Learning To Say No When You Are A People-Pleaser

Who is a people-pleaser? 

A people-pleaser is a person that is deemed nice by others. They are deemed nice because they do everything the other person desires. They have a really hard time saying no and setting boundaries for themselves.

Sometimes a people-pleaser is not like that with everyone but once they become close to a person. There are some that are generally like that with everyone and they would do any favor for a stranger. The main thing with people-pleasers is that they lack the knowledge of when people are being disrespectful to them and taking advantage and when they are not. 

Why are most people-pleasers women?

Most women grow up as people-pleasers because of the expectations that society sets on women. A lot of women have to work hard in their adulthood to dismantle this forced niceness that they have learned. It is hard because it is still the expectation to everyone around that they comply with what they say and that they are obedient.

That is why women sometimes have a really hard time saying no. Because they are expected to always say yes, especially to men. Saying no gets harder when women are easily guilt-tripped into doing what other people want.

Consequences of being a people-pleaser

What happens when we cannot say no then? You might think that there are no serious consequences as you are only doing small favors. You might not care that you don’t really want to do these favors. But what you are showing other people is that their needs come before yours and that should never be true.

Don’t show people that you have no boundaries and that your validation comes from how useful you are to others. Not only do you need to stop sharing that with people but you need to stop thinking that about yourself. If it is unconscious it is something that needs to be healed. If not one day you’ll end up so drained that you won’t even be able to take care of your own needs. Also not knowing how to say no might make you end up in situations that are dangerous for your own safety and could even be traumatizing. 

Learning to say no

In order to learn to say no I believe that we also need to learn how to take a no for an answer. This is not the case for all of the people pleasers. But some don’t say no because they are scared of getting rejected and being told no as well. Rejection therapy is something that helps with getting used to people saying no to you. On the other hand, I know saying no can be very scary so going to therapy or some journal prompts can help you understand your fear of saying no a lot better.

Remember that practice makes perfect and the more that you say no to things the easier it will be in the future when making important decisions. Try starting to say no to plans that you don’t want to do as it is something that normally does not affect the other person as much. Then try moving on to saying no to small favors you don’t want to do. You will then be able to access the power of the no easily.

Examples of what I have done to say no

As a woman, my guilt mostly comes from saying no to people that mean no harm. Like saying no to someone that genuinely just needs help but I am not available to do so. My other side of people-pleasing is that I find it hard to say no to plans. So what have I done to make this easier? First of all, I started saying no to men as most as I could. This was easier because I was entering my feminist journey. So saying no to them made me feel a raging sense of power. Now if a man approaches me and I can see that their intentions are to get something out of me I just say no until they leave.

For example

The other day I was really proud of myself. Normally when a guy would ask me for my Instagram I would give it to them because I was scared that they would feel rejected if I didn’t. I started realizing that it is my photos and I just don’t want some people to follow me.

So the other night this weird guy asked for my Instagram and I said “no, I have a boyfriend”, he replied by saying he didn’t care and I just looked him dead in the eye and said “I do” and I turned around and left not even giving attention to what he was trying to say next. When I realized what I had just done I felt a little bit sorry but then I pulled myself together and became proud of what I had done. People need to learn how to take no for an answer and it is not my responsibility to teach them to do so.

As a final comment, stop apologizing! That is the next step. Stop apologizing for saying no and for making decisions that put you first.