People Pleasers - Great At Keeping Promises To Others, But Not Ourselves
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.
I recently had a session with a client and we were talking about integrity with others vs integrity with ourselves.
My client said they were great at always staying committed to others, but not to themselves. When I asked the client what played into that, they said, “I’m not hurting anybody if I break a promise to myself.”
Do you feel like my client? If you break a commitment to yourself, you’re not hurting anyone?
My question to you is: “What about you? Aren’t you hurting yourself?”
Do you always keep promises you make to other people and easily break the promises you’ve made to yourself?
Do you tell yourself you’ll do that thing for YOU tomorrow? Right now, all the rest of this other stuff has to get done.
Do you find yourself procrastinating on things you’ve told yourself you’d do for you because you have “obligations” to other people?
Have you ever committed to something and then realized you don’t have the time or energy to do it, but because you committed, you feel like there’s no way you can back out?
Why are these promises we make to ourselves so important to keep?
1 — Breaking promises to yourself impacts your mental health. It can deeply affect the way you see yourself.
2 — It impacts your confidence and self esteem. It can actually go deep - to feelings of unworthiness and inadequacy. We can start to believe we don’t deserve the positive things we want in our life.
3 — Breaking promises to yourself and keeping commitments to others out of obligation impacts the sense of trust you have in yourself.
Even if the promise seems small, the repeated breaking of it trains us to expect that of ourselves.
Shame, low self esteem, and burnout can be crippling to our happiness … and it’s hard to form a plan if you don’t trust yourself to follow through.
For some of us, we feel our commitments to others - whatever that looks like - is part of our identity.
You might say, “It’s just who I am. It’s part of my DNA. If I say I’m gonna do something for someone, then I’ll do it.” It becomes a bit of a badge of honor to always be there.
Don’t get me wrong; it’s great to follow through and do what you say you’re gonna do … but are you sometimes doing it out of obligation or fear of what will happen if you don’t? Or are you following through, no matter what the cost to you?
Maybe you’re doing it because you don’t want the other person to be disappointed or upset?
When we want to avoid having someone feel something, it’s really about US wanting to avoid knowing they feel that way.
This is because WE feel responsible for how THEY feel and WE don’t want to feel bad.
As people pleasers, how does this play into the promises we make to ourselves?
We think we’re not hurting anyone because as people pleasers, we’re focused on not hurting or disappointing OTHER people.
We’re very outwardly focused and many times, because we’ve spent so much time focused on others, WE don’t even know what WE feel anymore. We feel and take on what THEY are feeling. So as long as THEY are happy, it’s easy to think that we ourselves are happy.
While you may think you’re not hurting anyone if the promise you break is to yourself, it’s because you don’t really consider yourself as your own entity. You’ve placed your focus so externally that you even switch to that mindset when considering your own feelings.
Remember: Your exhaustion counts. Your burnout counts. Your lack of time for your dreams counts.
Here’s the other reason we break promises to ourselves: it’s a habit in our brain. You’ve let yourself off the hook enough times that it’s become a habit. And habits are automatic. We don’t even think about them. Like putting on your seatbelt when you get in your car or brushing your teeth first thing in the morning… they’re habits. Not sticking with something you commit to is a habit too.
Our habits are what drive us — not what we think consciously or logically in the moment.
How do we change this habit of breaking promises to ourselves and keeping ones to others out of obligation?
First, we have to discover and acknowledge that this is happening because there are feelings that we’re wanting to avoid. I’m trying to avoid others’ disappointment and the guilt and selfishness I might feel for doing something for ME.
Like I said earlier, until we address this in ourselves, we will continue to do it.
Secondly, be willing to be uncomfortable with the feelings that come up from creating something different in your life. For me, I had to look at patterns I was repeating, such as marrying 3 times and one time staying married for 17 years. I found avoiding hurting or disappointing someone seemed more important to me than speaking my truth and doing what was best for me.
At the time, I wasn’t willing to look at the feelings that would come up in myself OR the other person so I avoided them by staying in the relationship.
This reflection can be difficult to just dive into. Instead, I recommend an exercise called 7 Levels Deep.
This exercise is simple to do, and can have a profound impact on what’s keeping you from getting what you want in your life. It’s also possible that it will uncover a fear you have about yourself that’s keeping you stuck. (Many times our fears show up as patterns that we keep repeating.)
This exercise is empowering! It brings knowledge and gives you the power to create whatever it is you want in your life.
I did the 7 Levels Deep exercise with my client who said they weren’t hurting anyone if they didn’t keep the promises they made to themselves.
What came out of it for them was the deep desire to be respected. A fear they had was not being trusted or believed, and that was greatly impacting the integrity they had with themselves.
If you’re seeing yourself in this, I’m offering you a free call where I will take you through the 7 Levels Deep exercise!
This may be the breakthrough you need to change the thing you’ve been struggling with for a long time.