work life balance. For them, having more balance is worth so much more than being gossiped about for not be “responsive” all the time.

They made conscious decisions about their values and where the demands of the job fell with respect to those values. They clearly communicated their values and they stuck to their guns.

It can be as simple as that.

You do not have to respond to every email just because you saw it and just because someone else decided it was an emergency.  Develop the art of cultivating your mail and only responding after hours to true emergencies (here’s a hint: they never are, we’re not ER doctors) or when you REALLY want to.

Humans are creatures of habit. If we allow others to call on us at all hours of the night, they will continue to do so if it yields the result they want. And they will stop if it doesn’t get the result they want.

You are not a victim to others.

You are only a victim to your own choices and luckily for all of us, we can start making better choices. Choices more in tune with our values.

Sick of the constant barrage of emails and phone calls 24/7? Get support figuring out how to chart a new course at work by signing up for a free session.

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Many of the women that I work with suffer from various manifestations of imposter syndrome. Recently, I have noticed that many of my clients “handle” their imposter syndrome by slipping to a persistent helper role.

Imposter syndrome persistently tells us that we are a “fake” and that we will be found out; that eventually everyone will realize that we don’t belong and they will get rid of us. One tendency to combat these fears is to make yourself irreplaceable. For many women, this takes the form of caretaker or helper.

I recently had a client who expressed how important it was to her to always been seen as reliable and someone that others could always count on. She was always offering to support new projects and teams even when she knew that she didn’t have the time or capacity. More often than not, she would come to our sessions operating on fumes. Completely exhausted and frustrated that no one can do anything without her. She was burnt out and wanted to change this pattern.

As we explored her patterns, we came to understand that this was completely a mess of her own making. She consciously took on more than she was able and was reluctant to give up that part of her practice. On the one hand, she knew that it was making her miserable but at the same time, she didn’t want to give up that important position. She didn’t want people to gripe if she said no to work. She didn’t want people to judge her if she scaled back and she imagined a parade of horrible comments she believed her co-workers would make if she stopped helping everyone. She wanted to be needed. She wanted to be an essential player on every team. It made her feel safe and secure.

This is what imposter syndrome does!

It creates patterns of coping with our fears of inadequacy. We craft ways to “cover up” our perceived shortcomings to keep our secret safe. In my client’s instance, she was bending over backwards to be available to anyone for any project, at any moment. She was constantly cancelling personal trips and social gatherings to jump on new projects. It had become part of her persona and it was what made her feel like she belonged–it helped to soothe the fears of inadequacy. It silenced the negative rantings in her head — they couldn’t possibly fire her even if they discovered her inadequacies, too many people NEEDED her!

The patterns that accompany imposter syndrome are not sustainable. It is neither fulfilling nor rewarding to be at everyone’s beck and call. While it filled my client with a momentary sense of pride, more often it made her angry and frustrated. She felt trapped and out of control. She believed she had nowhere to go but to a full-fledged, out-of-nowhere explosive resignation. But in order to avoid that meltdown, my client needed to take a hard look at her helper tendencies and invest in making some changes.

What is it costing you to say yes to work and projects that you really don’t want to do?

What is really motivating you to take on all these things?

What would it get you if you were better able to set boundaries?

What would it be like to be able to unplug and enjoy your personal life?

Changing how we think of ourselves and how we show up in our lives is painful. Facing the fears associated with setting boundaries is hard work — it is FAR easier to just keeping saying yes to every man, woman, child, and dog that want your time and energy. The only way to truly make the shift is to first get really clear on what your current pattern is costing you and what it will cost you in the long-term if you fail to make a change.

Are you sacrificing your personal life and relationships because you are afraid to say “no” at work? What is that costing you?

Some day, you will leave that job and your friends and family will still be there. Your body, your health, your mental well-being will still be with you. Are you investing in those as well? Is your pattern costing you all those things that will remain once this job is done?

Our patterns are persuasive and convincing. It’s easy to believe we are doing the right things. Those tendencies likely created your immediate success, after all. In order to break this cycle, we have to open our eyes and see that these patterns are costing us more than they are getting us. We have to start believing that if we remain in place, we will destroy everything. Because it’s true. We have to see the forest for the trees. We have to do the hard work.

In order to change we have to understand the cost-benefits of staying where we are versus evolving. If you need support deconstructing your current patterns, grab a free session and start re-investing in your own wellbeing. After all, it’s just a job…

“Apologizing when we have done something wrong is a real strength, but compulsive apologizing presents as a weakness at work and in personal relationships.”

I believe that all relationships should be two-sided. A push and pull, yin and yang, ebb and flow: balanced. When we over apologize, we take ownership for things that are not our own. The relationship becomes one-sided, where one person is always in the right and the other is always in the wrong.

What types of relationships fit into that dynamic?

Victim/villain comes to mind…

However you want to characterize it, over apologizing leaves no room for evolution by either party. The victim hones her skills at subservience, silence, and carrying burdens that are not her own. The villain hones her skills at skirting responsibility, blaming others and excuse-making. Both parties lose the opportunity to hone their voice and self-confidence, to develop the skills that accompany a healthy relationship: trust, partnership, humility, honesty, and respect.

Over apologizing is often the easy route. It’s easier to take on all the blame than it is to stand up for yourself. It’s easier to believe that it was all your fault than to examine the things you did right. This victim mentality is pervasive and can seep into all aspects of your life if left unchecked.

So why do we over apologize?

As I mentioned above, the primary reason we do it is that it’s easier. It is the path of least resistance. We don’t want to do the hard thing and speak our truth. We don’t want to make waves. We are biologically programmed to avoid conflict after all!

Therein lies the second reason that we do this: we don’t want the other person to think poorly of us. We don’t want to be seen as a muckraker, argumentative, or god-forbid a human with feelings. Buried deeper within this rationale is that we are trying to control how the other person thinks of us. We want them to like us. We want them to think we are a team player. We have thick skin. We don’t make trouble.

To be clear: We. Are. Being. Manipulative.

Changing what we think, feel, say, and do because we want something to think about us in a certain way is absolutely manipulation in its noblest form.

So not only are we not being authentic by hiding our truth, we are often showing up in a manner than is inconsistent with our values and character. When considered in this light, over apologizing becomes a bit more distasteful.

Further, when we wrongly apologize, we are taking ownership for something. We are implying that there was something overlooked. Something we could have and should have gotten right the first time. Is that true? Could you have foreseen that the client was going to change their mind? That the contractor was going to cancel last minute after you made your husband come home from work for the appointment? Before you consider uttering the words “I’m sorry,” first get clear on what your role was in the “problem.” If there is no clear failure on your behalf — stop talking.

We mustn’t allow ourselves to take ownership for things that are not our own. Rather, we must strive to share the experiences than should be SHARED between all parties. Recognize the discomfort of the situation for all parties but do not apologize for it, as if you created it. Acknowledge that things didn’t go as well as they could have but don’t pretend that the circumstances were masterminded by you and therefore you must apologize.

Sometimes things go wrong. That is life. Unless you are some secret deity, stop taking ownership for it.

Instead of apologizing, try on these options:

Good catch, I hadn’t considered that angle.

Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

Thanks for starting the meeting when my appointment ran long.

Is now a good time to chat? (Instead of “Sorry to bother you…”)

A few things I am taking away from this experience are….

This must be really frustrating for you too.

I can understand why you might be angry about this.

I would like to add… (Instead of “I’m sorry but…”)

Wow, this is really frustrating.

I appreciate your perspective, but I don’t understand why…

Whoops!

Use I’m sorry only if you have truly done something wrong that falls squarely on your shoulders.

And, most importantly, only use it when you really mean it. “I’m sorry” should be a phrase that, when it comes out of your mouth, others appreciate it and know it is genuine because it is not something you throw around lightly.

Chronic over apologizer? If the above concepts make you uncomfortable, grab a free session and start trimming “I’m sorry” out of your standard vocabulary.

Photo by Laura Seaman on Unsplash