Have trouble turning down invites? Can’t help but help out? You might just be a people pleaser. But don’t worry, we’ve got the remedy for you. 

As a reformed people-pleaser, I know firsthand how difficult it is to even think about letting someone else down. Which is probably why so many of my situationships ran for as long as they did; because I couldn’t bear the thought of actually breaking up with someone. 

Fortunately, it turns out the world is to blame for my inability to dump a date – not me.

“People pleasing is actually very prevalent and deeply rooted in our childhood and conditioning, where society really does reward women for being the ‘good girl’,” mindset and career coach Lara Nercessian tells Body+Soul. 

“And when we are rewarded for being the good girl, a lot of our behaviours and our patterns get coded in from quite a young age, and we realise that if we are able to appease other people, meet their needs and avoid negative reactions and responses by fawning to them, that is a good thing and we’ll get rewarded for that.” 

Take for instance, Christmas. “Be a good girl and Santa will come,” mothers threaten unruly kids. Or "If you’re a good girl, you’ll get a treat.”

Our compliance is essentially a strategy and a coping mechanism that we adopt from a very young age, and sure, ‘good boys’ get it too, but it’s not the same. 

“It's certainly more prevalent with young girls than it is for boys, because boys are usually raised a little bit differently...whether it's a conscious awareness from parents or not,” Nercessian explains.

“They're usually allowed to be a little bit more of a troublemaker or a little bit more adventurous, or it's more socially acceptable. So whilst they do receive some of that conditioning, it's usually not as strong as it is for girls.” 

Dropping the people-pleasing persona

“The interesting thing about this, from a parent's perspective, is that ‘good girl’ conditioning does absolutely serve a certain purpose in childhood, and it’s not wrong that parents say, ‘You’ve been a good girl’, because we understand why that happens,” the mindset expert says. “It’s parents instilling good values and behaviours, and teaching their children to be good people, and I think that’s a really positive side of it.”

The issue, Nercessian says, is when we continue to put other people’s needs before our own in adulthood. “There's a certain age and a certain point in our lives that the way we were operating as a child is not necessarily the way that's optimal for us as an adult,” she explains. “When it's actually creating more detrimental experiences and outcomes for you now. 

“And we don't actually ever have that right of passage to actually say, this is no longer required. Because you can still be a kind person without having to sacrifice your own personal needs and overstretch your own boundaries and what makes you feel comfortable just to appease the needs of other people.” 

The trouble is learning to rewire your conditioning and patterns so that they work for you at this stage of your life. Here’s how to do it. 

How to resist the urge to be a 'good girl'

#1. Admit that people-pleasing isn’t working for you

“The first step is to recognise that being a people pleaser is no longer serving you, and also your desire to change,” the mindset coach says. “Because change always starts with being aware. So you need to bring it to your conscious awareness how you've adopted certain behaviours, and just gently observe where you forgo what you actually want to make other people feel more comfortable.”

It's worth noting that this can show up in more subtle ways than you think – so subtle you might not even be consciously aware of them.

“I'll give you an example from a client of mine who said, after she started doing this work, that she noticed how she would go to the hairdressers and she would sit in the chair for hours and wouldn’t even ask them if she could go to the bathroom because she didn't want to inconvenience anyone,” Nercessian explains. 

#2. Trade off being nice for being respected

“The second thing that I would say is that there's got to be some point where, as women in particular, we trade being looked at as the nice one for being respected,” says the mindset coach. “What a lot of people pleasers do is they receive a lot of validation for being nice and not difficult and the one who's easy to please.

To effectively make the shift, Nercessian says you need to ask yourself whether you really want to be seen as nice or if you can be kind but also be respected for what you do and who you are.

There's a trade-off that comes with that, she adds – but it's something that you have to make a conscious decision and a conscious choice around. 

#3. Strengthen your boundaries 

“The third piece of this is to look at strengthening your boundaries and also working on our communication,” Nercessian, who’s also the host of The Boss in Heels podcast, tells Body+Soul. “So it’s important to really get clear with yourself in terms of what you are available for, and what you are no longer available for.”

A great practical exercise is to go back through your camera roll, and actually take note of the people and activities that brought you joy and positively impacted your life, career, relationships or health in some way. And then on the flip side, what were the things you said yes to that you wish you'd declined, but did so out of obligation.

“Then the next step is writing a list of all the things that you're no longer going to be available for,” the mindset coach says. “I like to put this in the form of a ‘not to-do list’. And when you become clear on that, you actually create a personal policy. So for example, you could say, ‘I thank you so much for the invitation, I'm so honoured that you thought of me, but I actually have a personal policy where I'm no longer accepting coffee meetings’, or ‘I’m no longer doing unpaid speaking events’.” 

What if you don’t stop being a people pleaser?

People-pleasing might seem like a harmless treat, but Nercessian warns it can have a “detrimental effect” on us without us even being consciously aware of it. 

“There [are] a lot of research and studies that actually show the negative consequence for women's health and some of the conditions that can develop," she says. "Whether they're autoimmune diseases, or even amongst breast cancer patients, there's been research that has strongly correlated women who have self-identified as being people pleasers with these kinds of health conditions."

So beyond feeling frustrated, burnt out or even resentful that you keep saying yes, “that resentment can actually build up in our bodies and have quite significant negative health consequences as well”, says Nercessian. 

So while it's not a physical ailment, self-identifying as a people pleaser is something to look at, she urges. Women "start to get curious and understand that they're not alone in this – that it's really part of a lot of our conditioning. But if they can take those steps, they can overcome it.”