Saying yes to everyone but me.

Welcome back to the Create Yourself podcast!

This week I'm talking about people pleasing, and the part of me that, for most of my life, didn't even realise saying no was an option.

I get into how growing up as the girl who wanted to fit in and be liked shaped basically every yes I've ever given. The jobs I was good at but didn't actually want. The relationships where I wanted to be wanted more than I wanted the other person. The family dynamics where saying no felt riskier than staying quiet and letting myself be walked over.

I talk honestly about what that costs over time -  the resentment you don't say out loud, the exhaustion of holding up a version of yourself that isn't really you, and the moment that quiet "something's not right" feeling gets louder than your fear of losing the relationship altogether.

I share what's actually helped me start doing it differently, and the way saying no has actually given me this huge shift in confidence and energy. I’ve had to accept that choosing me might make my circle get smaller - and that some relationships have to fall away in order for me to be in alignment with myself. And that’s hard - but it’s also ok.

This one might sting a bit if people pleasing is familiar territory for you, and honestly it stung a bit to record it, but it also felt really good to say it out loud. 

If you liked this episode and want to support the show, please like, share, and give it a 5 star review. Your support means everything to me!

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Transcript

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— Cold open

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm gonna let go of the need to be everything to everyone so that I can be me for myself. Being good at something doesn't mean that we have to do it. It means that we're good at it and we can choose what we want to do. And maybe you don't want to say no to your family because you don't want to have conflict with somebody that you're related to. And so we put up with mistreatment and poor behaviour and being manipulated by people that are supposed to love us. Because if people are only interested in you because you say yes to them all the time, then they are not your people. Welcome back to the Create Yourself podcast. I'm Rachel, and it is awesome to have you here.

— Intro, setting the scene

SPEAKER_00 0:44

This week I am well, I'm back on the floor of the bedroom for one thing. Um I don't know, I just feel like my podcast episodes are always really deep. That's because I'm kind of just a deep person, I guess. Uh, don't know how to do shallow, never have, probably never will. And in order for me to get myself in a place where I feel really comfortable about being this vulnerable, for some reason I've just got to be sitting on the floor. Sitting in my office, um in the office environment, looking at the screen, um, just doesn't feel right. So I've set myself up in my bedroom. I've got my um camera sitting on the cat scratching post. And the boom mic is kind of hovering mid-air, but it's all working, it's fine. Um, this is not a podcast about being perfect, it's about being

— Introducing today's topic: people pleasing

SPEAKER_00 1:36

authentic. So, today we're gonna talk about a topic today that I feel like is pretty relevant for a lot of people, uh, and that is the topic of people pleasing. Now, don't run away and hide and think, oh god, it's another coach telling me how to choose myself and not be a people pleaser, because that is not what this podcast is about. It is not that, that is not the angle. I never want to tell you how to do things or like sit up on high and say I've got it all sorted, because if you've been listening for a few episodes now, you'll realize that I really don't. But what I want to do is to share my experiences with these topics um and where and how I've gotten myself to where I am now in terms of this level of consciousness, because obviously there's always more growing to do, and there's always more learning to do, and what I believe now I might totally feel differently about in a year's time. But I have had quite a I guess a big deal of movement in the space of this topic in the last probably five years, but it has really gained momentum of late, and that's because I have been doing this really deep dive into being authentic, just allowing myself to show up without a mask on, um, and just being me.

— Growing up not knowing "no" was an option

SPEAKER_00 2:57

And in order to do that, sometimes I have to say no. I've grown up being a real people pleaser, and I don't know about you, but for me, I didn't even know that there was an option to say no sometimes. I always felt when someone asked me to do something, to go somewhere, even like even being asked out on dates, I always felt like I had to say yes because I didn't want the other person to not like me, right? So this part of me, this deep part of me, uh, the little girl inside me, I guess, that just wanted to fit in, that wanted to be liked, that wanted to be part of the tribe. I carried that throughout my whole life, and that that part of me ended up crafting a life that didn't feel like mine. Because, and I mentioned this in my first podcast about being yourself. I was saying yes to things and doing things that were not in alignment with who I really am, and I don't think I even knew it then. I think I was just so completely um unaware that that I even had a choice, that I could choose me, that my feelings, my desires were just as important as the feelings and desires of others. But I think what stopped me from doing that was this deep fear that if I say no or if I have my own opinion or way of wanting to do things, that I will be disliked. So, what do we do when we are, you know, stuck in this pattern of saying yes to everything and trying to be something to others because you think it'll be more likable? What happens is we start to sort of unintentionally craft and create a life that is totally out of alignment with who we are. And I don't believe that that is sustainable. Now we we can do it, we can we can continue to say yes to things when we really want to say no. Uh, we can be in relationships that are not right for us, we can be in jobs that are not right for us, we can have friends that don't feel like our people. All of these things can happen, but there's this very quiet, sort of we like underlying feeling of something's not right that we will be aware of, and if we don't tune into that, it'll just sort of be this

— The ocean and waves metaphor

SPEAKER_00 5:35

uncomfortable hum in the background of a life that is not in alignment with who we really are. The way that I would describe being this person that kind of fawns and goes with the crowd or goes with what other people want for her, I would describe it as almost being out on the ocean and being swept up in other people's waves. You you're just kind of going with what other people want for you. You're not swimming in your own direction until the next wave comes from another direction, and then now you're on that wave and that other person's want for you. And it, you know, to some extent, it's not the fault of others, right? They see things in us or they believe things about us um based on what they're seeing, and they might suggest things for us. Like for me, I was often um put in a position where I would be given an opportunity, so an opportunity to take a particular role. And this has happened to me so many times in a professional sense, where I might show some degree of competency in some area, um, and then someone will see that and say, Hey, have you thought about doing this? And instead of me checking in with myself and going, Have I thought about doing that? No, I haven't. And I probably wouldn't enjoy that. I'd be okay at it, but it's probably not for me. But instead of doing that, I would take somebody else's uh belief about me to be the most important thing in that moment. So if you believe I'm good at something, I want to be good, but I don't just want to be good at something. I want you to think I'm good at something. I want you to approve of me. So yes, I will do that thing because if I do that thing, then you will like me more. So consequently, I have done roles in my career that I really didn't enjoy, but I was good at them.

— Being good at something vs. wanting to do it

SPEAKER_00 7:36

We can be good at something and we can also not enjoy that thing. Being good at something doesn't mean that we have to do it, it means that we're good at it and we can choose what we want to do. So I can be good at something, but really hate it. And I I don't know if you've ever experienced that before where you've been good at something but really not enjoyed it, and then found yourself doing that thing because you were just good at it, not because you really enjoyed doing it, and then you're in a career that you really don't enjoy. And it would also sort of play into relationships as well. I think sometimes I just I wanted to be wanted more than I wanted to actually be wanting someone else, like to be in love and to have the desire for the other person.

— Saying yes without the capacity to follow through

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Um, and all of this comes back to, I guess, being out of alignment with me and not believing that who I was was good enough. It all comes back to that for me. The other thing that we do when we are not in alignment with ourselves and and what we really want, the other thing we do is we say yes to people that are asking things of us that we don't have the capacity to provide. So when people ask you for favors, or perhaps at work when somebody says, Can you take on this particular project or can you come and help me on this project or can you stay late today? We can say yes to these things as well. And what happens when we do that is when we say no to ourselves, but we say yes to others. First of all, we're not actually doing that person any favors. Like you're doing them a favor, but there's a high likelihood that you're gonna resent them for doing it. But you didn't actually tell them how you felt about it, you didn't give them the opportunity to hear how you actually felt about it. You just said yes so that that person would be happy with you. But now you're probably gonna resent yourself and you're gonna resent that person for you having said yes. And so the cycle sort of begins, and maybe that person comes back to you in a month or something, and they think, hey, you did such a good job last time. I'm sure you'll be really good at doing it again this time. Uh, and then you don't want to let that person down, and you also don't want that person to know that you were lying the entire time about actually wanting to do that thing, so you do it again. So we start to build these relationships that are built on a false premise. And if you're not being really honest about what you can and can't do and who you really are and what you really want, then how are people supposed to know? And then there's people that will just take advantage of you if you are the sort of person that says yes all the time. And I've had this so much in my life because saying no meant that I would either have an argument or I would get into some sort of conflict with this person, or maybe they wouldn't talk to me. So I would say yes to that person so that I didn't have to deal with this person being upset with me. But again, when you set yourself up in this kind of relationship dynamic where you're the fact that you have a relationship with this person hinges on your compliance and the fact that you never say no, well then that relationship is now a bit of a burden for you to carry. And what are you getting out of that relationship? And I I understand, you know, there are sometimes there are some relationships in our lives that, you know, it can feel particularly challenging to say no because you know,

— Family, boundaries, and the relationships we risk losing

SPEAKER_00 11:24

then maybe they're family, and maybe you don't want to say no to your family because you don't want to have conflict with somebody that you're related to. And so we put up with mistreatment and poor behavior and perhaps being manipulated by people that are supposed to love us because if we hit them up about it and they get upset with us, well, now we have to deal with this fractured relationship. Um, that doesn't go away, right? You can't walk away from it and forget about it. They're related to you, you have to live with it. And I have had to do this. Um, I have had to do this with people that are close to me in my life, I've had to set boundaries, I've had to say no, and more importantly, I've I've actually I've had to allow myself to be me with them and know that if they don't approve of that, that that's the cost. So there can be relationships that we when we're being in alignment with us, there can be relationships that we lose. Because if people are only interested in you because you say yes to them all the time, then they are not your people. The reality is that the version of you that is in complete alignment with yourself needs to to say no sometimes. That version of you needs to honor what you truly want and what feels right for you. And this can mean that some relationships will fall away. You will lose people. And that can be scary. And I think we can cling on to these relationships, particularly if they are related to us, right? We can cling on to these relationships and we can bend and warp and manipulate ourselves uh over and over again and continue to say yes to keep these people happy. But in doing that, you're continually saying no to yourself, and eventually there is a dissonance that you're gonna feel inside you that is gonna feel worse than perhaps losing that relationship altogether. Because if that relationship only exists because you say yes all the time, that is not a real relationship. That's a manipulationship, and it is not serving you. It can be fucking scary to honor ourselves and to honor what we really want. But that voice inside you that's screaming, no, I don't want to, I don't want to do this, this doesn't feel right, that voice does not go away. So how can you honor that voice and how can you be brave enough to listen to it and let it speak? How can you start tuning into you and stop tuning into others and tuning yourself into what you think other people want?

— What changes when you stop people pleasing

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Well, this has been, I guess, the uh question that I've been asking myself in the last six months. I've been asking myself, what do I really want? Who do I really want to be? Am I brave enough to let this version of me be seen? Will everyone like this? Um will people be okay with me saying no and setting boundaries? And am I brave enough and strong enough to do that? And know that my circle may reduce in size. But I think as our circle reduces, when we're in alignment with ourselves, our energy expands. So all of that outward energy, all of that people pleasing and trying to be the right thing for everyone else, it's fucking exhausting. And when you stop doing that, people will fall away. They will stop perhaps being as interested in you as they were, and that's okay. Because what you start to find, and what I started to find was that I started to get back, regain energy because I wasn't fighting against myself and against that voice inside me that was saying no. I wasn't putting on a mask and pretending to be something, and I wasn't being the people pleaser and the happy girl and the yes woman. I was just being really honest about what I wanted and what I didn't want. And the empowerment that I felt from doing that and the level of confidence that I started to gain from doing that, it just showed me, and my energy told me that this was the right thing for me. And if I can be brave enough to say no to things that I don't want to do, if I can be brave enough to be myself even when it's not going to be for everyone, I'm going to start creating and cultivating a life that feels like mine. I'm going to let go of the need to be everything to everyone so that I can be me for myself. And I think that's how we attract a tribe that is truly right for us. It's how we attract an audience that actually want to listen to us. It's how we attract a partner that we actually want to be with and not just someone that we want to want us. It's how we truly honor ourselves

— Learning to check in with your body before answering

SPEAKER_00 16:48

because we can allow ourselves to be in this world in a way that feels right for us. So, how do we do it? How do we cultivate this relationship with our intuition and how do we know when we're making a decision that is from a place that is fully aligned versus a place from fear or the need, the desire to be liked, to fit in? Well, I think for me, what I have started to do is when I get asked to do something or when an opportunity presents itself to me, I think what I would have previously done is just shotgun response my answer and say yes. Particularly if it was something that someone else wanted from me. And then I would spend all this time stressing about this thing that I've said yes to and thinking about how the heck am I going to get out of it. And the energy that it would take for me to do that, to have said yes to something, but to not want to do it, to then think of all these different ways to get out of it, to then have to follow through and do the thing and not enjoy the thing and feel all this resentment for myself and someone else. All of that could have been squashed if I just did this one thing, which is to take a pause and just check in with my body. How does this feel in my body? It's really important that we do this because your intuition is not a thought, it's not a thinking thing, it's a feeling thing. It doesn't live in your head, it lives in your body. And for me, I really feel it in my gut. I feel this strong urge to either say yes to something or no to something. And if I don't slow down and make space for that, then I will likely find myself just falling into that old trap of saying yes. So I slow down, I pause, and I I sink into the body and really tune in to how does this feel inside my body? And maybe it's not possible to to get to that space immediately, and I will say, Can I get back to you? I will buy myself some time to really feel into what is what does a yes feel like, what is a no feel like in my body? And when I have the answer, then I will go back and say yes or no. And the other reason that it's really important to do it that way is that sometimes we can we can feel fear about things, particularly when it's something we haven't done before, or it's something that scares us or gets us outside of our comfort zone. And we can we can misinterpret that fear as a no.

— Telling the difference between fear and a real no

SPEAKER_00 19:32

Because we're just scared of doing something different, right? But maybe the most expansive answer is to say yes to that thing, even when it scares us, because on the other side of that is growth, it's freedom, it's expansion. So again, slowing it down to really check in with your body, why am I feeling this feeling in my body? Like, where is this coming from? What is it trying to tell me? Well, I'm feeling scared about this, but I also feel like it could be a really awesome opportunity, or perhaps this just feels right, even though it's scary. And then that's a yes. But if we go to the logical brain and we start processing and thinking and analyzing and doing all the sums and being so practical, chances are that the answer is not going to be one that is a really embodied answer. It's going to be something that we've intellectualized. And it's not necessarily going to be the right thing for us. Most people are pretty reasonable as well. If you are in a work situation and someone asks you to do something and you say, you know, I need time to think about that, most people will be okay with that. I think we often um we build up these big stories in our heads about how other people are going to react and judge and and get angry with us. But in honesty, if people are going to react and judge and get angry with you, that is on them. It's not on you. Yes, sure, it's going to feel really uncomfortable to sit with somebody while they're being upset with you.

— Setting new boundaries in long-standing relationships

SPEAKER_00 21:08

But eventually that feeling is going to pass, and that person is going to understand where your boundaries are. And so it can be really hard to do this in relationships where you've already got sort of an existing contract, if you like, around what you say yes and no to. You know, for me, that would be drinking or going out and having late nights, or perhaps going to gigs that I didn't really enjoy going to. You know, there can just be times in life as well where something that was possible that you had the capacity for before, you just don't have the capacity for anymore. Or maybe it's just been going on too long and you've been that sort of listening air for so long, but nothing is changing and you're exhausted. Um, and maybe you need a little bit of a break from something. Maybe it's emotionally exhausting you. Um, and so So, sort of setting a new boundary there and and saying, look, you know, I just don't have the capacity for this anymore, that can feel really scary because again, it comes back to wanting to be liked and wanting to be accepted, and maybe now this person's not going to like you as much. But that is just the reality of choosing yourself. And what about that little part of you inside you? Like, imagine they were a person outside of you, and you keep saying yes to everyone else. What about this person that you keep saying no to? What about them? Like, that is you, and your whole life can be shaped by not listening to that. Like, why is it okay that you say no to yourself, but it's not okay to say no to others? Why is that okay? If saying no means that your circle narrows, so be it. Because these relationships should not be contingent on our compliance or our malleability, they shouldn't be conditional. What you'll start to find, which is what I found when I started to say no to the things that I really wanted to say no to, what I started to find was like I just felt better. I felt lighter and I felt more relaxed. I felt like there was this huge sort of weight coming off my shoulders. And the people that love me and that want to be in my life are still here. And the people that find that more challenging are a little further away, and that's okay by me. But I've started to understand that, you know, and maybe it's just being at this stage of life. I'm in the second part of life now, and what I've come to understand is that we get one shot at this, and I've spent my whole life saying

— Choosing yourself in the second part of life

SPEAKER_00 23:58

yes to other people. I'm damn sure I'm gonna say yes to me now because I'm really passionate about cultivating a life that's in alignment with me, with my authenticity, with what feels good to me. And I know that if I'm doing that, then I am gonna attract into my life things that are a vibrational match for me, that are not out of alignment. So I've just got to keep reminding myself that it's okay to push back and set boundaries and say no,

— Journal prompt

SPEAKER_00 24:31

especially if that means that I'm saying yes to me. If this is something that you struggle with as well, it could be worth exploring or investigating why, you know, what's going on for you underneath your need or your desire to please people. So if you would like to explore this, I'm gonna offer you a journal prompt as I do every week. Where in my life have I been saying no to me in order to please others? Take some time to explore this and see what comes up for you, just stream of consciousness, words on the page, see what comes forward, and then try to take an action off the back of that, maybe set a boundary or think about taking a pause. Next time you're asked to do something, just take a pause, think about it, tune into what you want, even buy yourself some time before you go back with your answer, but just make sure that it's in alignment with you and what you really, really want. That's

— Outro, rate and review

SPEAKER_00 25:35

it for this week. I hope you have enjoyed the episode. If you'd like to jump on and give the podcast a rating, preferably five stars in a review, it would really help me. My goal is to try to help as many people as possible. So if you could take some time to pop on and rate and review the podcast, it would mean everything to me. In the meantime, have an awesome week ahead, and I'll see you on the next one.