Its Friday afternoon and you have a long to-do list to get through. You’re keen to get away on time today but then a colleague rushes over. She’s behind on stuffing envelopes for the final post and desperately needs your help. Inside you’re screaming “noooo” but find yourself nodding “yes no problem” politely. By the time 5pm comes along she bounces out of the door, full of gratitude but you skulk towards your desk full of resentment. You’re behind on your deadlines now and have to work extra hard to catch up. Sound familiar? People pleasing is a common and often overlooked cause of work stress. This blog will explain the link between work stress and people pleasing as well as 7 strategies to stop.
Signs people pleasing is increasing your work stress.
At the end of the day, we all want to impress the boss and get on well with our colleagues if we care about our career. However, caring excessively what everyone at work thinks can increase stress and anxiety and potentially harm your career. Below are signs that people pleasing is causing you unneccessary stress in the workplace.
- You push yourself hard to meet impossible deadlines rather than be realistic and honest about your workload.
- You lie awake at night worrying about mistakes that probably won’t happen.
- You feel very anxious if your boss emails to say they want to speak to you even though it’s never about anything serious.
- You respond to every email straight away regardless of what else you have on because you are worried about letting people down.
- You take work home to catch up rather than be behind.
- You daren’t ask for help or let anybody know that you are struggling.
- You agree to extra work in meetings even if you don’t have time.
- You’re often the person people go to for help because you always say yes.
What causes people pleasing in the workplace
There are actually different styles of people pleasing which means different causes. It can therefore be helpful to understand your own style and whats motivating you to please. You can read more about that here. For example, do you find it hard to say no because of feeling responsible for other peoples emotions or do you fear rejection? Do you get anxious about making mistakes because of fear of getting into trouble or because your self worth is tied up with doing things perfectly?
As you can see, often the behavior is the same but the underlying reasons are different. Understanding the motivation can help you challenge whether your assumptions are true and fair. For example, would people really reject you if you say no? If they did would that be fair? You can read more about challenging unhelpful assumptions below.
However, even though people pleasers are motivated by different reasons, low self esteem is usually a big underlying cause.
People who struggle with low self esteem will be more in need of approval from others to feel good about themselves or feel their worth is tied up in their achievements. This makes them on high alert for signs of disapproval or rejection as well a finding any indication that someone might not be happy with them very distressing.
How to stop people pleasing and reduce work stress.
The good news is that if your work stress is caused by people pleasing, as opposed to a toxic environment for example, then there is alot within your control to address that. Its not easy though and can take time and practice but here are 7 evidence based strategies to help.
Put in bounderies: Gradually
Its worth thinking about what you genuinely want to do and not do and then gradually move towards that behaviour. If you are unsure, ask yourself what you would do if you didn’t care what people thought. Perhaps you can decide to help others when your workload is managable but not when you are working towards a deadline? Or if you are regularly taking work home or working late slowly reduce that so you’re work life balance is better. It helps to do it very gradually, with small steps, as changing too quickly can be too stressful. Once you’ve learnt that you can say no without people being angry, you’re are exposing yourself to realistic scenarious .
Be more assertive by preparing ways of saying no
Often people pleasers find themselves saying yes more than they want to because saying no feels scary and unfamiliar. Its common for people to describe getting anxious, their minds going blank and defaulting to their usual response. Write down what you would like to say and practice. Keep it short and factual i.e. “I would love to help but I have a deadline to meet” or “I have been asked to do this extra task but do not have capacity with the work I currently have on”
Challenge your assumptions
So much of people pleasing behaviour is driven by unhelpful thoughts, particularly around other people’s reactions. For example, you may be assuming that someone will be angry if you say no or that your boss will think you are bad at your job for making a mistake. These are known as “Negative Automatic Thoughts” and we normally have little evidence that they are real. Ask yourself what thoughts are causing the anxiety, whether you have evidence (i.e. Is it a thought or a fact?) and try to generate more realistic alternatives. Learning Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques yourself or from a CBT trained therapist can help.
Learn mindfulness
Many stressed worked who struggle with people pleasing will find themselves overthinking work scenerious which increases anxiety. For example, you might dwell over what a colleague thinks or lie awake at night worrying about a work project.
Mindfulness really helps reduce the overthinking that people pleasers experience. It involves observing unhelpful thoughts, not trying to push them away and can eventually stop thoughts from spiralling.
Mindfulness is also fantastic at helping you tune into and respond differently to uncomfortable feelings such as dread in chest or tightness in muscles.
Practice Self Compassion
People pleasers find it hard to be kind to themselves. They usually self critical, are unlikely to prioritise their needs and often judge themselves for being a people pleaser in the first place! Therefore learning how to use self compassion can really effective in reducing people pleasing. An easy way of developing self compassion is asking what you would say to a friend. There is lots of evidence that self compassion can help with a wide variety of mental health difficulties and there’s a wide range of meditations and tools to help as well as specially trained therapists .
Reduce anxiety with breath and body based exercises
When we worry about other peoples opinions and fear rejection it increases feelings of anxiety which make us more likely to people please. However, we can learn to manage anxiety by regulating our body and breath which helps us respond to situations more kindly. For example your breath will quicken, the heart will beat faster and muscles will tense. These phsyical feelings trigger more unhelpful overthinking which then becomes a vicious cycle. When you notice this do deep breathing and make a conscious effort to relax your muscles. This will make you feel calmer and help you to develop different perspectives. Practice body and breath based meditations each day will also help you do this.
Increase self esteem
Since low self esteem is the main underlying cause of people pleasing at work then ultimately the best protection against this is to improve self esteem. When you feel good about yourself other peoples opinions matter less and we will therefore make decisions based on our own needs rather than fear. However, this is obviously easier said that done as low self esteem is usually deeply ingrained from childhood. But recognising this is the cause so you can work on how you feel about yourself is the first step. It can take a long time to increase self esteem but it is possible with hard work, the right resources and potentially therapy. You can read more about how to increase self esteem here.
In summary then, although work stress can often be due to events outside our control, people pleasing can cause unneccessary work pressures. Recognising that fear of saying no and wanting to please is creating problems for you is the first step. Then gradually make behaviour and emotional changes using evidence based strategies such as boundary setting, assertiveness, mindfulness, self compassion and CBT. It can also be useful to seek the help of a therapist.
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About me
My name is Rebecca Stambridge and am a qualified therapist and mindfulness teacher. I am passionate about helping women who struggle with stress and anxiety due to not feeling good enough because I used to feel that way too. I offer 1-1 therapy and run online courses. If you want information about working with me click here.
