Stop people pleasing

Why it’s okay to operate out of other people’s comfort zone

If you want to create a new habit, stop people pleasing. You don’t have to do what other people expect you to do. 

And that’s…okay.

I thought this was an important message to send out at Christmastime, because dealing with family and friends and Christmas, while wonderful, can also be stressful. 

During Christmas we think about our lives and changes that we want to make in the new year. 

And unfortunately, being around loved ones, we sometimes feel that we’re kept in a box. Because they expect us to act a certain way.

And you have to get over that. 

The idea of people pleasing could be a long article, because it’s a big topic. So I may write about it again later. But right now I just want to talk about one specific aspect of people pleasing.

And that aspect is habits.

It’s all habits

Habits are how we deal with reality. We develop habits to deal with reality everyday, and when the reasons for the habits disappear, sometimes the habit remains. This is true for good and bad habits. 

But how people treat us is also a habit. 

The people that know you have built up a habit of who you are and how to respond to you. 

There’s nothing sinister or bad about that by the way. It’s just how we operate. And it goes from the simple way we greet one another to how we respond to other people’s behavior.

Your friends and family have an image of you in their minds. They’ve built up habits around how to respond and treat that image.

And when you change, it disrupts those habits. And people don’t like to have habits disrupted. 

Change is hard

It’s as simple as that. From the nicest person you know to the most toxic person you know. People are used to you acting a certain way and they’ve programmed themselves to respond to you a certain way. 

If you change, then they have to change. And that’s hard. And it’s why people sometimes respond negatively when you try to change a habit. It’s human nature. 

Ever try to go on a diet and get told that you don’t need to lose weight from all your family and friends?

Ever try to engage in honest self-criticism and be told “no you’re okay, don’t worry.”

It’s a normal response. People mean well. But it all comes down to habits. And you don’t have to give in to other people’s habits when trying to change your own.

A short story

When I was in college, we had a friend who was the Zany Guy. Always doing crazy things. Silly and innocent, but he was kind of a goofball. We all had stories about something insane he’d done.

Then one year for spring break, we rented a cabin in the mountains for a getaway. And we were all thinking, “oh man, I’ll bet Zany Guy is gonna give us a bunch of crazy stories on this trip.”

Except…he didn’t. He got to the cabin and acted…normal. Mature. Apparently he had decided it was time to grow up. And I’ll be honest, at first we were disappointed. We were expecting hijinks! 

But instead we got a normal, mature guy who was trying his hardest to act responsibly. 

Then we realized. We’d been expecting a pattern of behavior based on past experiences. We had developed a habit of treating him a certain way. But what we really needed to do was support our friend and encourage his new habits. 

Even if it was something that we weren’t used to or comfortable with.

Did I mention habits?

People develop habits around your behavior. When we try to change our habits, the people you know and love will sometimes resist. 

That’s just how we are. People don’t mean anything by it. It’s going too far to say that people are threatened by your change (in most situations), but the truth is, most of us aren’t comfortable seeing our loved ones change. 

Because now we have to figure them out again and decide how to treat them. 

And the holidays can be one of the worst times for this, because we see people that we love, but we only see them  a few times a year, and we expect the same things from them.

So, if you’re on the reverse of that, if you’re trying to change a particular habit in your life but you’re meeting resistance. Well, don’t give up when people resist your change. 

Because here’s the uncomfortable truth. When you try to change your habits, you’ll only be able to tell it’s working if people resist you. Once your habits start to change, people will instinctively notice and some people will resist. 

When that happens, know this: your efforts are working, because there is noticeable change. But also know that you should refuse to give up just because it won’t make people happy.

One final note

But be patient with others. Change is hard for everyone. You don’t have to people please, but be patient with others if at first they resist. When your efforts pay off, they’ll come around.

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