The People-Pleasing Trap

Last time, I wrote about how time anxiety is at least partly caused by feeling like you have to do everything all the time, and how one solution to that is to consciously put time aside for whatever you need to do.   This time I’m going to write about something else that makes us feel crazy-busy no matter how much we’ve got to do.   It’s what we call people-pleasing in the twelve-step program I belong to.

When I agreed recently to do an extra hour of editing that I didn’t have time for (see my post, The Doing-Everything-All-the-Time Trap, November 5, 2012), I was thinking of my client’s needs and wants more than my own.  Of course, since my client and I have a business relationship, it could be said that everything I do to help him with his writing is about his needs and not my own – my need is for the money he pays me for my services.  But I wasn’t going to be making much money for that one hour of editing and if I had been thinking about my own needs instead of his I would have passed.  But I thought the client wanted me to do it and I wanted to make him happy so I agreed. 

Because I hadn’t fully taken my own needs and wants into consideration when I agreed to do that one hour of editing (or when I agree to anything, really; I’m just using the one hour of editing as a simple example, the way I’m using my own experience as an example of what can happen to anyone), I had mixed feelings about it.  It wasn’t clear to me that I wanted to do it, but I felt like I had to do it. Right there, those mixed feelings, that little inner conflict, added some weight, however slight, to my time anxiety.  I felt guilty too – somehow, I was worried about what that guy was going to feel if I didn’t do the editing (or maybe I was worried about that when I initially agreed to do it and I just continued worrying), and I felt a little resentful too.  All those feelings added up and caused stress and used energy, in the same way having to make decisions (remember that study about decision fatigue; see my post Avoiding Decision Fatigue, October 17, 2012) uses energy.   I kept putting the thought of that editing out of my mind (after all, it was just one hour), but every time I remembered that I was supposed to do it, all those feelings came back along with a little stab of guilt and anxiety – time anxiety, that nuts, I’m-too-busy, I-don’t-have-enough-time-for-everything feeling.  A good portion of my time anxiety, I realized, was actually all those other, mostly unconscious feelings I was having because I was people-pleasing. 

Plus, it was true – I was too busy.  I was too busy because I had all the regular things that were scheduled on my list every day -- and that one extra thing that was making everything else feel crowded.  Once again, I felt like I had to do everything all the time – or at least I felt like I had to all my regular work and that one hour of editing all the time, which added up to the same thing. 

But the people-pleasing trap made me feel like I had to do everything all the time on a much deeper level.  I felt like I had to worry about that other person and his needs and wants and feelings at the same time as my own.  I couldn’t do what I wanted to do because I had to do what I thought he wanted me to do, but I couldn’t do what he wanted me to do because I had to do what I needed to do.  My needs and wants were crowded in with his needs and wants, and there wasn’t enough time and room for both.  And it all added up to a lot of work – thinking work, feeling work, on top of regular work.  All because of that one stupid little hour. 

Of course, for most of us, it’s never just about one hour or one person.  And if just one hour for one person can make you feel that busy, just think what you feel like when it’s all your time and your whole family and three or four friends plus your employer and who knows who or what else.

Of course, we have obligations to other people, to our children, our friends, our spouses, our employers and clients, to our parents and our community.  It’s normal, sane, and ordinary to put our own needs aside sometimes and do things for others, and everybody, unless they’re a narcissist or a sociopath, does and should do a certain amount of people-pleasing.  The problem comes in when we’re doing it in a compulsive knee-jerk way; when we’re doing it more often than not; when we’re taking care of other people’s needs so much we’re not even paying attention to our own. 

So what’s the solution to that kind of people-pleasing?  I can only share what I’ve learned over the years about what works for me.

First of all, I try to stop and think before I agree to something.  I ask myself:  Do I really want to do this, or do I just think so-and-so wants or needs me to do it?  Am I really just wanting to make so-and-so happy, or maybe even trying to keep so-and-so from getting mad at me?  I try to say things to the person like, “Let me think about that and get back to you.”  

And then I do think about it:  I listen to what my intuition is telling me about whether I want to do the thing or not.  I ask myself what I would do if there was nobody else in the picture (this is a good way to get disentangled mentally from other people’s wants and needs); I look at my time and consider whether I can fit the thing into my plan and still feel relaxed and sane or whether it’ll make me feel crazy-busy.  And then I make a decision and communicate it. 

If I’m going to say no to something I say it as nicely as I possibly can.  I used to be afraid that people would get mad at me when I said no to something – hence, the urge to say yes even when way down deep I wanted to say no; sometimes I even convinced myself I did want to do something just so I wouldn’t have to say no to it.  But I’ve learned that what people react to isn’t whether you say yes or no.  It’s how you say whatever you say.   If you say no in an abrupt, rude-sounding way – which you might do if you’re not comfortable saying no – they’re likely to get a little offended.  But if you’re really nice about it, if you offer an explanation and perhaps suggest an alternative, people are always really nice.

I don’t always do all of the above.  I’m always nice when I have to say no – I even work on that a little, think about what I’m going to say beforehand, or maybe talk to a friend who helps me figure out what to say.  But I don’t always figure out right away whether I do actually want to say yes to something, and I often seem to forget to take time instead of rushing my decisions.  Even though I’ve worked on this issue for years, there’s still a part of me that wants to jump in and solve everyone’s problems and make everyone happy – and that part still sometimes succumbs to people-pleasing.  Invariably, when that happens, I end up getting time anxiety – I end up feeling too busy, like I’ve got too much on my plate.  (Yuck.)  

As soon as I’ve figured out that that’s happened, I employ the magical harnessing time tool of flexibility, and change my mind.  I call the person up (or send him or her an email) and say, as nicely as I possibly can, in a friendly tone of voice, that it turns out I can’t do what I said I would.  I apologize profusely, I offer a reasonable explanation, and often I offer an alternative suggestion or two – a different time when I could do it (whatever it is), or another person who might be able to do it instead of me.  The person on the other end is always absolutely fine with my changing my mind, and somehow everything always works out, often better than it was going to before.

And I go back to feeling peaceful, to harnessing my time in all the ways I do on a day-to-day basis.

                                                            -- Mary Allen