Pushover To Respected: 3 Steps to Protect What Matters So You Don't Hate Yourself
People-pleasing kills your self-esteem and wears you out. Time to stop doing that.
I often felt like an alien - plucked from another land and plopped into a random family’s home, waiting for that homing beacon to start beeping for rescue.
My parents were from a collective Asian culture, but I was born and raised in the UK. I’ve always struggled to maintain and assert boundaries, confused by how to act in different scenarios.
My close and extended family were in everyone’s space and you accepted it. Compare that to how my immigrant parents, with their poor English skills in the ‘70s and ‘80s, acted in public and it was a totally different world.
They were never confident outside the home, and it confused me to see these contrasting approaches.
They never felt worthy of their place here, and that was the behaviour I eventually modelled. I didn’t stand up for myself and hated it.
I’d beat myself up over what I could and should have done. Pushing back seemed impossible so I didn’t.
I rarely felt like I fitted in, so put everyone else’s needs first to feel accepted by others.
Ignoring boundaries makes others stronger and us hate ourselves
The negative emotions appeared - guilt, shame, frustration - and this insidious nature turns in on itself, driven by an ever-stronger and harsh inner critic.
The self-critical narrative, nagging away and telling me I’m rubbish, not good enough, pathetic was on a continuous loop - I doubted myself and my abilities.
This chipping away and loss of self-belief makes people-pleasing so damaging - it drives resentment, insecurity and self-hatred.
A self-fulfilling cycle develops - the less you believe in yourself, the more you look for external validation - fuelling your people-pleasing habits more.
Each time you give up what matters to you or ignore your instincts, the louder your inner critic wails:
Why can’t you stand up for yourself - they’re taking advantage of you?
Why did you say yes when you’re already overloaded?
When will you do what you want, and not give in to what they want?
Your identity dissolves and you become all things to everyone.
I realised how painful this was whilst working with a client with people-pleasing tendencies and harsh inner critic.
They’d berate themselves every time they gave in to what they didn’t want to do and lost their sense of self.
Most of their behaviours and opinion had been modelled from an overbearing dad. They didn’t know what THEY wanted anymore, but knew this behaviour didn’t feel right.
This cognitive dissonance made them feel uneasy. Self-doubt was everywhere.
It took a few coaching sessions to realise they didn’t have to live by those strict rules anymore. They had regret for the years lost living someone else’s life.
I don’t want that for you.
Make practical changes to your mindset, behaviours and relationships to build a healthier life ahead.
One where you prioritise what matters, with the insights and skills to protect it comfortably.
It might take time but it works if you commit. Try these 3 steps to make it happen.
Step 1: Recognise your needs and priorities
How do you quit people-pleasing if it’s been a habit for years?
You need to identify what matters to you at a deeper level. And I mean what truly matters to you - not material things but beliefs and concepts you’d life your life by, wherever you were.
Core values
These are core values and once you identify yours, it makes decision-making and managing boundaries much easier.
It might be hard to identify what your values are if you’ve not explored them before.
I do a guided visualisation exercise with my clients to create their ‘ideal day’ and it work every time. Consider what you would have to have in your ideal day and why.
Is it autonomy, family, purpose, nature, health, justice, financial stability etc?
Another good way to identify your values is remember when you’ve been angry and frustrated about something.
Anger shows up when your values have been transgressed.
Reflect on the last time you got angry like this and what cause it - is it a sense of fairness, honesty, curiosity, social connection or something else?
When what matters to you is crushed or ignored, you feel it in your body. Those feelings and visceral reaction are signs to stay alert to and guide your way.
Cost of neglecting your core values
Next, reflect on what neglecting your values costs you. Health is my top value because I’ve had so many issues with it. Without good health, I can’t get what I need done. It affects my other values like autonomy and achievement.
When I’m on the burnout train, I put work before health and pay the price. I get exhausted, my chronic pain and IBS flare up and I can’t sleep. My body crashes and that finally forces me to slow down.
I’m better now at catching this earlier so I don’t get to rock bottom. I use writing or art-journalling to reflect on my experience at a deeper level.
Here are some reflective prompts to recognise how doing nothing will impact your life.
What does ignoring my values give me?
What does ignoring my values cost me?
If I was advising a friend in my situation, what would I say to them?
What do I need to do differently so I pause and shift my approach?
Visualise the future you
Once you’ve worked out some examples, visualise the future version of you that’s living aligned to these values in your ideal day.
Make this identity as real and fleshed out as possible.
Any time you wobble on your quitting people-pleasing journey, revisit this future version of yourself.
What would they do in this situation to stay true to their values and life?
Use your future identity to motivate and adjust where you are now.
Over time, you’ll close the gap between your current and future identity, living more aligned to your values.
Step 2: Set and communicate boundaries
To quit people-pleasing, you’ve worked out what matters to you, and who you want to be. Now put it into action.
Boundary setting is more complex than ‘say no’ more. Let’s dig deeper.
Boundary types
Whilst trawling X/Twitter for daily post inspiration , I spotted an excellent image about asserting types of boundaries. It stopped me in my scrolling tracks.
Posted by Young Minds UK, it succinctly shared 8 boundary types and how to protect them:
What I love is its specificity.
‘Saying no’ is a helpful reminder but doesn’t give us enough detail when it comes to boundary setting in the real world.
It also doesn’t explain what ‘saying no’ does for us in real terms.
This image offers a way to understand what we protect for a specific boundary.
It goes beyond ‘saying no’ as you decide what ‘protect’ means in your context.
Define the boundaries you need
Use the list above to clarify the boundaries related to your people-pleasing.
Detail what you usually do in these situations that reinforces the people-pleasing.
Use your values to decide what you’d rather do to protect them - how would you prefer to manage these boundaries?
It’s vital you hone in on what reinforces your people-pleasing, and what holds you back.
It’s often fear-based core beliefs that drive our unhelpful behaviours and get in our way.
Here are a few examples:
Fear of disappointing others
Fear of conflict
Fear of rejection
Fear of failure
Fear of loss
Fear of judgment
Try not to judge yourself too harshly for having any of these. It’s perfectly normal.
We collect them over time from our childhood or past experiences (e.g. an overbearing parent or boss), cultural/societal norms (e.g. my collective-based family), personality traits (e.g. high agreeableness), or our level of self-esteem or self-worth.
Collecting data is valuable to reshape how you make decisions and act in the future.
Any time you feel discomfort, remind yourself it’s only data and use it to drive a new or tweaked behaviour.
Identify boundary management styles
It’s useful to know what boundary management styles show up in your boundary types list above, so you know what behaviour to adjust versus keep.
These styles are broadly used to describe how we manage boundaries:
Rigid Boundary Style: Maintain strict separation between different areas of life, reducing opportunities for people-pleasing but potentially leading to isolation and inflexibility.
Porous Boundary Style: Allow others to dictate time and energy, leading to high levels of people-pleasing, overcommitment, and stress due to difficulty saying no.
Healthy Boundary Style: Balance own needs with those of others, supporting assertiveness and flexibility. This minimises people-pleasing and promotes wellbeing and mutual respect.
We’re aiming for healthy boundary styles here, otherwise you run the risk of isolating yourself or being all things to everyone except yourself.
Your values will be an excellent guide so let’s pull it together:
To adapt my behaviour and manage a boundary type, get specific (e.g. time boundaries).
Check my boundary style (e.g. porous) and if it’s getting in my way (e.g. being too flexible with my time to listen to a friend on the phone, means I don’t get to sleep as early as I need to).
Identify which value and boundary to protect, and adopt a healthier boundary style (e.g. my health is important to me so I need to prioritise that. I’ll tell my friend I only have 30m to talk to her and then move to my sleep routine on time).
Back to my client - we came up with small behavioural experiments to challenge the fears and discomfort holding them back.
Assertiveness and boundary management is a skill, not a solid trait that remains the constant over time. This is great because it means it’s a skill that improves if you practice.
By testing your assumptions and seeing what happens, you’ll build your discomfort tolerance and pick tougher boundary types to manage.
Sometimes my client and I would role play what they’d say in an interpersonal situation. Other times, we’d work through the exact steps to take to reduce their discomfort and feel more confident in upping the next behavioural experiment.
Research also tells us our predictions are often incorrect. This happened to my client. The impact of their behavioural experiments weren’t as bad as they thought they’d be.
Those fear core beliefs keeping us stuck lose power over time.
It is liberating once you stop listening to them.
Step 3: Cultivate self-respect and confidence
Our brains and nervous systems needs evidence from new actions to change how we think, feel and act over time.
Celebrate your wins
Register what you’ve done in your behavioural experiments and the benefits they’ve given you. This means celebrating small and meaningful wins.
It could be correcting the coffee barista when they get your name wrong. Or it could be telling your partner you didn’t like the restaurant they picked.
A win is a win.
Don’t underestimate this and give your inner critic something else to nag you about!
Write or draw in your journal, or record your wins in a progress tracker. Remember to savour the positive changes, and how you feel about it.
Set these in your memory so it becomes easier over time.
Assertiveness and managing boundaries is a skill - the more you practice, the better you’ll get.
Self-compassion is invaluable
Any significant behaviour change takes effort and might feel hard.
Self-compassionate talk will counteract your inner critic so you keep going. None of us is perfect, and a self-compassionate mindset reduces stress and pressure.
You’ll have more energy to try new things, and curiosity keeps you motivated.
I’ve been exploring self-compassion mandalas in my art-journalling process, after reading about psychologist Carl Jung’s use of it with his patients almost a century ago.
It gives a creative way to recognise how I feel, any challenges, and where to focus next.
Check out this mindset transformation article for an example.
Reflect and adjust
If you’re recording and celebrating your wins daily or weekly, it might feel like you’re not progressing quick enough.
That’s normal. Behaviour change isn’t a straight line. It’s more complicated with ups and downs, fast and slow periods.
Having a monthly reflective approach helps check if you’re moving in the right direction overall.
Remember, we started with identifying what matters to you and living more aligned to your values and identity.
Moving towards your ideal life where you respect yourself and are respected by others might need significant shifts in where you spend your time and who you spend it with.
Not everyone is happy when people-pleasers start to push back. They’ll get used to it eventually.
Evaluating where you are in the long-game helps you stay the course and realise how much progress you’ve made.
Don’t compare yourself to others. Compare your progress to who you were a year ago.
Key takeaways
Managing your boundaries and resisting the temptation to people-please is key to avoid self-loathing. It took me years of practice, experiments, and reflection to see how far I’ve come.
A colleague recently told me they couldn’t believe how honest and direct I was with my feedback in a meeting.
I didn’t think that was the case, but in hindsight, they were right. That made me feel great. It meant the changes implemented over time were working.
Ongoing practice and patience with the process is key, but it will happen.
Here’s a reminder of the approach to go from pushover to respected:
Step 1: recognise your needs and priorities: Identify and prioritise your core values through reflection and visualisation. Use these to guide decision-making, set boundaries, and align your life with what truly matters to you.
Step 2: Set and communicate boundaries: Define and implement specific boundary types. Use your core values to flexibly adapt your boundary style to manage relationships and commitments effectively.
Step 3: Cultivate self-respect and confidence: Recognise and celebrate small wins through journaling or progress tracking. Cultivate self-compassion to manage long-term changes in thoughts, feelings, and behaviours towards self-respect.
We don’t become people-pleasers overnight, and it’s unrealistic to think we’ll undo it overnight too. We can reset how we act and shift behaviour though, to become who we want to be.
Break it down into smaller steps, check what you’d rather do instead, and use behavioural experiments to build confidence in a new approach.
Imagine all the other things you’ll do with that extra energy and time.
Which boundary types do you struggle with the most when you’re people-pleasing?
Ooh I loved this! I hadn't heard of using your ideal day as a way to work out your core values - I love that! I realised autonomy was way higher up there than I usually give it credit for when I just pick them out of a list. Also loved the realisation about how our fear based beliefs drive our unhelpful behaviours. I've been playing small a lot recently and this gave me lots of points for reflection. Thank you! :)
For anyone who grew up in a house with no boundaries, it's hard to know what they look like. Love the graphic that prompts us to think about different boundaries and what they might be :-)