6 Things I Didn't Know I Was Doing (Until I Called It People Pleasing)
For a long time I didn't think of myself as a people pleaser. People pleasers are doormats, right? Pushovers. I was just easy to get along with. Low maintenance. The friend who didn't need much and never made things complicated.
Turns out "easy to get along with" and "afraid of what happens if I'm not" can look identical from the outside. It took me a while to notice the difference, and longer to admit I'd built most of my personality around not finding out.
Here's what started showing up once I actually looked as a licensed therapist in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida.
1. Saying Yes Before I'd Even Asked Myself
Someone would ask if I could cover a shift, take a call, host the thing. I'd already said yes before I registered whether I wanted to. Not because I was generous. Because the split second of considering saying no felt more dangerous than just doing the thing I didn't want to do.
I started catching it mid-sentence. The "sure, I can…" before I'd finished the thought. Now I try to leave a beat. Not a whole negotiation, just enough space to notice if the yes is mine or if it's just the fastest way out of an uncomfortable few seconds.
2. Rereading a Text Four Times Before Sending It
Not writing it four times. Rereading the same eleven words, trying to catch the tone before someone else could misread it as short, or cold, or annoyed. I'd add an exclamation point. Take it back out. Add "no worries either way!" to something that had no worries attached to it in the first place.
The anxiety wasn't really about the text. It was about being one wrong inflection away from someone deciding I was difficult. I still catch myself doing this. The difference now is I notice it's happening instead of just doing it on autopilot.
3. Apologizing for Things That Weren't Mine to Apologize For
Someone bumped into me and I said sorry. A meeting ran long because of someone else's tangent and I apologized for "keeping everyone." I once apologized to a barista for the machine being out of oat milk.
This one's sneaky because it doesn't look like people pleasing. It looks like manners. But manners don't require you to preemptively shrink so nobody has a reason to be annoyed with you. I still slip into it. I've just started asking myself, after the fact, whose fault was that actually.
4. Polling Everyone Before Trusting My Own Answer
Lunch, a paint color, whether to say something to a friend who hurt my feelings. I'd ask three people what they thought before I let myself land anywhere. Not because I valued their taste. Because if I picked wrong on my own, I only had myself to blame, and if I picked wrong after asking everyone, at least it was a group decision.
That's not indecision. That's outsourcing the risk of being wrong. I'm not fully out of the habit. But I've started making the small decisions alone on purpose, just to prove to myself I survive it.
5. Explaining Myself Long After the Explanation Was Needed
If I said no to something, I'd keep finding new reasons for it days later. Bringing it back up unprompted. Adding context nobody asked for, as if the first no needed backup, and the second, and a follow-up text just in case.
Somewhere along the way I'd decided that a plain no wasn't allowed to stand on its own. It needed a paper trail. I'm working on letting the first answer be the whole answer.
6. Waiting for Permission to Stop
This is the one that took longest to see. I told myself that once I hit some number, more clients, a full calendar, whatever version of "enough" I hadn't defined yet, then I could finally slow down without guilt. Rest was something I was trying to earn, not something I was allowed to just take.
I'm not going to tell you I fixed this one. I still catch myself closing my laptop and immediately opening it again because sitting still feels unearned. What's different is I notice the reflex now instead of just obeying it.
None of this looked dramatic from the outside. That's kind of the point. People pleasing anxiety doesn't usually show up as a crisis. It shows up as being the easy one, the flexible one, the one who "doesn't mind," until you're exhausted in a way you can't quite explain to anyone, including yourself.
If any of this sounded familiar, I work with women navigating exactly this pattern, the anxiety underneath being agreeable, in individual therapy in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida. You can book a consultation here.
If you want somewhere to start on your own first, Silence Your Inner Mean Girl is the same 14-day journal I still point clients to between sessions.