Tips for Stopping People Pleasing to Reduce Stress

If you are like many people, you probably think a lot about how others perceive you. 
This is a normal reaction, as most people want to be liked by others. The problem is 
when you start people pleasing so much that it affects your own mental health, leading 
to stress and anxiousness. These tips can help you to stop people pleasing and 
improve your mental focus.

Accept That Not Everyone Will Like You

This is probably the best way to stop people pleasing and benefit from it by reducing 
your overall stress and anxiety levels. If you are a people pleaser, this probably comes 
from wanting to make other people happy. This is often also related to wanting 
everyone to like you. It is time to accept the fact that this may never happen, and even if 
they do, is doing everything for everyone else really the way? Start acknowledging that 
everyone is different, and it’s okay if someone doesn’t like you. You should not be giving 
up all your time and sanity just to force something that isn’t there.

Know You Have Choices

You should also start accepting the fact that you do have a choice in what you do or 
don’t do. If someone asks you to host a party that you really don’t have time for, don’t 
offer to do it just because it will please other people. You always have a choice, and if 
something is too much money, too time-consuming, or just requires more energy than 
you have right now, politely decline the offer. There are nice, polite ways to say no, and 
this is a skill you may need to learn.

Set Priorities

If you find that you just don’t know how to balance everything, then your problem might 
not be that you just want everyone to like you, but that your people pleasing has turned 
into a tricky balancing act. It’s okay to want to help others, but you can’t do everything 
all of the time. If this sounds familiar, then what you want to do is set priorities. Think 
about what others are asking of you or what you want to volunteer to do, and only 
choose the things that are top priority. Joining your son or daughter’s school’s PTA 
might be a higher priority than attending a weekend function. 

Don’t Ignore the Bad Feelings

This is a good way to tell if your people pleasing is causing you stress. Do you find that 
when you spend time with certain people, you just get a bad feeling? Or that when they 
call you, you know they’re going to ask for something, and you have that nervous 
feeling in the pit of your stomach? These are negative feelings regarding someone who 
might ask too much of you. This can be causing you stress, and is a major red flag that 
you need to cut back on your communications with this individual.

