The 'People Pleasing' Dilemma: Is It Costing You More Than You Think?

How many times have you said yes when every part of you wanted to say no? How many years have been spent keeping the peace, avoiding conflict, or chasing approval - at the cost of your own wellbeing? 

For so many of us, people pleasing has been a way of life. It starts young, becomes automatic, and by midlife we can find ourselves running on empty, resentful, or wondering who we even are anymore.

In today’s conversation, we’re diving into why people pleasing shows up so strongly, the hidden costs of it, and why midlife is such a powerful turning point. 

We’ll share why people pleasing is so deeply ingrained, how to spot it in your own life, and give you some simple, practical ways to start breaking free. 

Ibiza Retreat - Join us: 9 -12th October for a Midlife Reset

https://themidlifementors.com/retreats/

Transcript

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The Midlife Mentors: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Midlife Mentors with me, James. Me, Claire. If you're watching this on video, because we do put the video out sometimes, you'll notice that sometimes… We are working on video, it'd be a miracle.

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The Midlife Mentors: We're actually matching jumpers. I don't know how that has happened this afternoon. I was about to say this morning. Is it that weather front that's blown in, I think, Fais. We've got us reaching for the winter woolies. But it's always me that starts with the weather, that was you this time. Yeah, I'm not going to mention the weather again. What have we been up to? I don't know, but you're feeling a little bit low on energy, so I'm not. I'm like a Duracell bunny today. Yes, we were calling this, mid-week, mid-afternoon.

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The Midlife Mentors: And I'll tell you what kind of week it's been. Claire woke up on Tuesday morning and went, is it Saturday? I honestly did. I'm like, no, sadly not.

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The Midlife Mentors: I actually thought it was Saturday morning, yesterday morning.

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The Midlife Mentors: Yeah, that's not good, is it? On a Tuesday. But you've had a really busy time of it. Been really busy. I'm onboarding a lot of clients at the moment that I'm working with, a lot via corporate, a lot of private clients, so that's great. I've also got, prepping for a lot of corporate work coming up this month and next month.

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The Midlife Mentors: various workshops I'm running. We're doing the Fix Festival tomorrow in Oxford. We're doing the Fix Festival tomorrow in Oxford. By the time you listen to this, it would have been. Yeah. We are at the Home Life and You show. Yes, I've just found out that I'm…

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The Midlife Mentors: Chairing. Chairing! Some stuff that's amazing. Which is great, all around, being alcohol-free, I think, so, yeah. Yeah. That's good. We've got lots going on, and we've got some other exciting news that we will share at another point, but yeah, we've had lots of moving parts of the puzzle to organise and sort out. And getting our Ibiza Retreat itineraries out, and getting all the information back from our clients that are coming. So excited for that. It's going to be an amazing long

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The Midlife Mentors: weekend in Ibiza.

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The Midlife Mentors: In about 3 weeks' time? Something like that. Still space. Yeah, there's still a couple of places, so if you want to come, drop us a line. Yeah.

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The Midlife Mentors: And we'll put the link in the show notes as well. So let's dive in to today's topic, which…

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The Midlife Mentors: is going to be close to many people's hearts. I was actually doing a coaching call with a client this morning, and we were talking about this very such thing, and that is people pleasing.

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The Midlife Mentors: who does it? Who does it? Oh my goodness. We are going to have a little bit of a laugh and a bit of banter on this one, I think, but, yeah, I mean, we all do it, I think, to differing degrees, and it's… and it all kind of comes, I suppose, from our experience, from our childhood, all of that kind of stuff, from belief systems that we have, and I suppose just the way that we've lived up until the

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The Midlife Mentors: point in midlife.

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The Midlife Mentors: You know, we're shuffling a lot of things, we are spinning a lot of plates, and sometimes we get put to the bottom of the pile. Quite a lot of the time we get put to the bottom of the pile, but one of the things that we all really struggle with, I think, as human beings, is…

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The Midlife Mentors: people-pleasing. So we're gonna dive into that today, and we're gonna end up with some useful little tips at the end, and some strategies and stuff that you can take away and start implementing. Yeah, how to redirect, and other things you can use, which I'm gonna learn.

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The Midlife Mentors: So, you know, how often… our question, our opening question to you, really, is how often do you say yes.

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The Midlife Mentors: When you really, really want to say no.

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The Midlife Mentors: And… why are you laughing, Mr. Well, I've got a little anecdote on this. We're going to share a personal story, but here's one. I was… years ago, when I was a teenager, I think, I was stuck doing, a personality test.

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The Midlife Mentors: And it was so long, I mean, it was literally pages and pages of multiple choice. But I remember getting to one of the questions, and it was like, have you… have you ever said yes to doing something and then regretted it? And someone had written in pencil.

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The Midlife Mentors: like, this effing test. Afterwards, I just, like, chortled to myself.

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The Midlife Mentors: So do you want to share your experience of this, if you feel comfortable sharing this? Oh, he's actually just crossed his arms. That's never a good sign. He's crossed his arms, people. You're listening to this on audio, probably. Physically withdrawing into my shell. No, I am, a massive people pleaser. I think I always…

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The Midlife Mentors: have been. I've had to learn more and more not to be a people pleaser, but it doesn't come naturally to me. I find it… I find it very hard. So I think this comes… we're going to dive into the reasons why we do this later, so I don't want to spoil it, but, you know, for me, I think my personal story is around in…

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The Midlife Mentors: Avoiding conflict, so I went to boarding school at a young age, it was actually a very violent environment, so even minor disagreements, or not going along with something.

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The Midlife Mentors: often had painful physical consequences, and I think that probably meant that

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The Midlife Mentors: I've always sought to soothe conflict down, avoid it.

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The Midlife Mentors: And of course, you know, then that bleeds into being a people pleaser, say, going, oh yeah, I'll just go along with this and say yes when I should be saying no. So, it's something I've actively worked on.

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The Midlife Mentors: in the last few years, I think, and to be better at laying down my boundaries and practicing just saying.

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The Midlife Mentors: no, and no is… is a full sentence on its own. Yeah. But, you know, I'm still… I'm still learning, and I still find it difficult, and that is… that is one of the things that I know I need to work on more. Bless you, bless you. And it, you know, it does make sense of where that comes from. I… I was actually saying to a client this morning.

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The Midlife Mentors: another client, we were having this conversation, and I said, I do… I do find it easier to put boundaries down than I think James does, for different reasons, and I do think it has a lot to do with childhood, how we were brought up, how our parents, our caregivers modelled that behaviour.

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The Midlife Mentors: And… and I think for me, I don't… I don't like…

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The Midlife Mentors: conflict at all. No one likes conflict, but I don't avoid it at all costs. I know if it needs to be done, and it, you know, something needs to be looked at, then I'm not going to avoid that. And with people-pleasing.

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The Midlife Mentors: I absolutely have a degree of that, but again, I think I'm able to set my boundaries a little bit more than if we were talking about between James and I. I think I'm able to do that more, like I said, because of my background, from my experience, from memories, all that kind of stuff. So, it is very personal, it's really impacted by what's happened in your life, I think.

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The Midlife Mentors: So, oh, I need to track then. So…

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The Midlife Mentors: You know, I think… What emotion are you swallowing down there, Clarence? I know! Boom! So, you know.

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The Midlife Mentors: We're talking about this particularly on the Midlife Mentors podcast, because this does come to a head at midlife. People-pleasing, decades of trying to be everything for everyone else, and suddenly feeling resentful, lost, or depleted, or even angry. You know, very, very angry that we've put everyone else first, and

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The Midlife Mentors: you know, it does beg that question of, who am I? We're going to talk about this a little bit more in a minute, but who am I? Amongst… amongst all these hats that I wear, and all these masks that I wear, what identity is actually mine, given that I'm trying to please everyone else all the time, and I'm not prioritising myself?

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The Midlife Mentors: So, I know we've talked about this a little bit, with James talking about his, one of the reasons he feels like he people pleases, and I've said my piece, but, why do we become people-pleasers, Mr D? What's kind of some of the stuff that…

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The Midlife Mentors: you know, is common for people. Yeah, there's, of course, as we've talked about already, childhood conditioning, right? Where we create approval with safety, and that will come from our primary caregivers, and normally our parents. We don't want to make them angry, we don't want to upset them, so if we go along with them, we're safe, like, literally, emotionally safe, physically safe. So, it can come from somewhere like that, it can come from being in an environment,

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The Midlife Mentors: where you're challenged quite often, like I had. And often, it can come from cultural expectations as well, I think, and society. So, you know…

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The Midlife Mentors: there is… it can be multi-multi-layered. Yeah, I mean, also, in the corporate and workplace environment.

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The Midlife Mentors: you know, we're rewarded, aren't we? Like, as children, one of the things I just really thought about there was, you know, if you did something right, and you pleased someone, you were given a reward, you were given a speech, you were said, you're a good… you're a good boy, you're a good girl, or if you didn't please them, you were a bad boy, or a bad girl. So it's ingrained in us from a really, really young age, and then that just continues.

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The Midlife Mentors: throughout school, you know, and into the workplace. Well, I think, yeah, actually, probably, we could argue it runs deeper than that. There's probably… there's probably, like, a deep-rooted…

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The Midlife Mentors: genetic code there from evolution, because, you know, we were, and still are, tribal beings. You know, a lot of animals will live in packs.

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The Midlife Mentors: If you're cast out of that, so if you're constantly going against the grain of everyone there, of your tribe, your pack, and you're cast out, you know, that would have been a real

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The Midlife Mentors: real threat to your safety, to your life, indeed. So, this is why I think we do have an ingrained, perhaps, predisposition

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The Midlife Mentors: towards people-pleasing, because it's like the whole thing of, like, I want to go along, I'll go along with the crowd, I don't want to rock the boat, you know, safety in numbers, all those kinds of things. And I also think, I really felt inspired to just say this as well. Let's not put a negative spin on people-pleasing. It's not all negative, it's a real… it's actually… it keeps us alive, like James has just said, actually. It does keep us alive. You know, that avoiding conflict is in us.

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The Midlife Mentors: So that we can stay alive from that human evolution perspective. So people-pleasing, trying to please people, be a good person, making people happy, isn't a bad thing. So people-pleasing, we're not about to say it's just an awful thing. It's good. But it's when it's at the detriment of your own mental, physical, and emotional and spiritual well-being that it's not always helpful. And I'm just remembering there are loads of fascinating psychological experiments on this.

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The Midlife Mentors: they've done stuff, you know, people in a room in kind of like a test environment, they ask them something, and, you know, you give the answer that you know is right, but everyone else is like, no, it's this, no, it's this, and they've been primed to say that, and the amount of people that will change their answer to go along with the consensus is quite amazing. It always comes out really high. It's kind of sad as well, it's, you know, but it is, like you said, it's kept us alive, and I think we have this…

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The Midlife Mentors: again, this is in our DNA, we have that innate fear of rejection, like James said, being cast outside the community, we don't like conflict, and we're worried that we're not enough, you know, like, that we're not accepted just the way we are. If we're not… if we're not saying yes, if we're not, pleasing those people, we're worried that they're… that somehow we won't be enough for them.

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The Midlife Mentors: Or we just, you know, we won't feel accepted by them, and there is this human condition of wanting to belong.

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The Midlife Mentors: to want… wanting to be accepted, and that's in all of us, absolutely all of us, which is why I think this is something that is relevant to everyone. So, how does it show up

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The Midlife Mentors: in midlife. Well, I'll go with the first one.

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The Midlife Mentors: This is how it shows up for us, particularly at midlife. Overcommitting to work.

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The Midlife Mentors: over-committing to family, or over-committing to social obligations. So much so that

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The Midlife Mentors: you just can't see the wood for the trees. You're like a spin… like a… you're on a hamster wheel, constantly over-committing to everyone else. Also, you become used to it. It's almost like you normalize that behavior of over-committing, because you've done it for so long, it's almost like you don't know who you are if you're not doing that. And that also comes into those fears around rejection, not belonging, not being enough.

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The Midlife Mentors: So, yeah, we kind of normalize that behaviour, and obviously, this can lead to burnout, or breaking down completely. Totally.

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The Midlife Mentors: We can struggle, of course, to set boundaries with our adult children, with our parents, with our bosses, with our partners.

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The Midlife Mentors: you know, we… we go along with what we think is going to give us an easy life, but end up making our life harder down the line. That is so, so common. Yeah, absolutely, and I think…

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The Midlife Mentors: that whole losing touch, why it shows up in midlife so much, I think we said this and alluded to this at the beginning, but…

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The Midlife Mentors: we do lose touch. Once we've put all these different masks on, and prioritising everyone, and everything else above us, we really have, we speak about this a lot on The Midlife Mentors, we lose touch with what we actually want.

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The Midlife Mentors: Because we've gone so far from that, we almost can't even touch into it. Like, we can't even access it, because the masks have been on for so long, and people-pleasing has been around within us for so long, and the other thing, obviously, is, you know, it shows up when we feel… we can feel it, right? And also, I would say the other person can.

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The Midlife Mentors: Often, we give a resentful yes. We feel resentful, that sinking feeling. I want you to touch into that right now, that sinking feeling of, oh my goodness, I really don't want to say yes to this, but I'm going to, and then we walk away feeling really angry and resentful. Quite often, we think it's at the other person, but actually, it's internalized. A lot of the time, we're angry with ourself for saying, and resentful towards ourself for saying yes.

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The Midlife Mentors: When we know that we should have said, no.

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The Midlife Mentors: Yeah, love that one. Another one is we'll use busyness.

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The Midlife Mentors: And this could be to avoid confrontation, you know, to just say, again, we're going along with it. It could be to try and instill a sense of worth, you know, I've observed this in people, they'll just go say yes, yes, yes to everything, because it's like, if I'm perpetually busy, I'm distracted from what's really going on for me internally, and I feel like I'm of worth and needed in the world. So there's this kind of…

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The Midlife Mentors: it's masking the lack of self-worth, if you were. Yeah, it's like that… that external validation, isn't it? People will like me, I'm a good person, everything's okay, I'm not failing. One of the conversations I had with a client this morning was, it's… the people-pleasing is also, that feeling of being safe that she's not gonna fail.

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The Midlife Mentors: So there's a feeling of, if I keep all this going, and I keep pleasing everyone, and I can keep it all.

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The Midlife Mentors: then I am safe in the knowledge that I won't fail at anything. But, the problem is, spinning all those plates and making everyone else, like, putting this perfectionism of trying to make everyone else happy, spins you out, you're never present for people, you're exhausted, you're resentful.

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The Midlife Mentors: You don't know who you are, and so actually, you're not showing up as your best self for anyone anyway, so the things that you're saying yes to, they're not getting the best version of you.

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The Midlife Mentors: I'll say that's true. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah.

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The Midlife Mentors: I think just, you know, we were talking about recording this podcast, and I don't know, I'm…

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The Midlife Mentors: I think it does… it is difficult for me sometimes, just going back to our stories, I suppose. It is difficult, we need to have compassion, by the way.

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The Midlife Mentors: with people that are people-pleasers. I am, but not to the degree that James is, but understanding where it comes from and having compassion. Like, we've… I knew all of the things that James has just said, but understanding, if there's someone in your life, actually, it's quite difficult to see them constantly saying yes to things, because they are… they do get completely strung out. They… their list gets longer and longer of things to do.

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The Midlife Mentors: And they put a lot of pressure on themselves. And I think it's difficult if you're less of a degree of a people pleaser, and you're seeing someone that you love do that, it's really difficult. But hopefully, maybe even this podcast, to encourage you to speak to that person and say, why might that be happening for you? Can you… can you trace it back to something that might have happened? What… and just use this as a conversation point, but they do need your love and your compassion.

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The Midlife Mentors: I'm not always the best at it, because I get… I get angry for James when people start, what I think, people taking the mickey out of him, and him wanting to, you know, to avoid conflict and please those people. I'm very protective over him, I'm very protective over the people I love, so I always want to kind of take that and go, no, don't do it, don't do it! But actually, it's got to be for that person, it's their life.

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The Midlife Mentors: They've got… it's got to be for that person to really grow in understanding and in self-power, really, to start saying no to more things.

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The Midlife Mentors: So I just wanted to say that, because it is difficult seeing it. Oh, I know. You have, like, you've got so much better with it. Yeah, so,

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The Midlife Mentors: what's the cost? I suppose we've covered some of this, but… well, so many costs, right? So many costs. I guess we should make more balanced and go pros and cons. On the pros, it can make us, in the short term.

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The Midlife Mentors: feel safe, that we're getting that approval we're looking for, that we feel of worth, and that we're going along with it. And that, yeah, we're not going to be rejected. We're not going to be rejected, we're avoiding all those things, but the cons, the cons.

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The Midlife Mentors: we're not doing what we want, so that resentment builds, right? And then the anger can boil out at unhelpful moments, or something even completely unrelated. Yeah, I've seen that in you a little bit sometimes. Sometimes. Misplaced anger, isn't it? We all do it. We all do it. It's not just you, but yeah. And I guess, in a sense, we're suppressing our identity. It's like, who even am I anymore?

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The Midlife Mentors: And this is classic, right? Remember the film Falling Down?

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The Midlife Mentors: It's kind of that, where the guy's just going through life, and suddenly like, well, who am I anyway? So, it's that, if we keep pushing ourselves down all the time, at some point, it's gonna come back and bite us. It does, it does. It's that emotional burnout, that anxiety, that stress,

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The Midlife Mentors: And yeah, it does affect relationships, not just with your… with your partner, husband or wife, or whatever, but with… with children, with your colleagues, your co-workers, all of that kind of stuff. It just affects how you go about your everyday. And like James said, it does… it does start leaking out. At midlife, it starts to eke out, and you are feeling a bit…

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The Midlife Mentors: cross, and you are feeling disappointed that you might not have been prioritising yourself because you've been pleasing everyone else, and…

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The Midlife Mentors: How terrible is it, when you get one of those out-of-body experiences, where you're like.

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The Midlife Mentors: at an event, or out somewhere, and you're just, like, suddenly like, oh, how… how did I end up here? This is not what I wanted to be doing at all. Yeah, but it's weird, isn't it? Because I don't get… I've not… I've not had as many of those as I think you probably have. Yes. Do you know what I mean? Like, I think that…

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The Midlife Mentors: I've… I've seen this over the last 10 years that we've been together, there are certain situations where James… James comes home from doing something, or is in a real pickle, I love that word, in a real pickle, and thinking, like, how… how have I got myself here? How can I get myself out of this? And I'm like, well, if you'd have just… we're going to give you some tips at the end, by the way, of things to say, some scripts to say, but I'm like, if you'd have just said this and given yourself

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The Midlife Mentors: some time before overcommitting, then he wouldn't be here now. I'm going to give a tip here, though. I am going to say something on the other side of balance, right? We need to be really careful when we are…

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The Midlife Mentors: people-pleasing. When we're going along with something, we're like, we're just like, oh, I know I don't want to do that, but I'm just going to say yes.

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The Midlife Mentors: distinguishing between that and the time where we've got an opportunity to do something, but we feel very uncomfortable with it, but we think something might good come out. It's… they're different, but we can confuse them and be similar, so just, I think I just wanted to throw that in to be aware of. To that. That's a really interesting point, sorry to put you on the spot there. That's really interesting. Opportunity can be thrown our way, right? So people-pleasing would infer that someone else, there's another party involved, so it wouldn't be

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The Midlife Mentors: like, oh, I want to do this thing, and I'll just go off and do it, but it's uncomfortable. Someone might say.

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The Midlife Mentors: Oh, shall we meet for a coffee? I've got this idea I want to discuss with you.

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The Midlife Mentors: And they might… you might get them to outline it a bit beforehand, because you don't want to waste their time and your time. But then, you know, as you go up to you, oh, you know, can I… do I want to get involved in this, da-da-da, and then some, you know, something might come out of it that's really great, and if it feels…

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The Midlife Mentors: uncomfortable. So, just to be careful not to close the door on opportunity, and also not to use your discomfort with something, because sometimes we'll agree to do something with someone.

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The Midlife Mentors: and move forward with it, and we genuinely want to do it, but then it just feels a bit uncomfortable to us, then we're like, oh, am I just people-pleasing here? So I think we just need to be careful distinguishing it there. I love that, Mr D. Thank you. That's why I wanted to speak to it more, and yeah, it's a really good point. And also, I think, the cost of people-pleasing is that

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The Midlife Mentors: We do block those authentic connections with other people.

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The Midlife Mentors: we're not allowing ourselves to be seen as we really are, and to be vulnerable as we really are, because we are so… are so used to wearing all these different masks that we think are acceptable, and they've become normalized, so it is very difficult, to feel like you can be yourself. So those are the costs, that emotional burnout, anxiety, and stress, that suppressed identity.

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The Midlife Mentors: Strain on relationships, it kind of boiling out, the anger bubbling up and boiling out, in misplaced situations, and also blocking those authentic connections and being able to be seen and heard and understood exactly who as you are, because you feel like you've created, an acceptable personality of people pleasing, and anything that goes against that might mean those things like rejection and all that kind of stuff.

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The Midlife Mentors: So, this, happens, this wake-up call of people-pleasing. I coach a lot of people around this. This is part of something that comes up pretty much for all of the women that I coach.

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The Midlife Mentors: at midlife, and it is a wake-up call, because there's this awareness of, if not now, when? If not now, when am I going to be…

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The Midlife Mentors: who… or discover, rediscover, who I actually am, beyond all the people-pleasing, beyond all the yesing… yesing to everyone else, beyond all the prioritizing to everyone else.

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The Midlife Mentors: If not now, when? Because the years are ticking.

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The Midlife Mentors: I'm midway, maybe a little bit over midway, you know, hopefully you have a long way to go, but this is a moment in time where we really ask ourselves these questions, so that's why it comes up in midlife such a lot. Yeah, listen, we've done loads of podcasts around this kind of, like, the midlife, the happiness curve, the midlife crisis, the opportunity for transformation, but I do think it's time when

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The Midlife Mentors: We reflect when we're going through hormonal changes, but also physical changes, psychological changes.

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The Midlife Mentors: I think we just, generally, if we sum it up, we just have less tolerance for BS, right? We know ourselves better. Bullshit. Yeah, bullshit. We know ourselves better, and I feel we know our place in the world better, so maybe stuff we would have tolerated in the past, we're more willing to just go, you know what, no, that's not for me, but in a really peaceful way, and walk on by. Because we realized that old rules didn't bring us happiness.

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The Midlife Mentors: And that, actually, going forward, these all link together, you know, that awareness of mortality, that I want to be happy going forward. Who do I want to be going forward? I mean, this is the work we do with people, this is the work I do with men in particular, is like, who do I want to be going forward? Why do I not feel fulfilled now, even though on paper everything looks great? Why does something feel missing? Why am I empty? It's about this.

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The Midlife Mentors: realizing that the rules of the game change as you age, and we need to adapt to it. And a lot of people aren't aware where they've put their energy. You know, this is a lot of the work that we do with clients, and stuff that we're going to be talking about at our retreat, the stuff that we talk about one-to-one, but it's, you know, a lot of people are feeling completely burnt out, completely…

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The Midlife Mentors: disappointed, disillusioned, it's because they're placing their energy in areas that they're just not even aware of, so it's even just taking stock of that. What's working? What's not? What are you prioritizing? Where are you setting your boundaries? Where are you over-people-pleasing? What are your values? All these are so, so interconnected with how

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The Midlife Mentors: fulfilled you feel at midlife, and this is one of the things, this is why this is such an, I feel, is such a relevant podcast right now, because it is something that impacts us, particularly at midlife. And, you know, we do have that growing, I've seen this too, a growing spiritual hunger.

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The Midlife Mentors: for… for… fulfillment, and truth, and authenticity. We want that. We want to be ourselves, and discover what that is.

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The Midlife Mentors: So, how can we move from people-pleasing to Peace.

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The Midlife Mentors: Peace. So, we need to learn. Firstly, we need to be aware of what we're doing. Actually, this wasn't one of the tips, but we need to become aware, really, of how much time we are spending doing things that other people want. We're saying yes, and we're people-pleasing. Just become aware of it.

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The Midlife Mentors: It's not to say that you have to, go mad around this, but just think, oh, hang on a minute, was I saying yes there? And actually, my body was giving a full no.

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The Midlife Mentors: So, one of the things that you can check in with yourself, sometimes the words, yes, come out of your mouth, but your gut, you're physically, you've kind of recoiled, you've kind of stepped back and, like, there's a sinking, heavy feeling in your body.

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The Midlife Mentors: That, my friends, is a time when you have said, yes, but actually you really mean no, because you're properly strung out. But we need to learn to tolerate, so becoming aware…

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The Midlife Mentors: But also learning to tolerate that discomfort when we say no. It's horrible, isn't it? Oh, it's like we're disappointing that person, we're letting that person down. All of these are probably completely untrue, by the way. And actually, if these people don't accept your no's, are they really looking after your own well-being, or are they really friends? Are they really the people that you want in your life? If those people are

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The Midlife Mentors: constant energy vampires that you're saying yes to all the time, but not really getting anything back from. So learning to tolerate that discomfort when you say no, and we're going to give some tips in a minute of how to do that, but seeing it through and starting small. Yeah.

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The Midlife Mentors: And also recognizing that boundary setting is actually a form of self-respect, it's not being selfish, because remember, when you say yes to someone else, you say no to yourself. So it's time to start thinking about, what do I want from life?

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The Midlife Mentors: And that's not to say that along the way, you won't have to bend and compromise on things, of course we will, but actually just being firmer in understanding what our boundaries are, and what we do want to do, and what we don't want to do.

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The Midlife Mentors: Yeah, and I kind of said this, start small, like, don't go off and say, listen to this podcast, and now I'm just saying no to everyone. That's not what we want at all, but just small steps. Delegate one responsibility, maybe, at work to someone. Decline one request. With someone, probably, that you know isn't

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The Midlife Mentors: really, if you know… subconsciously, you know, actually, that that person does love you, will not mind if you say no. So start small, and that discomfort will be slightly less. Also, this is really important, learning to check in with yourself. This is the awareness piece as well, really. Is this a true…

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The Midlife Mentors: Authentic, yes.

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The Midlife Mentors: Or a fear-based yes.

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The Midlife Mentors: Is it fear that that person's not gonna like me anymore? Is it fear that that person's gonna get angry? Is it fear that I'm gonna be excluded and I'm not gonna belong to that group anymore? Is it… is there a fear that that person's gonna take their love away, and their affection away, and their friendship away?

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The Midlife Mentors: So, question yourself. I'm not saying you can't still say yes to that person, but just check in. Is this a true yes, or a fear-based yes?

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The Midlife Mentors: Because the first one, if it's a… if it's a true, authentic yes, it's going to feel so good. It's going to feel aligned, you're going to feel energized by the yes and what that person's asking you to do, rather than depleted.

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The Midlife Mentors: So, should we look at some practical tips and tools? Yes. Yes. Some simple scripts… Yes, I love this! …through you can use!

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The Midlife Mentors: And I would just say, like, the first one is just no, right? And here's what happens, and here's what I do. When someone asks us something, we don't want to do it, if we manage not to say yes to it, because we don't want to do it, if we say no, we're going to invent this long, fantastical reason about why we can't do it. We're like, oh, you know what? I would have loved to have done that, but guess what? On the third Tuesday, when it's a full moon and it rains, I've got to do this thing, and I said.

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The Midlife Mentors: Actually, no is a complete sentence, but we can learn to maybe just go expand it, be a polite no. Thanks for asking me, but I can't commit to that right now.

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The Midlife Mentors: So that's the polite no. Thank you for asking me, but I can't commit to that right now. The boundaried no is…

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The Midlife Mentors: That doesn't work for me, but I hope it goes really well for you.

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The Midlife Mentors: See, these are light!

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The Midlife Mentors: if someone… I would always say to myself, if someone said these things to me when I've asked them to do something, I mean, I would be like, oh, okay, I've got a bit of respect for that person, that person's modeling boundary setting for me, that person is modeling not people-pleasing and prioritizing themselves over that. I'd actually really… I'd really respect someone saying that, so why is it different for you?

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The Midlife Mentors: So that's the boundary, though. That doesn't work for me, but I hope it goes really well. The compassionate, no.

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The Midlife Mentors: I really appreciate you thinking of me, but I'm gonna have to say no this time. So, acknowledging that they thought of you, thanks for thinking of me, but I've got to say no this time.

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The Midlife Mentors: I like this one, the delayed response. Actually, I'm going to go back and ask… No, but this one's making me crack up today, because this is the classic in the WhatsApp group, isn't it? It's like, right, let's do drinks next Tuesday, and if you're the one saying it, and someone goes back.

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The Midlife Mentors: Let me just check in… check on that and get back to you. You know that's a no anyway. Yeah, yeah, but I think this is quite good at work, actually. This delayed response one is not necessarily a social situation. I would say this really applies to work. Let me check my priorities, and I'm going to get back to you. I would also add to this, I'm going to get back to you when. So you put a timescale on that, especially if it's in work.

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The Midlife Mentors: Let me check my priorities, and I'm gonna get back to you in a couple of hours.

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The Midlife Mentors: as a people-pleaser myself, I do find the delayed response is my favourite go-to, because it's not… for me, it's easier, it's not a hard no. You're buying time there, you're like, oh, let me just check out my schedule, check my priorities, and I'll come back to you on that, and then you come back and go, oh, guess what? I can't do it. Yeah, I'm going to tell you my favourite in a minute, but let's just finish it with this bit of… The redirect. So, the redirect is, like.

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The Midlife Mentors: Oh, I can't help you with that. Have you thought about asking Claire if he wants to go?

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The Midlife Mentors: He has done that! He has done a redirect on many occasions, because he knows that I have better boundary setting. So he's like, well, I can't boundary set right now, so I'm gonna pass it off to Claire, and then let her boundary set and stop people pleasing. So mine, I would say,

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The Midlife Mentors: would be the polite no, or the compassionate no. So, thank you for asking me, but I really can't commit to that right now, or the compassionate no, I really appreciate you thinking of me, but I have to say no this time. What did you say when I asked you out?

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The Midlife Mentors: No.

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The Midlife Mentors: No, it's a complete sentence! True story, listeners, true story. Oh, no, I didn't say no. I said yes, but then messed you around a bit. Anyway, that's another podcast for another time. So journaling prompts, we can actually journal some of this. You know, if you are really struggling with this, this is some of the stuff that we use with our clients as well, is what am I, what am I afraid of?

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The Midlife Mentors: What am I afraid will happen if I stop people-pleasing? What's the biggest fear? And name it, and say it, and understand where that voice is coming from, and then ask yourself this question that I always love. Is it really true?

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The Midlife Mentors: Is that fear really true? For example, oh, you know, I won't get invited to the next party if I say no to this one. Is that really true? Do you know that?

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The Midlife Mentors: You know, how is that showing up for you? How's that making you feel when you believe that? Not very good, okay. What would you… how would you react? How would you be without that belief?

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The Midlife Mentors: How would you be without that belief, and what would you like to believe instead? These are really, really amazing questions, that kind of start rewriting the script that you've been playing over and over and over again, and that's what we need to do when we rewire, the neurons in our brain. We need to… our subconscious mind loves questions, so it's really, really good to ask all sorts of questions.

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The Midlife Mentors: And the other thing we could do is, body awareness, being aware of how we're feeling, right? And a lot of us don't take the time to do this modern life, but actually, having that somatic sense can be a really powerful guide, so… Yeah, which is… you know, that tension you feel, when someone asks you to do something you don't want to do, and you get all tense.

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The Midlife Mentors: If you say yes, what's the feeling? You carry on feeling tense, right? When you say no, it can be hard, but do you not get that feeling of relaxation? You exhale afterwards. So I think this is always a good test, right?

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The Midlife Mentors: If you've…

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The Midlife Mentors: said yes or no, afterwards, what's the feeling? Is it, oh, that feels good that I did that, or is it like, oh, I know, I might have… might be missing out, I might have done the wrong thing there, because that's a great way to check in with yourself. What's the feeling in your body? Are you relaxing into that decision, or are you feeling tense afterwards? Yeah, actually, really interesting that you said, what does it feel like? It's not like just when you say yes, what do you feel like? It's like, what do you feel like when you say those might

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The Midlife Mentors: Kronos. How much power comes back into your system? How much energy comes back into your system when you're like, actually, I'm setting a boundary there. You're like, phew, I haven't got to do that thing yet. Yeah, no, it's good, it's good. And that actually leads us onto this kind of final point, really. Practice those micro-boundaries daily.

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The Midlife Mentors: maybe not daily, but practice a micro-boundaries with people that you feel, might be a bit more susceptible and encouraging for you to say, no to them, and then just build, build it up. And do this in work as well. Yeah, so just give it a go. I'm just gonna, kind of, just go back over those. So those scripts.

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The Midlife Mentors: You can go back and listen to those, but maybe some journal prompting, think about what am I afraid will happen when I… if I stop people-pleasing, when I stop pleasing that person? Is it really true? And all the questions around that. Noticing the body when you say yes and no, and practicing those micro-boundaries daily to get practicing. Get practicing.

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The Midlife Mentors: So that's it, really, guys. Composing thoughts, I suppose, to wrap up the episode.

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The Midlife Mentors: Well, I think, I think only, encouraging listeners to try a small boundary this week and see how it feels. Yeah, go! And let us know! We'd love to know. Drop a line, what did you say no to, and how did it feel? Yeah, let us know, because when we stop people-pleasing, we can really start, like, start truly living, our authentic selves without the mask. We can drop all the masks, we can stop spinning all the plates.

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The Midlife Mentors: And we can actually ask ourselves, you know, like, what do I want to do? Where do I want to go? All of those sorts of things. And I say over and over again, these are the amazing things. This is just some of the stuff that we are going to be taking people through on our retreat in Ibiza. So if you are struggling with this as well, then,

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The Midlife Mentors: you know, we'll be taking people through that, but also in our coaching as well. So, we are sending you…

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The Midlife Mentors: So, so much love. We hope you've enjoyed that. If you've got any questions, let us know. But do, like James said, do share that little small boundary… Yeah. …that you set, and let us know how it felt. It'll feel amazing. It will. It will. It will. Till next time! Bye!