[video available on spotify] welcome back to advice session, a series here on anything goes, where you send in your current dilemmas or anything you want advice on, and i give you my unprofessional advice. today's topic is people pleasing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is people-pleasing and why is it harmful?
Well, hey there, and welcome back to Advice Session, a series here on Anything Goes, where you send in your current dilemmas or anything, and I mean anything, you want advice on, and I give you my own professional advice. And today's topic is people-pleasing, which is something that I struggled with for many years, but am slowly but surely getting better at managing.
Being a people pleaser in theory is a good thing. You're pleasing people. Come on, how could that be harmful? But it is ultimately harmful to oneself to be a people pleaser. And I learned that the hard way time and time again throughout my life. And I still, to this day, Learn that the hard way over and over again. But over the years, I've gotten a lot better about it.
Chapter 2: How can I stand up for myself without being mean?
And so I feel somewhat ready to give you advice about the topic. So without further ado, let's begin. Somebody said, how to stand up for yourself without being mean about it. I feel like as somewhat of a people pleaser myself, I understand this struggle, right? It seems like there's no obvious way to stand up for yourself without creating conflict. And to be honest, that is kind of true.
Whenever you stand up for yourself in any capacity, you have to be okay with the fact that the person that you're standing up for yourself to might not respond warmly to that. Even if you do everything perfectly, even if you stand up for yourself as politely and respectfully and admirably as you possibly could, there's still a chance that the other person is not going to respond to that very well.
Chapter 3: What tone and wording should I use when confronting someone?
And you sort of have to accept that. That's just inevitable. But when it comes to the act of standing up for yourself, how do you do it without being mean? Well, it's simple. It comes down to your tone and your wording. When it comes to tone, I think it's very important to try your best to stay calm, to keep things somewhat casual in a way. In my experience, confrontation...
goes the best when the other person doesn't feel attacked. Right. Instead of being like, hey, yeah, you did this. What? Instead, being like, hey, you know what? You did this. And it's like the immediate response from the other person when you approach the conversation in the second tone is that I displayed is automatically going to be 100% better.
The second that somebody gets yelled at, before they even can comprehend what's being said, they're putting their defenses up. They're like closing themselves off. If you approach a confrontational conversation with a respectful, kind, non-threatening tone, the person you're talking to will not feel defensive. You know, their immediate response will not be to get defensive.
They're going to respond to you like they normally do. You know what I mean? I think tone is very important. And chances are, if you're a people pleaser, you're not going to have a hard time with that. Because I feel like people pleasers... tend to communicate nicely, if even at all. You know, I think the average people pleaser is not raising their voice, is not yelling in confrontation.
So chances are you'll be fine. But now let's get to wording. Okay. Now, listen, you don't want to beat around the bush and you don't want to sugarcoat things because for a long time, I think I told myself I was good at communicating and good at confronting.
But I really wasn't because I was beating around the bush and I was sugarcoating things and I wasn't being 100% firm in confronting the other person. I was kind of wishy-washy with it. You know what I mean? I was kind of too gentle with it. So you don't want to be too gentle. But you also don't want to be too mean, right?
I think it's important whenever you're confronting somebody to remember this is another human being. They have feelings. They make mistakes. They're not perfect. And they deserve a second chance a lot of times. Not always. Not always maybe a second chance. But they deserve at least like an opportunity to be confronted and then speak their mind and explain where they're coming from.
So when it comes to the wording of everything, my suggestion would be to instead be pointing the finger and be like, you did this and you did this and you are bad and you suck and you stink and you and you're and you're poop and you smell like poop and you're poopy and you don't wipe. Instead of being like you, you, you, you be like. Keep a nice balance between here's how I'm feeling.
Here are some of your actions. Here are how those actions made me feel. Can you speak to why you did these things? Okay, now that makes more sense to me because I thought that you did these things because of this, but you actually did. You know what I'm saying? Instead of pointing the finger and saying, you did this because you're a bad person. Be like, you did this. It didn't make me feel good.
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Chapter 4: How can a people pleaser learn to say no?
And to be honest, a lot of times when I say no, I'm usually making some sort of excuse. Like if somebody asked me to hang out and I don't want to, I'll be like, oh, I'm working today. Am I always working that day? No. Sometimes I am, but sometimes I'm not. You know, if somebody...
If I'm single, let's say, and somebody asks me on a date and I don't want to go on the date, I might say, oh, I'm still kind of getting over my ex or I'm not really looking for anything like that right now. And I'm so sorry, but I'm just like, I'm not ready, like whatever. I'm usually making some sort of excuse. So to be completely honest, I don't think I'm going to be able to give the best advice
here because I'm not actually super good at being honest and just being like, can I be honest? No, no, I don't want to do that. No, I'm not going to do that because I don't want to. I'm not good at that. Okay. I'm hesitant to give this as advice, but I'm going to do it anyway. I think if you're a people pleaser, the best place to start is to just find any way possible to say no.
Because if you're a people pleaser, if you're a yes man, I used to be like this. It is like agony to say no in any capacity. Even if you're fully, like, let's say somebody invites you to their birthday party and you're on a family vacation in Aruba. You're literally 12 hours away, okay? There's no, on a plane, okay?
There's no possible way, unless you live in Aruba, there's no possible way you could go to this party. If you're somebody who feels terrible saying, oh my God, I'm out of town, You are a real people pleaser. You are a real yes man, like me. I literally have such a hard time. Oh my God, that just reminds me. Somebody invited me to their birthday party and I'm out of town.
The birthday party's next week and I need to text them and say I can't go because I'm out of town and I feel so bad and I don't want to say that, but I have to because I am actually out of town. It's not even an excuse.
If you're somebody who really struggles with saying no in any capacity, if you're somebody who's like, I wish I could fly home to go to a birthday party that I have to miss because I feel so bad, then you're in such a place that you need to figure out any way to say no.
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Chapter 5: Is it okay to use excuses when saying no as a people pleaser?
So if that means making an excuse at first, if that means, you know, making excuses that are maybe not 100% true, they're not harmful lies, but maybe they're white lies. My suggestion is just to get comfortable with saying no and to show yourself that people aren't going to hate you if you say that you're busy, that you can't make it, that you can't go.
You might need to start by lying at first, saying, oh, I have a dinner I have to go to. Oh, I have a meeting at that time. Oh, I can't go on a date because I already have a boyfriend. Lie. That's my advice. And you know what? I'm never going to give you the advice to lie. ever again, probably. This is probably the only scenario in which I think lying is okay.
If you are a people pleaser and you don't know how to say no, you might have to lie in the beginning just to get comfortable with saying no. And then you can start to challenge yourself with being completely honest.
And that's something I'm personally working on right now is figuring out, okay, what do I do when I'm actually just too tired to hang out or I'm not interested in this person romantically at all? Or I find somebody annoying and I don't really like hanging out with them. Like, how do I start being more honest?
I mean, the truth is, like, am I ever going to tell somebody that I'm not romantically interested in them? Probably not. Am I ever going to tell somebody that I think that they're annoying and that's why I don't hang out with them? Probably not. But maybe there are ways to, you know, potentially say no without having to lie. I don't know...
And maybe the answer is just to learn to be comfortable with saying no with no explanation. You know, we don't owe anyone explanations. in life. We don't owe anyone anything. Sometimes it's nice and even more polite to give an explanation, but sometimes it's probably less polite to give an explanation. You know, in the case of, oh, I think this person's annoying.
I don't want to hang out with them. Oh, I don't feel physically attracted to this person. I don't want to go on a date with them. Maybe it's actually more polite to just say, oh, no thanks. Maybe that's my next step in my saying no journey is getting comfortable just saying no and being okay with not having an explanation or an excuse. Maybe that's the ultimate form of saying no.
But I think practice makes perfect. The more that you do it and the more that you realize that everything's okay after, the more confident you'll become in your ability to say no. But I think in the beginning, it's okay to make some excuses here and there. Next, somebody said, how did not feel guilty when I have to say no to people? Okay, very similar questions, but a little bit different.
How did not feel guilty about saying no? Because saying no is one thing, but feeling guilty about it is another. Well, I would say when it comes to guilt, I think it can be helpful to put yourself in the person that you're saying no to's shoes, okay? How would you feel if the roles were reversed and somebody said no to you? Really think about it. Chances are you would be fine and you know that.
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Chapter 6: How do I stop feeling guilty about saying no?
But also, I think another thing to remember is if you're saying no, it's because you feel uncomfortable by something. You don't want to do something. And that is completely valid. Validate those feelings for yourself. If you feel like you don't want to do something, that is okay. Take a bit of the empathy that you have for the person that you want to say no to and put that towards yourself.
You deserve a bit of empathy as well. you not wanting to do something is valid. If the person that you're saying no to said no to you, you'd be cool with it. You'd be like, oh yeah, no worries. It's all good. I empathize with you. I understand sometimes you don't want to hang out. Sometimes things don't work out. It might feel kind of shitty, but you'd understand, right?
you would have empathy for them if they even said no. Do you see what I'm saying? So I don't know, have a bit of empathy for yourself. I briefly paused this episode of Anything Goes to let you know that this episode of Anything Goes is brought to you by ChatGPT. If you're a college student, ChatGPT Plus is free now through May.
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Get it now at ChatGPT.com slash students. Restrictions apply. Now let's get back to the episode. Next, somebody said, how to drop friends that treat me like shit, but not cause a big scene or argument. Again, I'm kind of hesitant to give this advice because I'm not sure if it's the perfect method, but it's what I've done in the past.
I think the best method of breaking off a friendship or breaking off from a friend group is to sort of Slowly let it fade away, you know? Stop asking those people to hang out. Stop responding to the group chat. Start to make new friends. Hang out with those people more often. Instead of seeing your friend group every week, maybe dial it down to once a month. slowly but surely back away, you know?
And here's the thing. It's really hard to confront somebody and say, hey, I just don't think that this friendship's working anymore. It's really uncomfortable to do that. And I don't always think it's necessary. Sometimes friendships just aren't making sense anymore and you're just less drawn to them.
And well, in this case, I forgot, I actually forgot that you said that your friends treat you like shit. So they don't deserve an explanation. It's totally fine to just drift away. And if they're treating you like shit, chances are they're not going to be like, wait, you're hurting our feelings, like, come hang out with us again.
They're probably just going to be like, whatever, fuck it, she doesn't want to hang out, okay. They don't sound like super gentle, kind people if they're treating you like shit. So chances are if you were to back away and sort of slowly pull back... they're not going to come begging for you back. And I'm not saying that to insult you.
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Chapter 7: What advice is there for dropping toxic friends without causing drama?
I have other friends and... You know, it's no hard feelings, but yeah, it's just not working out as much as it used to. That's my method. And sometimes a scene and an argument is inevitable. But I think the best thing you can do is focus on what you can control, which is how you manage getting out of the front group.
And I think doing it subtly and gently and with no real confrontation is probably the best start. And then if they ask for an explanation, then you can make the decision of whether or not you're going to bring it up to them with the slight risk that they might confront you and cause a scene and cause an argument. But at that point, it's out of your control.
You know, you tried to exit the friendship gently and gently. Subtly, you know, and if they choose to cause a scene or an argument, you know, that's just one of the inevitable shitty parts of the ebbs and flows of friendship. It's just inevitable. Okay, next. Somebody said, I constantly feel guilty for everything I do and I don't know why. It has been like this since I was little.
It's always there and it affects everything in my life. I never feel comfortable. I will say this probably has something to do with the way that you were raised, your relationship with your family. I feel like a lot of times, at least with myself, when there's lingering negative feelings that have stuck with me for more than a few years at a time, I know that...
There's a good chance that it stems from something developmental, you know, like when I was in my developmental years. And so I do think this is a good one to bring to a therapist if you have one. But actually, I'm curious. I want to Google this actually and see what comes up. According to Healthline, chronic guilt. This type of guilt happens from prolonged exposure to stress.
Chronic guilt affects a person's ability to regulate their emotions. A teacher, for example, may feel overworked and emotionally drained and can affect relationships with students. The resulting guilt becomes a symptom of chronic work-related stress or burnout. Some researchers argue for the inclusion of guilt in clinical evaluations of burnout.
Chronic guilt can also occur with episodes of major depression. It sounds like you have chronic guilt because there's other types of guilt, according to Healthline.com. There's natural guilt, which is guilt that occurs after you did something morally wrong. Chronic guilt, which is a type of guilt that happens from prolonged exposure to stress, which I just described prior to natural guilt.
Collective guilt. This type involves a sense of group or shared responsibility. Residents of a city may experience collective guilt about people experiencing homelessness, etc. And last but not least, survivor guilt. Traumatic events such as witnessing a large-scale tragedy may cause feelings of remorse and sadness.
This could look like somebody surviving an accident and then feeling guilty for the people who did not. So it sounds like you have chronic guilt. I really do think that a lot of times these sorts of chronic feelings of prolonged distress, whether it's guilt or it's low self-esteem or whatever, like a lot of these things stem from something in your past.
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