From Chameleon to Champion: The Pain Behind People Pleasing
Blog post by Heidi Gustafson
Mindset & Transformation Coach
Mastering Midlife with Heidi is dedicated to helping middle-aged women live their lives with confidence and joy, instead of merely surviving.
Much of my life was controlled by my people-pleasing behaviors. From daily habits to long-term relationships, the real me was often kept hidden.
I know I’m not alone in this. I’ve heard many times in the last few years that it feels like people pleasing is an epidemic.
Once you’ve spotted it in your life, it can be overwhelming. You’ll notice it at work, with your friends, in past relationships … You’ll begin to wonder if you can even stop because in midlife, it feels like it’s just who you are.
I assure you, that’s not the case. You are so much more!
As a recovered people pleaser, I personally know the transformation that’s possible in your life! All those entanglements can fall away.
The first step is admitting it’s a problem.
The second is knowing that you are not alone.
You are not strange.
You are not broken.
You are worthy of love, support, healing, and of being seen.
If that feels hard to hear, that’s okay. In fact, it’s normal.
As a coach, my mission is to help as many people as possible break free from this debilitating pattern so you can live the rest of your life in the freedom of interdependent relationships instead of the constricting codependent relationships that people pleasing inevitably creates.
My people pleasing clients often tell me things like:
😔 I do so much for them, but they never return the favor.
😩 I’m so overwhelmed. When will I catch a break? I never have time for ME.
😔 Everyone thinks I’m so happy because I put on a happy face, but I certainly don’t feel that on the inside.
😔 No one appreciates how I make everything perfect for them.
😩 I feel guilty just thinking about speaking up and asking for what I need.
😔 I’ve done so much for everyone else that I don’t even know who I am anymore.
… or they ask me:
🤔 Why doesn’t he get how much he hurt me?
🤔 How do I get over this and stop feeling so resentful?
🤔 Why am I the one who has to change?
🤔How do I say no without feeling guilty?
🤔 How do I stop them from being so condescending and mean? I would never say those kinds of things!
I used to ask these same questions because I couldn't believe that after living a good life being "nice" to others that I was still feeling so taken advantage of.
I remember thinking “isn’t it time for other people to be nice to me for a change?”
😣 I was exhausted from putting on a happy face and not saying how I REALLY felt about anything.
😭 I was emotional from always stuffing MY feelings in order to not hurt someone else’s.
😕 I was confused about who I really was… what I liked and wanted and felt… because I was constantly morphing myself to fit in.
I believed a lot of crazy things about how I was supposed to show up, who I was supposed to be, and what it took to hold a relationship together.
I would even avoid disagreements by saying what I THOUGHT someone else wanted me to say and I’d do whatever I could to make the other person happy.
In truth, I was the ultimate chameleon.
… and the real me was hidden. The me that was always worthy of love. The me that needed nurturing. The me that was sustaining me — not the false version I projected.
Here’s the thing: people-pleasing is not naturally who we are. It’s a learned behavior meant to keep us safe.
It’s the tendency for individuals to go out of their way to make others happy, often at the expense of their own wants, needs, desires.
People-pleasers often prioritize the approval and validation of others above their own well-being. This leads them to agree to things they don't want to do, suppress their own feelings and opinions, and sacrifice their own autonomy. This behavior can stem from various factors such as the fear of rejection, low self-esteem, or a desire to avoid conflict. It can ultimately lead to feelings of resentment, exhaustion, and diminished connections or severed relationships.
Maybe you were taught that it’s not okay to focus on yourself and what YOU want - that doing that would make you a bad person - so you’ve lived your life always putting yourself on the back burner and ignoring your own needs, reinforcing the thought that you’re not good enough.
This is not simply an instinctive behavior you have to put everyone else first; it’s a self-defeating and harmful pattern based on a story you were taught about how the world expected you to be in order to be acceptable... In order to be good enough.
I think many times we have a nudge, a gut feeling, that our life is not all we’d like it to be, but we aren’t compelled to make a change.
Maybe we don’t know how or we think that THEY should change, or we’re scared of the outcome, so we put up with the status quo and stay in our comfort zone. We tolerate things how they are… even if they’re not how we want them to be.
We may even tell ourselves that this is what everyone goes through… that these feelings of dissatisfaction and self doubt and inadequacy are normal… that it’s just the way life is.
Change comes when we finally accept that our current reality not only isn’t serving us but is hurting us.
They say until we reach a pain point of 10, we won’t make a change.
We can be at 9.9, but until we hit a 10, until we hit rock bottom, we will stay… we will put up with things the way they are.
My first real 10 pain point was the realization that my husband of 17 years couldn’t come up with anything to say about me when asked by our therapist to tell her what made me unique… reasons why he loved me.
The only thing he could say was that I was a good cook, but he said that didn’t make me unique because there were a lot of good cooks in the world. I sat listening to this in shock. I woke up the next morning and the first thought in my mind was, “My husband of 17 years doesn’t have anything positive to say about me. What is causing me to stay?”
This devastating realization was my 10. I packed a few things in my car that morning and left the life I had lived with him for over 20 years.
We don’t HAVE to wait to get to a pain point of 10 to make a change.
Maybe if I had expressed myself to him years before it wouldn’t have gotten to that point. I’m not excusing his role in the relationship, I’m pointing out that MY pattern of people pleasing led me to put up with the status quo… to tolerate unhealthy behavior in the relationship because I was taught to put everyone else’s feelings ahead of my own.
I learned to not speak up in order to avoid hurting or disappointing someone. I didn’t know how damaging it was to not express myself. It was my pattern and it had become automatic to behave in this way. I DIDN’T SEE how it was wreaking complete havoc in my life, demolishing my self esteem, and causing me to doubt everything I did… looking outside myself for validation and acceptance.
I didn’t see it… UNTIL I DID!
My mission is to guide you to see your patterns without having to hit your pain point of 10.
Those rock bottom places are extremely painful and I would love to help you avoid that type of pain… the deep pain of your husband of 17 years not having anything positive or loving to say about you.
I stayed in the marriage for 17 years because I believed some very harmful things that caused me to stay… myths that I thought at the time were truths.
But that’s just what they were - myths. When I realized that I could believe what I wanted to believe and what supported me, my life shifted dramatically... in a positive way!
Now I live a life where I:
💪 Empower other women daily
✈️ Travel and live a life I love
👂 Create safe spaces for women to feel heard and accepted
💖 Guide women to transform their lives so that they LOVE themselves - sometimes for what seems like the first time
Are you ready to nurture YOU?
I know, that may seem scary.
Good news: you’re in a judgment free zone. There’s only understanding here.
Transformational Hypnosis Audio
Breaking free from people pleasing requires learning to trust yourself and your intuition…
… even though it can feel like a challenge after years of relying on the opinions and values of everyone else.
Self trust guides you towards decisions that truly reflect YOUR desires and values, boosting your confidence and assertiveness as you learn to be true to YOU.
You can build self trust by talking to yourself in a positive way... over and over. Repetition is how the neural pathways in your brain are trained to fire in a different way, supporting you in your life instead of sabotaging you.
The “I Trust Myself” audio is a beautiful, relaxing way to build these new positive neural connections. Put it on when you lay down at night to go to sleep and let your unconscious mind do all the “work.”
Play it every night for 1 month and notice how different you feel!