People Pleasing and the Successful Women
I have written and spoken quite a lot of people pleasing and perfectionism. Here are some characteristics of a people pleaser/ perfectionist: External validation informs you of your worth. Informs you if you are good enough or not. This comes from others judgement of you presently or someone in your past that created this internal critical voice. This can be so painful when that external message is harsh or mean and says you are not doing enough. If someone criticizes, you may feel less than or wrong. Here is another a big clue… Do you wonder why you don’t really know who you are or what you want even though you have obtained a certain level of success. The reason for this uncertainty is because to form a personality … the characteristics and qualities that formed your distinctive character, your nature, your likes, and dislikes you had to be encouraged to have a self. Sometime in your life, you were criticized for being yourself. Maybe for even acting normally like a carefree child does. If we are people pleasing at the expense of ourselves, we were not allowed to have a self that was 100% ourselves.
Here is a question. Do you feel like you need or needed to be a chameleon Do you often change or hide your beliefs or behavior in order to please others? If yes, somewhere in your life the word NO was extinguished from your vocabulary. To say NO would mean you had an opinion, thoughts, beliefs and guiding principles that were your own. Differing from the powers that be. You received a message loud and clear that NO and your Self was not allowed or worse, somehow wrong. And you feel guilty when you do say no. You learned not to develop your likes, dislikes and desires for your life because if you did, others became upset or unhappy with you, so you learned and were groomed to not have a self. Fast forward to your present adult life and you find it difficult to achieve peace and satisfaction with yourself and all you have accomplished. You are being driven by the next thing to bring you validation. What you do is never enough. You may wonder what is wrong with me. Who am I? Why is inner peace so elusive? I started to figure all this out when I was 56 years old. It is never too late to start.
Listen up you wonderful person, there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. You are everything you need to be and worth getting to know. There is good news. Your No isn’t gone. When you begin to say NO to others and their perception of who you ‘SHOULD” be you are expressing your identity, what you like what you don’t like, what you are about. No is the start of getting to know yourself now. Your identity and what you want for yourself is on the other side of healing people pleasing and perfectionism. Discover your unique self and free your mind (quiet the inner critic voice). You have done your time. Your turn. Always learning and coaching others to find their lovable self. Sharon Dolak Coaching BraveryLikeCommentShare