People-pleasing isn't kindness

Throughout my life, I've been accused of being a people pleaser.

I pick up extra shifts even when my workload is already heavy. I'll drop someone home after an event, even if they live 30 minutes away from me. I'll pretend to like a movie or types of food because I want to avoid arguments. I say sorry for minor inconveniences or things that aren't necessarily my fault. I suppress my own hurt when others disappoint me.

But most of all, I struggle immensely to say no.

Early on, particularly in my dating life, I was praised for being easy to get along with. I was so agreeable. So accommodating. So nice.

Then, somewhere along the way, this started feeling like a burden.

I resented the people I was helping, even though I had said yes to them.

Constantly monitoring others' emotional states and analysing how they felt about me was exhausting.

My friendships and relationships felt unequal, because I was always giving and very rarely receiving—this wasn't anyone's fault but my own.

Sometime before my frontal lobe developed, I had taught myself that people pleasing was equal to kindness. But this wasn't true. Kindness comes from choice. Whereas people pleasing comes from fear.

A 2025 study found that the underlying cause of people pleasing is the fear of being disliked and rejected. Our sense of self-worth begins to rest on other people's validation. So, we jump through hoops to accommodate others at the expense of our own needs.

It rarely makes us feel good, but interestingly, it also doesn't always make the people we aim to please feel good either.

Recently, I caught up with ex-boyfriend for coffee and we got on the subject of pet-peeves. Mine, as he already knew, was that he used to push me off the bed when we were sleeping. His, to my surprise, was that I never used to say what I actually wanted.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

He said that it was always small things, like choosing what we wanted for dinner: "You'd always let me pick. But when I chose something, and I could tell you didn't like the idea of it, you just wouldn't say anything."

He added: "Sometimes, I wanted you to disagree with me. Just so I knew that you felt like you could."

While this was a pretty small example, it was a huge lightbulb moment for me. My chest tightened with familiar anxiety when I realised that my 'good' and 'kind' actions weren't always being perceived as such.

After a lot of journaling, I figured out that I people-please because I get anxious at the idea of making other people uncomfortable. I'm not doing these acts of service out of kindness; I'm doing them to make myself feel safe.

It doesn't serve anyone's interests but my own. But even then, it's not serving me either.

My people pleasing made me feel like saying "no" was selfish, or that setting boundaries would let others down. But standing up for yourself and sharing your opinions and preferences is not disrespectful. It's self-respect.

If someone disapproves of you because you won't bend over backwards to please them, that person shouldn't be in your life. Period. That person isn't your friend—they're taking advantage of you and your insecurities.

The path back to yourself and your own wants and needs is hard, but necessary. It's about learning to say no, understanding that you can never please everyone, building boundaries, and reconnecting with who you are when you're not performing.

For myself, I'm still very anxious about who I am, how I present and how others see me. I probably will always carry a bit of this anxiety. But I no longer want someone to love a reshaped version of me I do not recognise. I shouldn't have to twist my arm to have good relationships. I shouldn't have to jump through hoops to feel intimacy.

What I can do is wake up every day and lead with genuine kindness for others, and also myself.

That means setting boundaries, sharing who I am, and showing up in my own skin.

And if people don't like that? That's on them.