low self esteem and pleasing people

Low self esteem and pleasing people

by Carla Valencia

Because I grow up believing that I had to be the “good girl”; therefore, a pleasing person, I suffered low self esteem most of my life.

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What is the meaning of pleasing people? Pleasing people is not being able to say “no” because your self-worth depends on other’s approval. You will not set healthy boundaries and will try to seek other’s approval all the time.

Those who seek to please people fear rejection, they avoid conflicts at any cost, they feel inferior to others, and insecure about their abilities, skills or knowledge. Because they seek constant approval they deny their own needs. These are all signs of low self esteem.

I used to try to please everybody and I was always “available”, even if I had to go against my own needs. This behavior lead me to a lot of suffering and resentment because at the end my questions was: “What about me?”. When I became aware of this behavior I got so mad that I became exactly the opposite, and everybody was asking: What is the matter with her? She used to be so nice? And now…. This common reaction happens when you feel anger and feel victimized and you try to overcome these feelings by behaving in the opposite way.

It took me some time to realize that this behavior was not other’s people fault, nobody was taking advantage of me, they were just responding to my messages and my fears. I had to learn to put myself first and try to remember this all the time. I had to learn to overcome my fear of loss of approval and rejection. And accept the fact that nobody was going to like me, anyway. How to recover from this pleasing behavior?

Know yourself. Become aware of your feelings, thoughts and needs.

Learn to live with a balance were you can respect your own needs and at the same time consider others’ needs.

Always place your needs first , your own approval is more important than other people approval.

Be your own friend. Treat yourself with respect, self acceptance is the key.

Pleasing people suffer low self esteem because of their inability to set boundaries and say “no” to other’s requests. For more free information and tips about self esteem please visit: http://www.selfesteemawareness.com.

Carla's professional background includes 15 years working as a Software Developer and Technical Writer .Her passion about self esteem issues had leaded her to write about her personal experiences. She studied Metaphysic, Buddhism and she has been using several techniques since the last 10 years to work inside herself. She lives in Canada and is the author and owner of http://www.selfesteemawareness.com , http://eftfree.blogspot.com and http://www.laautoestima.com.

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