Are You a People Pleaser?

Many make the mistake of equating Christ-like behaviour with being a people pleaser. Yes. Christ wants us to show His love to others by reaching out to them with kindness, compassion and a willing heart to give them help and support. But this does not mean being a doormat and sacrificing yourself for anyone who wants something. Are you a people pleaser?

“We must not confuse the command to love with the disease to please”

-Lysa TerKeurst

 6 signs that you are a people pleaser:

1. You cannot say no
   You agree to things you do not want to do. You go out of your way to make sure that you do not break any plans or let anyone down in any way – even if it severely inconveniences you.
2. You feel like a doormat
   You allow people to take advantage of you in various ways without doing anything about it. You often allow people to hurt you and use you and you just accept it.
3. You always attract people who need to be ‘rescued’
   People always flock to you because they know you will drop whatever you are doing to help them. This includes family members.
4. You are constantly apologising
   You find yourself apologising for everything and anything even when you are not in the wrong. Others know that in a sticky situation you will always take the blame. On the flip side of this, you avoid giving yourself credit for anything and feel that everyone else should have credit over you.
5. You do not ask for or accept help
   You do not ask for help because you don’t want to inconvenience anyone and you want people to believe you can do everything yourself.
6. You look for praise in othersWhen you complete a task or help someone, you look for praise from others to validate you rather than being satisfied within yourself of your accomplishments.

Consequences of people pleasing

Real love for others is built on the foundation of honesty. Being dishonest with yourself causes you to neglect your emotional health.

In turn this leads you to experience the following:

• Resentfulness to others.
  You will start to become resentful to others because of your inability to say no and because you constantly allow them to treat you badly.
• Inability to enjoy life
  You still start to find it difficult to enjoy activities and relationships with others because of the way they are treating you.
• Stressed and Depressed
  Because of the weight of all the commitments you have taken on, that you are unable to stick to, you will become overwhelmingly stressed and if left untreated, fall into a period of depression.

What can you do to overcome your people pleasing habits? Find out in the next blog post…

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