people-pleasing – Positive Provocations

If you’ve spent most of your life prioritizing the comfort, needs, and expectations of others, consider this your gentle invitation back to yourself. You are allowed, truly allowed, to choose yourself first.

In fact, your well-being depends on it!

As a recovering people-pleaser myself, I know all too well the pitfalls of needing to please everyone but myself. To the point of self-sabotage! It took me many years on this healing journey to even realise this was what I was doing, to myself.

People-pleasing often begins as a childhood survival strategy. I learned early on that harmony meant safety, that being “good” meant love, and that shrinking myself kept the peace. These self-abotaging patterns may have protected me once, but not anymore.

As you move toward a new year, and if you still carry these people pleasing cycles, it’s worth asking with compassion: Is this way of being still nourishing my spirit?

What if the small acts of care you long for aren’t indulgent, but sacred? What if tending to your inner world is actually the foundation that allows you to show up authentically, wholeheartedly, and sustainably for the people you cherish?

In case you haven’t heard it lately:

You deserve space to rest and recharge.
You deserve to take up room in your own life.

If you’re ready to make 2026 the year you stop self-abandoning and begin self-belonging, start with these practices so small they feel almost effortless. Small shifts can open big inner doors…

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“Care about what other people think and you will always be their prisoner. ~ Lao Tzu

People-pleasing is a common coping mechanism humans use to fit in to their surroundings. Most of the time we develop the habit of people pleasing because of our need to protect ourselves from negative emotions. It shows up in a pattern of behaviours that, on the surface, make us seem ‘nice, sweet, flexible, very understanding and agreeable’.

Confession: I am a reforming people-pleaser myself. So, I know first hand that Empaths and Sensitive souls suffer from people-pleasing the most.

While being kind and helpful is generally a good thing, going too far to please others can leave you feeling emotionally depleted, stressed, and anxious.

We really want people’s approval and to stay in their good books, which often results in us neglecting or not even being aware of our own needs.

Because of our need to please others, we struggle to set boundaries and tend to overcommit, leading to overwhelm, anxiety and burnout.

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