Ep. 170: From People-Pleasing to Peace: Taking Back the Driver's Seat in Midlife

Hey friend, welcome back to The Intentional Midlife Mom Podcast. I'm Jennifer Roskamp, and today we're talking about something that hits way too close to home for most of us.

Here's a stat that won't surprise you: 52% of women identify as people-pleasers, compared to 44% of men. But here's what's really happening—midlife is when this people-pleasing habit finally breaks us.

You've spent decades being everything for everyone. The capable one. The one who holds it together. The mom who never says no. The wife who keeps the peace. The daughter who manages everyone's emotions.

And now? You're exhausted. Resentful. You don't even recognize your own life anymore.

You look around and think, "How did I become invisible in my own life?"

If that's you—if you feel like you're drowning in everyone else's needs while your own dreams collect dust—this episode is for you.

Today we're diving into why people-pleasing intensifies in midlife, what it's actually costing you, and how to finally get back in the driver's seat of your life. Without burning everything down. Without becoming selfish. Without losing the people you love.

Because here's what I know: You don't need to choose between showing up for others and showing up for yourself. But you do need to learn how to do both.

So grab your coffee, find a quiet spot, and let's talk about taking your life back.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Daily Task List

The Intentional Mom Planning System

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Daily Task Management
• 0:33 Utilizing Rapid Fire Tasks for Productivity
• 0:40 The Struggles of People Pleasing in Midlife
• 9:53 Understanding the Cost of People Pleasing
• 14:49 Reclaiming Control: The Driver's Seat of Your Life
• 21:26 The Chart Your Course Framework Explained
• 27:45 Empowerment Through Boundaries and Self-Care

Transcript

Well, hey, friend. This is Jennifer Roskamp, and welcome to the Intentional Midlife Mom podcast. Today we're talking about something that hits way too close to home for most of us. Here's a stat that is probably not going to surprise you. 52 % of women identify as people pleasers compared to only 44 % of men. But here's what's really happening. Midlife is when this people pleasing habit, it finally breaks us.

You've spent decades being everything for everyone, the capable one, the one who holds it together, the mom who never says no, the wife who keeps the peace, the daughter who manages everyone's emotions. And now you're exhausted, maybe even resentful. You don't even recognize your life anymore. You look around and think, how did I become invisible in my own life? If this is you, if you feel like you're drowning in everyone else's needs and wants and preferences while your own dreams collect dust,

This episode is for you. And hey, if you know someone else who needs to hear this episode, will you share it with her? This is how we can start having these conversations and start moving forward as women and starting to do midlife better. And if someone shared this episode with you, welcome. I'm so excited that you are here. We meet every week and we talk about so many things that are relevant to midlife women in this time and space. So.

Today we're diving into why people pleasing intensifies in midlife, what it's actually costing you, and how to finally get back in the driver's seat of your life without burning everything down, without becoming selfish, and without losing the people you love. Because here's what I know. You don't need to choose between showing up for others and showing up for yourself. But you do need to learn how to do both.

So grab your coffee or your tea, find your quiet spot, and let's talk about taking your life back. So let me start with a story. About 10 years ago, I found myself in one of the hardest seasons of my life. My husband was in nursing school, money was beyond tight, and I was holding everything together. Or at least that's what I told myself. But the truth is, I was drowning. But instead of asking for help, I kept saying yes. Yes to extra work. Yes to managing everyone's schedules. Yes to being the emotional...

dumping ground for my family and I was so tired. But asking for help felt harder than just doing it all myself because at least when I did everything, I didn't have to face the sting of rejection. When people didn't follow through, when people told me no, does this sound familiar? I kept telling myself it was easier to over function than to deal with conflict. But what I was really doing was choosing burnout over boundaries. And that choice was slowly

killing me. So here's what I've learned about why this hits so hard in midlife. It's not just one thing. It's actually kind of a perfect storm. first, there's biology. If you're in perimenopause or menopause, I don't need to tell you something. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, I assume, when I tell you that your hormones are doing things that make conflict feel impossible. Fluctuating estrogen affects your mood regulation. Your nervous system is more reactive.

When your teenager rolls their eyes or your husband sighs, it feels like there's some sort of emergency that needs to be solved. Your brain literally is thinking anything but conflict, and so you default to keeping the peace. Even when keeping that peace means losing yourself. And then there's psychology. Midlife is this weird space where the old you is fading, but the new you isn't formed yet.

All those beliefs that you thought you dealt with, they keep roaring back. We say things to ourselves like, my needs just don't get to matter. Good moms just take care of it. I should be able to handle this. And then there's just this roller coaster of life. You're sandwiched between aging parents and growing kids and grown kids who still need you. Your career role might be shifting. You might be stepping back into a career.

Your marriage is changing. Everything feels unstable. And so you try to control what you can, which usually means managing everyone else's emotions and needs because it feels safer than dealing with your own stuff. Ha ha. That hit, didn't it? But here's the reframe that I want you to hear. There's nothing wrong with you because you're wrestling with all of these things and people pleasing is wearing you down.

and making you resentful. This isn't some sort of character flaw. This is what happens really when biology and psychology and life circumstances collide. That's that perfect storm I was describing. There's nothing wrong with you. You're simply human. And there's a big difference between those two things. My wake up call came on a random day when I was folding laundry, of course, again. And my daughter asked me what I wanted for dinner.

I stood there holding a towel and I realized I had no idea, not just about dinner, but about anything. I didn't know what I wanted to eat. I didn't know what I wanted to watch, what I wanted to do with my weekend. I had become so used to asking everyone else what they needed or wanted that I'd completely lost track of my own preferences or the fact that I even had any. And that's when it hit me. I was teaching my kids in modeling that love actually means disappearing.

I was showing them that being a good mom, a good wife, a good person, it means erasing yourself. That your job is to carry everyone else's needs and emotions and manage everyone else's lives. And suddenly that terrified me more than any conflict ever could. Because what I was really modeling is that moms don't matter. That your needs need to come last. That saying yes to everyone else is more important than knowing who you are.

Here's what people pleasing was really costing me and maybe you too. I'd lost myself in my own life. I couldn't make a simple decision without checking with everyone else first. Checking in with everyone else. Do you need anything before I think about myself? And what was happening is I was resenting the people I was trying so hard to please, which felt awful because I loved them. But I was angry all the time and I had no idea what I actually wanted anymore. My preferences, my dreams, my goals.

They were all buried underneath everyone else's stuff. And the worst part is that I was exhausted. I was that bone deep, soul crushing exhausted because managing everyone else's everything is a full time job that nobody can actually do. And that really was the moment when I realized I was disappearing. And that's when I knew something had to change. But here's the thing that kept me stuck for so long. I knew that boundaries,

were what I needed, but I believed that boundaries are selfish. I thought that if I started saying no, if I stopped being available for everyone else's crisis and every need that I'd be letting people down, that I'd be a bad mom, a bad wife, a bad person. And that lie, it runs deep for women, especially in midlife because really we've been conditioned to believe that our worth comes from how much we give, how much we do, how much of that list you check off, how much we sacrifice.

how much we can carry. But here's the truth that nobody talks about. Boundaries are necessary and boundaries actually grow everyone around you. Because when you stop doing everything for your kids, they learn responsibility. When you stop managing your husband's emotions, he learns to manage them himself. When you stop being the family therapist, everyone learns to deal with their own stuff a little bit more. Boundaries aren't selfish.

They're developmental for everyone. But even in knowing that, there's still the fear, the big scary question that really we're all carrying. What will stepping back actually cost me? Will I lose people if I stop caring all of their things? What happens if I start becoming a person who says no sometimes? If I start having my own needs, opinions, and boundaries? The truth is some people might not like

the new you, the you who has preferences, the you who says, I'm not sure that's going to work for me, the you who shows up as a whole person instead of just a service provider. But here's what I've learned. The people who don't like the healthier version of you, they were never really your people anyway. They didn't truly love you. They weren't truly on your side. They loved what you did for them or

how you made them feel about themselves. And the people who stay, the people who cheer you on when you are growing and learning and becoming a healthier you, they get something so much better. They get the real you, not the burnt out, resentful, invisible version, but the woman who knows who she is and isn't afraid to be her. The woman who is so much more fun to be around, so much more present, so much more capable of genuine love because

She's not loving from obligation or guilt or fear. She's loving from choice. And that changes everything.

So let's talk about what people pleasing actually does to your brain, because understanding this helps everything else make sense. When you're constantly managing everyone else's everything, your brain doesn't have the capacity that it needs to make your own decision. It's like having 15 tabs open on your computer, or if you're me, maybe 72. When that is going on, everything slows down.

You know that feeling when someone asks you what you want for lunch and you literally can't think, like in my example? That's cognitive overload. Your brain is so busy tracking everyone else's everythings, including their emotions and moods, that it can't process your own preferences. That's why you feel scattered and foggy and like you can't think straight. It's also why people pleasing becomes autopilot. It becomes our default, making everyone else feel

feel happier, it feels easier than the discomfort of conflict. And so your brain defaults to whatever keeps the peace. But here's the problem. Easier in the moment doesn't mean better in the long run. Every time you say yes when you mean no, you're teaching your brain that your feelings don't matter, that other people's comfort is more important than your own reality. And your brain learns. It gets really good at ignoring

your own internal signals, your gut feelings, your instincts, your needs, until one day you can't even find them or hear them anymore. This is why women in midlife often feel lost. It's not that you don't know who you are. It's that you've trained your brain to ignore who you are. Hmm. Let's repeat that. It's not that you don't know who you are. It's that you've trained your brain to ignore who you are.

But here's the good news. Brains are like plastic. They can be retrained. You can learn to hear your own voice again. You can rebuild that connection between what you think and what you feel and what you choose. It just takes practice and structure and lots of compassion for yourself as you figure it all out. One of the things I talk about with my coaching clients a lot is this idea of being in the driver's seat versus being in the backseat of your life. Being in the backseat of your life is where you're just along for the ride. It's when you feel like,

Life is happening to you, and you have very little say so. And your main objective is to just survive. And I compare that to what it's like to be in the driver's seat. And this is when you are the one who is stepping into things. You are the one who is thinking and making decisions and being involved and being part of the reality that life is giving you. You're not content. You're not throwing the white flag up in the air and saying, well, I guess this is just the way it is.

I guess I'm just gonna have to deal with this. Being in the driver's seat means that you're saying, okay, how can I deal with this in a way that aligns with who I am and what I want and the life that I wanna create? So how do you get back in the driver's seat of your own life? Don't worry, if you feel like and realize, wow, I really am just a passenger in my own life, I can help you get back into the driver's seat.

How do you stop being a passenger in your own life? And here's the bigger question when it comes to people pleasing. How do you stop being a passenger in everyone else's agenda?

Years ago, I created the Chart Your Course Framework. Chart is an acronym, which I'll tell you about in a moment. But between my signature planning system, a Chart Your Course full-length course, and inside my coaching community, Accomplished Lifestyle, this proven framework, the Chart Your Course Framework, has now transformed the lives of tens of thousands of women who have felt lost, unsupported, and overwhelmed in their own lives.

If you can focus on getting some law in order, some clarity, and some systems that actually support you, and the life that you currently have, rather than the one that you're reaching for, yet always feels elusive to you, you'll start to feel like you're the one driving the car in your own life, rather than just being along for the ride, and being at the mercy of whatever the current curve ball is that life has thrown your way.

That's what the chart your course framework can do for you. So let me walk you through what this looks like and show you how this works. So chart is an acronym. And the C stands for care for self. And really, there's more to it. But the most important piece of self-care, I feel, is a morning routine. Now, I'm not talking about some Instagram-worthy 5 AM ritual with meditation and journaling and green smoothies. I'm talking about 20 minutes, maybe 30 before.

before the world has the opportunity to get loud, before everyone else and their needs starts pulling at you. This isn't this 20 to 30 minute time frame. It's not about productivity. This is about reclaiming your voice. When you start your day with intention instead of reaction, something shifts. You remember that you exist, that you have thoughts and feelings and preferences.

that actually matter. And it sounds small, but it's revolutionary for women who've been living in everyone else's agenda. So that's the C. The H in the chart, your course framework, H is for home management, but not the way you think. This isn't about Pinterest perfect houses or color coded calendars and schedules for your home. This is about creating systems that serve your life instead of suffocating it.

systems that work when life gets messy, when kids get sick, when plans fall apart, because here's what I've learned. Your environment can either support you or strangle you. And let me tell you, it's easier when your environment, everything in life gets easier when your environment supports you. So that's the H. The A in chart your course, A is for meals. This is when we deal with

the ever never ending question of what's for dinner. And the thing that makes that question so hard is that we have to make it time and time and time again. And it's the ultimate recipe for decision fatigue. So in the chart your course framework, we're all about creating meals. And one of the things I teach so heavily, especially in the intentional mom planning system, is the idea of choosing meals based on the amount of

bandwidth, and capacity you have. Do you need meals with minimal effort? OK, if you need meals with minimal effort, let's think about what those meals are. Here are some that you can choose from if you've got minimal, if you need minimal effort, if you are running on a half a cylinder. So all the meals, we're all about breaking them down, making them simpler, and choosing them smarter. It's not about what you want to make.

or what sounds like the right thing to make. It's about, what do I have the ability to make? And we're all about breaking that down and making it easier. R is for routines and schedules, not rigid schedules that fall apart the first time that life happens, but really flexible rhythms that help you move through your days with intention rather than chaos.

T is for task management. This is where you learn to protect your resources like the precious things that they are, your resources. These are things like your capacity, your energy, your ability to focus, your time. We talk about how to do this because they are precious commodities. So we talk about doing this in the most efficient and strategic way possible. We talk about how to stop giving away your time and energy to every request that comes your way.

When you put these five pillars all together, something powerful happens. You stop living in reactive mode. You stop being at the mercy of everyone else's emergencies and emotions, and you start leading your life instead of just managing it. This framework, this chart your course framework, is now, it's baked into pretty much everything I teach or use to coach with in some way, including the intentional mom planning system. I didn't create this system because

planning is magic or some sort of easy button. But the truth is that structure creates space. Space between what happens and how you respond. Space to think. Space to choose. The Intentional Mom Planning System, it walks you through setting up different tools and systems and step-by-step routines in each of these five pillars of the Chart Your Course framework. And because with the updated 2025 Planning System, you'll also get

a customized assistant powered by GPT that will ask you a series of interactive questions to get you up and running in each of those five pillars, it's impossible to feel overwhelmed with the planning system or like you don't know how to use it. I've also built in a quick start process that will help you get your planning system up and running in less than 30 minutes. Here's what focusing on just these five areas of life means. It means that you'll actually be able to follow through

on getting stuff done. You'll be able to follow your plan for your life and your desires for your life every single day. As a new user to the planning system, Sarah was feeling completely burned out. She was managing her teenager's homework, her husband's social calendar, her mother's doctor's appointments, and her own full-time job. She emailed me to let me know about what the planning system helped her do in her own life.

She was able to move from feeling like she was drowning. She was drowning, but every time someone needed something, she still said yes, because feeling no, saying no felt selfish. And since she really had no schedules or routines or systems in place, she had no idea what she could honestly say yes to or no to in reality. And working through just a few of those pillars in the planning system, things began to change in how she felt. In the things she said yes to,

including the things that actually mattered to her, in her relationships with others, things changed there too, and even in her relationship with herself. She spent less time in beating herself up mode and more time in showing up for herself mode. Things did not change overnight. The planning system, it's not magic. But things changed steadily. And how she looked at herself and her life began to slowly change for the better.

She started her days with intention instead of immediately checking her phone. She created systems for her home that actually worked with her schedule, not against it. She practiced new thoughts about her worth and her responsibilities. And slowly, she stopped being everyone else's emergency contact for every sort of crisis and every need. Her kids learned to solve their own problems. Her husband started managing his own calendar and commitments. And her sister,

began to feel more independent as well. Sarah finally began to emerge from underneath all of the caretaking she was doing for everyone else. She started pursuing interests that she'd forgotten she had. She felt peace in her own home for the first time in years. And the best thing was that she focused on her own needs some of the time. And you know what she discovered? Her family didn't fall apart. They got stronger. Because instead of being a burned out resentful,

mom and wife, they got a woman who is present, confident, and genuinely happy to be with them. This is what happens when you get back in the driver's seat. Everyone benefits. And here's what's really important for you to understand. When you stop people pleasing, you don't become selfish. You become strategic. You start asking better questions, not how can I make everyone happy, but what's the most loving thing I can do here?

for them and for me. Sometimes that will mean saying yes, but sometimes it will mean saying no. But it always means choosing from clarity, not fear or guilt or shame. Your kids, they learned that love doesn't mean having no boundaries. They learned that healthy relationships require two whole people, not one person disappearing into the other. Your marriage gets stronger because your husband gets a partner.

Someone who shows up because she wants to, not because she has to. Your friendships become real instead of those performance-based ones. And you attract people who value you for who you are, not what you do for them. And you begin to wonder, you begin to remember what it feels like to take up space in your own life, to have opinions, to make choices based on what feels right for you, not what keeps everyone else comfortable.

But it doesn't happen overnight. Changing longstanding patterns, it takes time and practice and lots of grace for yourself. But it starts with one decision, the decision to stop people pleasing, to stop disappearing, to stop making yourself smaller so that everyone else can be more comfortable, the decision to believe that you matter, that your needs matter, that your life matters. Friend, here's what I need you to hear today. People pleasing, it's not just a bad habit.

It's a form of survival mode that will lead straight to burnout. And survival mode does serve a purpose. But always giving preference to everyone and everything else doesn't have to be your permanent way of life. You can decide to want something different, to stop caring everyone else's everything, to love your family and loved ones fiercely without continuing to have to lose yourself in the process.

You can decide to lead your life instead of just managing it. You have permission to say no without explaining yourself, to have preferences without apologizing for them, to take up space in your own life, to put up boundaries that will include giving preference to yourself at times. And you'll know that boundaries are not a form of being selfish. They're wisdom and structure. You'll start creating structure, like the structures you'll create with the intentional mom planning system.

It's not about doing more. It's about finally aligning your life with who you are right now, not the 10-year-ago you, and creating the systems that will support that life, your here and now life. The intentional mom planning system was built for this exact moment, when you're ready to stop disappearing and start showing up as yourself. In less than 30 minutes with this system, you'll feel your first win. You'll remember what it's like to be in the driver's seat of your own life.

to make decisions from clarity instead of chaos. Because in reality, you're not feeling overlooked and overloaded and overwhelmed because there's something wrong with you. You've just outgrown the old systems and routines and ways of doing things that used to work, at least somewhat. But you've burned yourself out on trying to make them fit your life today because, surprise, life is different. And you're different from how you used to be. And all of that people-pleasing and losing yourself in the process

Again, it's helped you forget what you need in everyday life. All of this clarity and support is something different that's waiting for you inside the Intentional Mom Planning System when it launches later this week, the updated 2025 version. But as a preview, you can get a small piece of the Intentional Mom Planning System, and it's actually my favorite piece.

actually my favorite piece in the entire system. It's a skill that I teach all of my coaching clients. It's called the Daily Task List and it uses my rapid fire tasks when every single task on your list can get done in 10 minutes or less because friend, you can do anything for 10 minutes. With rapid fire tasks, you'll be crossing things off your list left and right. There's a link down in the show notes where you can get this Daily Task List for free and you can be among the first to know.

when the 2025 updated Intentional Non-Planning System becomes available. Depending on when you listen to this, it might already be available to you. You can also go to Daily Task List for free and download your Daily Task List right there. Friend, people-pleasing, it's something we all fall into, at least most of us. But it doesn't have to be your new way of life. And it's not serving the people you so fiercely love. It's not serving them to continue to be in people-pleasing mode.

Friend, I cannot wait to hear how this episode has impacted you. And I cannot wait to help you with the tools inside the intentional mom planning system. Until next time, make it an intentional day.