5 Things People Pleasers Notice When They Start Setting Boundaries
Boundaries are scary as all hell. Back in my people pleaser days, I would do literally anything to avoid putting up boundaries or standing up for myself to the point of allowing myself to get hurt.
“Who cares? don’t want to deal with other people upset at me for not taking the load!”
“Make everyone happy, that way they will like me!”
“People with authority? No way, I wouldn’t want to get in trouble”
“Stand up for myself? Never gonna happen!”
“That might hurt someone’s feelings, so I’ll have to fix that…”
So on and so forth.
People pleasers aren’t “just like that” without conditioning to become that way. The people they trust and those who have authority over them have spent the time conditioning this person to believe they are anything but perfect. Usually, this can be a parent relationship, but it can also be other people – friends, siblings, teachers, coaches, pastors – whoever has influence. They set the message that this person needs to be better, strive to be the best, and even if you are the best, that won’t be good enough – you’ll need to keep going forever.
This obsession with being “perfect” stems from toxic manifestations of narcissism and turns what would have been a child full of potential into an adult who literally cannot make a decision without questioning themselves 24/7. What happens when you do that forever? You get sick. Everyone else just goes on their merry little way and you are left with nothing.
I learned this the hard way when I was diagnosed with breast cancer at 27 years old. Long story short, I had to learn to say NO. I had to learn to do what I truly wanted, and I had to do it proudly. I had to accept people weren’t going to like some of that. I had to say goodbye to some people, although I really didn’t want to. I had to speak my mind and stand up for myself, especially when I just wanted someone else to do it for me. I had to sit with my own suffering and learn how to deal with it.
It was like breaking my spirit open. It was scary and it hurt, but all of that ended up being worth it when I saw that speaking my truth created a connection with my true identity, and space for more of my highest self to shine through. If people didn’t like it, I stopped caring. Things changed. I put myself first more, spoke my truth, humbled myself, and things got better.
Now, I want to share some of these insights with you, because I know when I was navigating boundaries for the first time, my entire body would shake and squirm and I wouldn’t be able to follow through. I know this is the same for anyone else navigating boundaries for the first time too. It was terrifying and I doubted myself the entire time. However, sticking with it allowed me to see the change happen before my own eyes and how beneficial sticking with it was in the end. All of my clients felt this way too, yet they all come out of coaching with the ability to set boundaries – with practice.
That is how I knew there was a bit of a system to setting boundaries, and with each hurdle, we come to new realizations about ourselves.
Here are some truths that you will notice when you start to speak your truth:
1. You will lose people you care about
I’ll never forget the first time I shakily wrote my best friend at the time a message explaining how I felt after the millionth time they had come to emotional dump about their problems. “I feel better now,” they would say and end the conversation. I couldn’t help but feel like this was totally one sided. I had decided to put up a boundary. I had spent hours talking them through problems and giving advice they never even heeded because I thought that was what friendship was. In reality, my parent relationship had been recreated. One in which I would be the emotional crutch and end up feeling exhausted because I never received anything in return.
I said something along the lines of: “I would love it if we would hang out as friends more often and not have such a one-sided friendship where we talk about your problems and I help you through it,” and we both agreed that would be great and I felt better. They even asked how they could be a better friend and I expressed what I felt. But over time, they backed off and so did I. Because the shift is that subtle. All I did was speak my truth.
When you start to change, the people you were once so close with might not resonate with you anymore. You act a certain way right now. Sometimes you aren’t aware how that serves the needs of the people around you. If you change for the better and they have a problem with you changing, they may have only been hanging around to get something from you. Change means they won’t be getting that anymore and they clutch at the “old” you and try to drag you down. It’s important to surround yourself with people who respect you as a person. We all have our own stuff going on, and all relationships require give and take.
People pleasers will find this the toughest part of the change, because we have been givers our whole lives. We don’t know how to take without feeling guilty, but that is a lesson in itself. It’s immensely wholesome when we can find that balance with the people we care about, and it’s important to allow the space for the “old that no longer serves us” to fall away and bring in the “exciting and much more aligned with us“! That makes life worth living and our goals worth working for.
2. It will feel terrible for a while
Putting up boundaries feels gross. Your spine tingles, your body jitters, your breathing hastens, your heart pounds in your chest. You will want to stop and turn back to being the pushover. It’s simple, it’s easy, and we don’t have to deal with much. We fix problems! We are helpers! We can’t just watch someone FAIL miserably… Can we?
If you’re a seasoned people pleaser, you will find it extra hard to stop taking on other peoples stuff and start speaking your mind. You’ve been conditioned that no matter what, you aren’t good enough as you are. So you must pretend to be better than you are. Be nice. Smile. Be pleasing! Be society’s version of perfect! If you’re not helping, you should feel guilty! GUILT! SHAME!
Doing a complete reverse and stopping something that people think makes you you… that is pretty daunting. It’s easy with strangers because they have no idea who you are, but people you know very well will say, “You’ve changed.“ You don’t have to explain this change, but we have this deep seated need to explain ourselves or forever feel guilty for speaking our mind and asking for what we want. “No, I don’t need it, don’t worry,” we might say. Stop that! This is why you’re in this predicament. Because you DO need it but you ignore your true feelings.
Putting yourself first after never having done so will feel strange. You will feel guilt and shame. You will feel selfish. You will wonder what everyone else is thinking. You will make up whole narratives about what people are thinking and make excuses for every justification you make. You will question your new boundaries a million times over and wonder whether you even deserve to put them up.
All I can say is, the principle that Nike uses puts it into three simple words: “Just do it“. Until you throw yourself in and give it a crack, you will have no idea how it will go. You might be a natural but the only thing holding you back is the fact that you haven’t tried! I learned that sometimes I can be an outright bitch if I speak my mind, sometimes it makes people laugh, too. So, the more I did it, the easier it became… and the more comedic it became, because the right kind of people will have so much respect for you and love everything about you. Screw the rest.
3. You won’t know what to do with yourself
I want you to know that you will feel kind of empty for a brief period, especially if your life isn’t filled with hobbies, plans, and goals for your life. Those empty periods can feel pretty daunting and leave you wandering around feeling confused some of the time. In those moments, go and take a short walk and breathe. Get present. You will be surprised how much of your time was spent looking after other people. You might even cry when you realize how little of that time had been poured into yourself.
This emptiness is nothing to be afraid of. It is literally just SPACE. Boredom, “fomo”, mixed with all the other normal emotions of life, all bundled into this feeling of emptiness. Like… almost a peaceful, disappointing feeling like… I’ve been holding onto everyone else’s crap for so long and I could have been doing ACTIVITIES?! That kind of emptiness.
My best advice for this period is to start a series of lists:
The JOY list
The Bucket List
The Relationship Shopping List
The Self-Care List
Your joy list is literally all the things that bring you joy. Keep it simple and full of things you can do easily. Not bucket list things—these are things you have never done, but want to do. But not the things you want to be, because that’s what your relationship shopping list is for (because whatever we search for in others is what we should try to become first). And everyone needs a self-care list, because when we are in day four of a sad, depressive limiting belief bubble, your self-care list is your lifeline to start digging yourself up out of the mud.
These lists will take time to create. You won’t add everything to them right now. Take your time with them and keep them close. They will be your lifeline when the emptiness sets in. You need to remind yourself that this emptiness is just your true self trying to figure “itself” out. Over time, the emptiness turns into YOU. Then you will eventually be ready to set massive goals and achieve your dreams with ease. There will no longer be mountains to climb. Don’t pressure yourself.
4. Sitting with uncomfortable feelings will eventually feel better than people pleasing
One of the biggest things you have to learn when you stop people pleasing is that although it’s uncomfortable having to watch other people figure their own shit out, it’s actually less uncomfortable than the exhaustion from doing everything for everyone else.
You learn that it’s not actually your responsibility to look after these peoples problems, but you have permitted them to make it so. Why do we make it our responsibility? Because we probably watched our parent struggle and made it our responsibility to fix it. So we think that is how life works. That this is how to be a good person. Give, give, give. Never ask for anything in return because you would be asking for too much. That fulfillment in life isn’t just handed to us, it has to be earned. That isn’t true. We live in bodies that use energy to function. We only have so much energy to give, just like a phone.
You’re probably reading this on a phone right now. If you drain the battery reading this long-ass blog, your phone will need to recharge. If we only have 5% energy left, we don’t use it for silly things we don’t need. We save that energy for the time we will need it most. If you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere with a flat tire and you’re waiting for someone to rescue you on 2%, you probably shouldn’t be reading this right now. All jokes aside, we know the kinds of people who let their batteries die and people pleasers are usually the ones to save the day. We need to treat our bodies and minds like we have very precious energy that needs to be spared when we are running on empty.
You will learn that sitting with an uncomfortable feeling for someone else but not trying to fix it is like saving your battery from dying too soon. When we see that we can sit with uncomfortable feelings without the need to fix them, we also find that most of the time: Everyone else’s problems didn’t need fixing. It was never our responsibility to do so, either.
Stop carrying the world on your shoulders. Leave things for everyone else to figure out sometimes. You don’t have to be first in because you always have been. If no one has their shit together, take the lead but don’t carry the load alone. A good leader delegates when chaos ensues. A good leader allows people to make mistakes that they learn lifelong lessons from, especially when we can all afford it. Allow things to fall apart when you can’t hold them together anymore, because that is how people find their place, figure things out, and also how you will learn to love yourself too.
Sitting with uncomfortable feelings also means allowing yourself to see the duality of who you are. The light, the dark, and the higher. Sitting with the discomfort means you allow space to accept yourself for who you really are. No one is perfect, and no one is asking you to be. There is power in accepting all parts of yourself, therefore dissolving the need to prove yourself.
5. You attract new, better people into your life
They’re there to stay too! These people will see you for who you really are and fully accept you. They will treat you how you deserve to be treated. They will see you grow and choose to grow with you. They will see you in your best light. That isn’t just because you have changed for the better, it’s because you have finally learned to accept yourself as you are. That kind of self love shines so bright.
Some people from the past might or might not still stick around, but don’t worry if they have or haven’t. Sometimes people will choose to level up with us and sometimes our old tendencies to people please mean there are still some relationships that need that “assertive conversation” to be had. Over time, I saw that creating space between those people who didn’t really respect me and those who did allowed me to see how much I had taken that I didn’t deserve. It changed my perspective on what I deserved and the people I spent my time with, and helped me to let go of what was actually harming me without me knowing it.
Some of the people I had difficult conversations with and let go of ended up dealing with their shit and coming back and chatting with me – we are now on better, truer terms than ever. Some, I don’t want to know anymore, because I know they will never change. That’s okay too. Others, I have just learned to love from afar. That’s because truth is more powerful than any other medicine. Even when it hurts.
The truth will set everyone free and allow all the space needed for the best kind of healing. The healing from within. When the people we care and love the most can go on a healing journey by accepting things that hurt us – like speaking necessary truths, taking breaks, or saying goodbye — something important happens. We all find out how far we can go, and all the self-love we were supposed to find was waiting for us on the other side of that experience. We find the healing we have all been yearning for.
Don’t burn bridges, just allow space. Forgive yourself. The right stuff moves out and better stuff moves in. Keep moving forward. It’s going to hurt, but it gets better. Right now I can say after two years of hard work, I know I can trust myself as long as I speak my truth. That is all I need as a foundation to move forward with confidence.
Stop letting things be left unsaid and say what you mean. Why do we care so much about what other people will think about our lives anyways? It’s our life. We only have one. If you don’t like my life or what I say, why spend time being angry about it? Just move on and find whatever aligns with you but STOP carrying other people’s crap. Not even mine! I do not permit it. The people who try to dim your light are generally the sorest.
Send them a little love, and feel the Universe send some back to you.
You deserve it! Believe that.