People Pleasing Part 1: The "Niceness Disease"

According to Dr. David Burns, over 75% of people with anxiety suffer from "The Niceness Disease."  The Niceness Disease is another way of describing people pleasing--doing something just to appease someone else, even if it isn't something you want or feel you can do.  On the show we discuss more about what The Niceness Disease is, why it's a problem, and what the difference is between niceness and kindness.  

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Transcript

Ep. 59 People Pleasing Part 1:  The Niceness Disease
Intro

I have always considered myself a nice person.  I once thought this was a good thing, but I’ve changed my mind.  Being a “nice” person sometimes means I’m not very nice to myself.  It wreaks havoc on my emotional life and can actually negatively impact people around me as well.  David Burns, a Stanford professor and psychologist, estimates that over 75% of people who suffer from anxiety have what he calls, “The Niceness Disease.”  

 On this podcast, I’ve created a pseudo-clinical profile for “The Niceness Disease” to help you “diagnose” and “treat” yourself.   We’ll discuss what “the niceness disease” is in more detail.  We’ll discuss the difference between being nice and being kind.  We’ll discuss the symptoms of a people pleaser and how to recognize them in yourself or others.  In part 2 of the podcast we’ll discuss “treatment” options to help cure yourself of this pervasive disease.  As a former and sometimes continuing sufferer from this disease, I can say it’s possible to be less of a people pleaser and life is much happier.  

 One-Minute Wisdom
 My depression journey—gave her confidence to get on meds.  
 
 What is “The Niceness Disease”? 

The Niceness Disease is an umbrella term for the negative consequences of being nice at the expense of your own feelings, beliefs, and needs.   Sometimes it is also called people pleasing. 

“Nice” people usually care about what others think.  They are people who don’t like to ruffle feathers, people who like to please others, and people who hate putting others out.  They are often offering to help others, they seem easy going and don’t have a ton of opinions.  They are usually “yes” people and will drop things to help out.  These things can be wonderful qualities.  Being “nice” in this way is pleasant for others.  However, in order to keep the peace with others and maintain their own perceived likability, people with the niceness disease are often nice at their own expense.  They discount or at least don’t express their own real feelings—even to themselves.  And, they think that they have to please others or they will not be liked by others.  Or, a more subtle thing our brain tells us when we’re people pleasing is that if we don’t do what the other person wants, then the other person will be upset or disappointed and it’s just not worth dealing with that.  

It’s important to point out that most of us have this need to be liked hard wired in our brains.  And it can be very useful.  It is important to our survival to connect with others.  We need other people and we need connection.  This drive to be liked can help us be more kind.  However when taken to any extreme, a good thing can become a bad thing.  

People Pleasing Continuum

I see people pleasing on sort of a continuum.  On the one side you do whatever YOU want and don’t consider others.  On the opposite side, you do whatever OTHERS want and don’t consider yourself or at least consider yourself to the same extent as others. You do whatever it takes to keep someone else happy.  

Now obviously the extreme where you don’t consider others feelings is not kind, it’s selfish and it’s not good for you or anyone else.  But what might not be as evident is that doing whatever others want even at your own expense is also selfish and isn’t good for you or others either.  
 
 Now, if your brain is resisting this idea, stay with me.  I’m going to flesh this out and explain what I mean.  

Niceness vs. Kindness
I’m going to pause and differentiate between kindness and niceness (aka people pleasing).  
 
Niceness looks a lot like kindness.  It’s being agreeable. It’s saying yes.  It’s not saying anything if we think it will be a bother for others.  We may THINK these things are kindness.  And, they COULD be.  The difference between kindness and niceness is our motive.  In people pleasing, we do nice things so we don’t bother others, so we don’t disappoint them, so that they don’t get mad, so they don’t think less of us, so they don’t talk about us to others.  People pleasing comes with an expectation attached.  The expectation is that others will think better of you, or they will be thankful, or they will not take advantage of your kindness, or that they will not get angry or disappointed etc.  In other words people pleasing is doing something because you want something in return.  Think about a time you felt different than your spouse about something and didn’t say anything just to avoid conflict.   Then later your spouse complained about the same thing.  You might feel some annoyance that you agreed and STILL had to listen to them complain.  See….you likely didn’t even realize you had an expectation attached to your behavior.  You had an expectation that you wouldn’t have to deal with the other person’s complaining, disappointment etc.  When you do have to deal with it, you’re disappointed. 

Have you ever watched someone’s kids, given a gift, Brought over cookies etc. and didn’t the person didn’t like it or didn’t say thanks or seem to care?  Then, you felt a bit annoyed?  We may do something we don’t have time, or energy, or money for in order to get this transaction result we hope for which is acceptance, likability. admiration, loyalty, friendship, gratitude, a particular image—and sometimes we don’t even realize we WANT that result.  
 
 True kindness is doing something because you want to help or show love to others, and you are wiling to accept however they react.  We do it out of choice, not obligation, or desperation to keep the peace.  We may TELL ourselves in some situations that we are being kind, or loving, or unselfish or self-sacrificing, or easy going when in fact we are people pleasing. 

So what’s the harm in people pleasing and being “nice” instead of “kind?” 
 Some of you might be thinking, so what?  What’s the harm in people pleasing.  Let me explain why people pleasing is harmful to you and to others.  

When you people please, you are really representing yourself as something you’re not.  You are saying I want to hang out with you, when you really don’t.  You’re saying I enjoy you, when you don’t.  You are saying I have time, when you don’t.  In other words, you are making yourself “look” like someone who you really aren’t. People pleasing is lying.  It’s misleading yourself and others about who you really are.    This has damaging effects for many reasons.  

Here are some reasons it harms you….

YOU

1. You are so busy putting out the version of yourself you think will please people, you don’t know who you actually are.  You lose yourself.  
2. You exhaust yourself.  Trying to be who others want you to be is exhausting.  It’s trying to be 2 or 12 or 20 different versions of you.  
3. You never really feel the full connection to others you are seeking because people aren’t actually loving YOU!  They are loving the version of you that you put out there.  When we seek approval or affection from others, we really don’t just want love…we want to be loved for who we are.  When people love the version of us that we pretend to be, we often feel like we have to keep doing the things they want to be loved.  We may end up feeling resentful, disappointed, disconnected, even lonely.  In addition, people are astute readers of intention; people pleasing can make you appear needy—like you expect something from someone else in return.  This is not very fun on the receiving side of things.  For the other person.  And often does not lead to deep and meaningful connection 
    
    Speaking of the other person, let’s discuss why people pleasing isn’t beneficial in the long-run for the other person.  It may SEEM like they are getting the good end of the deal when you do whatever they want.  But are they?    

OTHERS

1.  They don’t get to experience the real you.  You may feel un-relatable because you are putting forth an image of yourself that isn’t totally accurate.  This could cause the other person to feel inadequate about themselves.  
   
   
2. Getting service with an attached expectation can feel like manipulation.  People pleasing is closely linked with resentment.  When we do something for the purpose of being liked or approved of and that approval or gratitude or need isn’t met, we can feel disappointed and even resentful.  Others may feel irritated, used or frustrated that they accepted help, service, gifts etc. with the understanding they were offered freely and then later feel that they had an attached expectation.  
    
    One way this can manifest itself is the expectation that  others will try to people please us back.  We did what they wanted, now they should do or at least “know” what it is that we want.  When they don’t, a people pleaser may feel resentful.  Resentment is a terrible feeling.  Not fun at all to feel like someone resents you.  It depletes a relationship and causes confusion or even resentment back.  
   
   
3.  People pleasing can allow others to take advantage of you either knowingly or unknowingly.  While it may be convenient for others, running over someone or taking advantage of someone doesn’t feel satisfying—it feels bad. When we people please, we often put people in this position unknowingly. 
    
    People Pleasing erodes trust, because it is not the truth.  It destroys yourself of self and often our relationships.   Good relationships are built on trust.   We need to be able to trust ourselves to be honest with ourselves.  And, others want to be able to trust us too.  While subtle, people pleasing is a form of lying. 
    
    Why do We People Please?
   People pleasing feels incredible in the short-term, because it stimulates neurotransmitters in our brain because we did what someone else wanted.  They are “happy” with us.  We may get a hit of adrenaline or dopamine when we people please.  But in the long-term we often end up feeling exhausted, irritated, overwhelmed or resentful. 
   
   In contrast, kindness feels lovely in the long-term.  Sometimes it feels nice in the short-term, but other times it feels uncomfortable. 
   
   One of my clients was feeling a lot of resentment because her husband wouldn’t clean up his dishes when he was working from home and eating in his office.  She had asked him, but he didn’t.  She cleaned it up for him trying to be “nice” and because she didn’t think it was worth the conflict.  She got an instantaneous reward of avoiding conflict, but inside she silently felt resentful.  Every time she picked up his dishes she felt a bit more frustrated.  Finally one day she stacked all his dirty dishes for the day on his pillow to SHOW him what she did for him. 
   
   I love this example, because most of us can relate to silently suffering through something we hate just to keep the peace.  Our behavior seems so nice on the outside, but on the inside it’s not very nice.  It’s actually really mean. She was irritated and angry on the inside.  The husband had no idea it was irritating her as much as it was.  Not even realizing it, she was misleading her husband into thinking she was fine with picking up dishes.  He was confused when he found this huge pile of dishes on his pillow.  She sometimes felt so angry she didn’t want to talk to him.  Her behavior represented a different reality than what she was feeling about the task.  Her short-term pleasure and niceness turned to irritation and anger at her spouse in the long-run.   
   
   During coaching we talked about what it was she really wanted.  We talked about what she wanted and what she could control.  We talked about the difference between kindness and people pleasing.  She could choose to pick up the dishes because she wanted them pick up.  Or she could leave the dishes and not pick them up.  Either way, she could be kind about it.  She could have kind feelings towards her husband on the inside and be kind to him on the outside with her words and actions.  She decided to leave the dishes and not pick them up.  She told her husband she would love him to pick up the dishes, but if he didn’t want to, that was fine.  She wasn’t wanting to do it either.  So the dishes would just sit there.  It felt a bit awkward, it probably seemed a bit unkind to her husband.  She found that he didn’t pick up his dishes for a few days, but every couple days he would.  The dishes bugged her a bit, but because she didn’t feel obligated to pick them up, she was’t angry at him.  She didn’t make it mean anything negative about him or her.   She began to think about him and his dishes differently.  He must have a lot going on in his mind to not be able to remember to bring those in.  I wonder what is on his mind.  And inside she enjoyed feelings of kindness toward him instead of resentment.  Sometimes she did decide to pick up the dishes because SHE wanted it clean, not because she felt obligated.  And when she did she didn’t feel resentment she felt empowerment and kindness.  Do you see this subtle shift here?  If you were the husband, which one would you rather have?  Which one is kinder? A wife who picked up the dishes and resents you and feels irritated, or a wife who loves you and appreciates you and lets you pick up your dishes when you want to? 
   
   
   Diagnosis
   We’ve discussed what “The Niceness Disease” is, and why it may be a problem.  Maybe you have resonated with some of the concerns mentioned, or maybe there is someone in your life that you recognize is people pleasing. 
   
   

Summary
Let’s summarize what we’ve learned today.  Frequent people pleasing or doing what others want you to do even when you don’t agree, want to or feel you can is called “The Niceness Disease.”  While the “Niceness Disease” looks “kind” on the outside, it is unfair and unhelpful to you and to others.  Often 

Expat Exit Strategy
This week pay attention to your feelings after you do something nice for someone.  Especially if they DON’T react the way you were hoping they would.  Do you feel love for them, or do you feel irritation or resentment?  Examine your true motives for doing something.  Is it truly because you want to do something kind, or because you have attached and expectation to it in how you hope they will respond.  

Coaching

People pleasing is something that affects all of us.  There are so many powerful tools that can help you set a different precedent in your life.  Jump on and schedule a free, 30 min. Mini-coaching session and we can chat about how people pleasing may be showing up in your life and how you can navigate life in a healthier way.