Why People Pleasing Happens

(And How to Stop Without Feeling Guilty)

A client of mine, let's call her ‘Amy’, sent me a WhatsApp this week that stopped me in my tracks.

Amy has spent months building a business alongside her full-time job. She'd done exactly what I'd encourage anyone to do. She tested her idea, made sure there was demand and gradually built enough confidence to know she wasn't making an impulsive decision. When she finally handed in her notice, it felt like a huge milestone. We'd often talked about Tony Robbins' phrase, "burn the boats." Once she'd made the decision, she wanted to move forwards wholeheartedly rather than leaving herself an easy route back.

Then… her employer asked if she'd stay for three days a week.

She agreed immediately.

A few hours later my phone pinged.

"I woke up in the middle of the night feeling bad that I couldn't prioritise me. I have to breathe and stop needing to answer people without thinking. The action I need to take is to stop, think, digest and then answer. I'm rushing to give people answers that don't suit me. Then I regret it."

I had a feeling it wasn't really about her job.

Amy hadn't changed her mind. She still wanted to leave. She still wanted to build her business. Nothing about her goals had shifted. The only thing that had changed was that somebody else's needs had entered the conversation before she'd given herself the chance to consider her own needs.

A little further down her message she wrote something else that really caught my attention.

"The interesting thing is I thought I was a firm woman."

I think it highlights one of the biggest misconceptions we have about people pleasing.

People often imagine somebody who's shy, lacking confidence or unable to speak up. That's rarely the woman sitting in front of me. The women I coach are often running businesses, leading teams, raising families and making significant decisions every single day. They're capable, intelligent and resilient. Amy had built a business while working full-time and found the courage to hand in her notice. None of that suggests somebody who lacks confidence, yet one unexpected conversation was enough for her to agree to something she didn't actually want before she'd had chance to even process it.

What's interesting is that almost nobody comes into coaching saying, "I think I'm a people pleaser."

They come because they're exhausted. They tell me they're overwhelmed, they can't switch off and they spend far too much time worrying about everyone else. They struggle to say no. They replay conversations in their heads wondering whether they've upset somebody. They feel guilty resting. Some have reached the point where they're beginning to resent the very people they love most, which brings another layer of guilt because that doesn't feel like them either.

People pleasing is rarely the problem they think they're bringing into the room. It's something we gradually uncover together.

As those conversations unfold, I usually notice the same pattern beginning to appear. Somewhere along the way another question has taken over their decision making. Before asking themselves, What do I want?, they've become used to asking, How will this affect everyone else? After years of asking that question first, it becomes so familiar they hardly notice they're doing it. It simply feels like the normal way to make decisions.

Nobody is born that way.

Children are incredibly observant. Long before they understand psychology, they understand relationships. They notice what earns praise, what creates tension and what helps them feel safe. They become remarkably good at adapting to the environment they're growing up in because, quite simply, children do whatever they need to do to feel safe, connected and loved.

If being helpful brings connection, they'll become helpful. If staying agreeable reduces conflict, they'll become agreeable. If reading the room helps them avoid difficult situations, they'll become very good at noticing how everyone else feels.

Those strategies make complete sense when you're a child. The difficulty is that many of us keep using them long, long after we need them.

I've often thought that shame is one of the biggest barriers to changing this pattern.

Women arrive in coaching convinced there's something wrong with them because they can't seem to stop saying yes. They tell themselves they need stronger boundaries or more confidence. Some describe themselves as weak. Others think they're simply too nice. Then we begin talking about where these patterns might have come from and I can almost see the relief on their faces.

Suddenly it makes sense.

Understanding that doesn't excuse every behaviour, but it often explains it. Once women understand why they've spent years putting everybody else first, something softens. They stop seeing themselves as broken and start becoming curious instead. Curiosity is a much kinder place to create change from than criticism ever will be.

One of the things I love most about coaching is watching that shift happen. The question changes from, "What's wrong with me?" to, "Why did I learn to do this?" That one change opens up a completely different conversation.

There's something else I've noticed over the years that I think these women often don't give themselves enough credit for.

The qualities causing them so much frustration are usually the same qualities everybody else admires. They're thoughtful, compassionate, emotionally intelligent and dependable. They're the friend who remembers birthdays, the colleague who notices when somebody's struggling and the business owner who genuinely cares about her clients. They're often the person everyone relies on because they always show up.

None of that needs fixing.

What interests me is the point where caring for everybody else becomes so instinctive that caring for yourself starts to feel unfamiliar.

One of my clients, who I'll call ‘Fay’, explained it in a way I've never forgotten.

Fay runs a successful business. Her clients love working with her, her family know they can rely on her and everybody around her would describe her as generous and dependable. She'd built a life that looked successful from the outside, yet during one of our sessions she looked at me and quietly said,

"I thought being a good person meant doing all of this."

I knew exactly what she meant.

She'd spent years becoming the person everyone appreciated. The one everyone relied on. If someone needed help, she'd help. If there was another job to do, she'd do it. If someone needed another hour, somehow she'd find it. What she'd never really stopped to consider was whether the life she'd created actually worked for her. She'd become so practised at looking after everybody else that she'd almost stopped noticing herself.

The more I coach, the more I find myself wondering whether people pleasing has less to do with saying yes than it does with how women make decisions in the first place.

Amy's WhatsApp brought me back to that thought all over again. She wasn't really telling me about leaving her job. She'd noticed something about the way she was making decisions, and once she'd seen it she couldn't unsee it. She'd become so used to giving people an answer that she'd stopped giving herself time to think, and I don't think that's a small thing. I think it's the point where this whole pattern begins to change.

Looking back, I can see exactly the same pattern from my years as a midwife.

I met thousands of women during one of the biggest transitions of their lives and I was always struck by how naturally they thought about everybody else. They worried about whether their partner was coping, whether their older children felt included and whether they were asking too much of the people around them. Then I'd ask them what they needed and there would often be this little pause while they gathered their thoughts.

I still notice that pause now.

The conversations are about businesses, careers, relationships, ageing parents and teenagers rather than newborn babies, but that little pause hasn't changed. I think they've become so used to thinking about everybody else first that nobody has asked them to stop and think about themselves for a while.

That's usually when I ask a seemingly very simple question...

"When did you decide your needs mattered less than everybody else's?"

I've never had anyone tell me they consciously made that decision.

It seems to happen so gradually that most women don't even notice it while it's happening. Looking after everyone else starts feeling normal. Putting yourself last starts feeling normal too. Eventually it stops feeling like a decision at all and just becomes the way life works.

I think that's why so many women are hard on themselves.

They tell themselves they need better boundaries or more confidence, yet they're trying to change something they've been practising for years. It would be like expecting yourself to drive home a different way one evening after taking the same route every day for twenty years. You probably wouldn't even notice you'd turned left instead of right until you were halfway home.

That's what I found so interesting about Amy's message. She wasn't asking me how to say no to her employer. She'd already realised something much more useful than that. She'd recognised the point where she stopped making a conscious decision and started reacting automatically. Once she'd spotted that, she had something she'd never had before.

She had a choice.

Quite often the answer is still yes. The difference is that it's a considered yes rather than an automatic one.

The difference is that you've had chance to include yourself before you decide.

When I think about the women I've coached over the years, that's probably the biggest change I see. They don't suddenly become different people. They're still kind, thoughtful and generous. They still care deeply about the people around them. What changes is that they slowly stop assuming everyone else should automatically come first. Their own needs find their way back into the conversation, and over time that changes much more than people expect. It changes businesses, relationships, careers and family life because all of those things are shaped by the small decisions we make every day.

One of the reasons I care so much about this work is that I don't think people pleasing only affects the woman who's living it. Part of it is because I'm a coach. Part of it is because I'm a mum.

Almost every woman I meet wants something different for the girls growing up around her. She wants them to trust themselves. She wants them to know they can speak up, have opinions, set boundaries and build lives that feel right for them. She doesn't want them reaching their forties or fifties before they finally feel they've earned permission to put themselves somewhere on their own list.

I want that too.

The thing I've come to realise, though, is that children learn far more from what they see than what they're told.

We can tell girls they're allowed to have boundaries, but they're also watching how we respond when somebody asks too much of us. They're watching whether we apologise before we say no. They're watching whether we constantly put ourselves last. They notice how we talk about ourselves, how we make decisions and whether we believe our own needs deserve any space at all.

None of us gets this right all the time. I certainly don't.

There are still moments where I catch myself agreeing to something before I've really thought it through, or saying yes because it feels easier in the moment. The difference now is that I notice it much sooner. I've learnt that I don't have to answer immediately and, more often than not, giving myself a little time changes the quality of the decision I make.

I keep coming back to Amy's WhatsApp because, without realising it, she'd summed up so much of what we've been talking about.

"I have to breathe and stop needing to answer people without thinking."

I suspect there are thousands of women doing exactly the same thing every day. They're answering before they've had chance to think. They're making decisions while everyone else's needs are taking up all the space, then wondering why they feel exhausted, overwhelmed or disconnected from the life they're living.

The more I’ve thought about Amy’s message, the more I think she’d stumbled across something really important. She wasn’t talking about learning to say no. She was talking about giving herself enough time to think before she answered, including enough time to ask herself the same question she automatically asks about everyone else: “How will this affect me?”

You might still decide to help. You might still say yes because supporting somebody you care about is exactly what you want to do. The difference is that you’ve included yourself in the conversation before giving your answer.

When I think about all the women I’ve coached over the years, that’s probably the thread that connects them. They remain thoughtful, generous and compassionate, while gradually learning to stop assuming that everyone else should always come first. Their own needs begin to have a place in the decisions shaping their careers, businesses, relationships and family lives.

If you’ve recognised yourself anywhere in this article, perhaps remember Amy’s words the next time somebody asks something of you. Give yourself time to stop, think, digest and then decide. Maybe you will give exactly the same answer you would have given before, but this time you’ll know it was your decision.