Every Time You People Please, You Leave Yourself Behind.

The hardest person I ever learnt to disappoint was everyone else.

For years, I thought I was kind. Easy-going. Considerate. The sort of person who got on with everyone.

I listened more than I spoke. I smiled when I disagreed. I softened my opinions. I laughed things off. I became incredibly good at reading a room and adjusting myself accordingly, and not because anyone asked me to, but because I quietly learnt that keeping other people comfortable felt safer than being fully myself.

I didn’t know it then, but I wasn’t simply being kind. I was editing myself. Slowly watering myself down.

The Small Ways We Leave Ourselves

People pleasing rarely begins with the big things. It begins with tiny moments.

Saying ‘yes’ when you mean ‘no’.

Laughing at a joke you didn’t find funny.

Agreeing because it’s easier than explaining yourself.

Changing your opinion depending on who’s in the room.

Listening to everyone else’s stories whilst quietly swallowing your own.

None of these moments feel significant, but over the years, they accumulate. Until one day you realise you’ve become fluent in everyone else but forgotten your own language.

Why Do We People Please?

For a long time, people pleasing was seen simply as being ‘too nice’.

Today, psychologists understand it rather differently. People pleasing is often a protective strategy. For some people, keeping others happy reduces the possibility of rejection, criticism or conflict.

In other words, it isn’t weakness, it’s adaptation.

Some trauma-informed approaches also suggest that people pleasing can be linked to what’s sometimes called the ‘fawn’ response; a pattern where someone attempts to create safety by accommodating others, particularly after experiences where conflict or disapproval felt threatening.

It’s important to remember that not everyone who people please has experienced trauma, and there are many reasons why we develop this pattern. But for many, it isn’t a personality flaw.

It was once a way of staying safe.

The Day I Started Choosing Me

Don’t get me wrong, I still don’t enjoy conflict (understatement!) and I don’t think I ever will. But something has changed. Not because I suddenly became louder, but because I became clearer. I’ve learnt that the discomfort of holding a boundary is far lighter than the resentment that comes from abandoning myself.

Having my boys changed something inside me. It gave me a fierce sense of protection, not only for them, but eventually, for myself.

What’s interesting is that I’ve never struggled to stand up for other people. I’ve always been a good judge of character. I can usually sense when something doesn’t feel quite right. I’ve never had much patience for unkindness, injustice or unnecessary drama, and I’ve never been afraid to quietly call it out when I see it.

The irony is, whilst I found it relatively easy to advocate for others, I didn’t always advocate for myself. I learnt to trust my instincts about everyone else… but not always about my own life.

I can see it so clearly when I look back at both of my births. With my first son, I went along with everything; every piece of advice, every decision and every intervention. I trusted everyone else more than I trusted myself. The induction failed. I became exhausted. I was prepped for theatre – an epidural, a spinal block – until eventually, my beautiful boy arrived safely on the last attempt with the use of forceps.

With my second son, I was different. When induction was suggested, I kept asking questions. I listened to every professional, but I also listened to myself. I trusted that my body wasn’t ready and so I delayed induction for as long as I safely could. I finally accepted other intervention once I’d reached full term, but I never abandoned my own voice. Less than an hour after my waters broke, my little whirlwind was born naturally.

Looking back now, I think the biggest difference between those births was identity.

The second time, I trusted myself.

Security Isn’t Always Safe

I spent twelve years working in the same place, supporting people through some of the darkest and most vulnerable moments of their lives. It was work I cared deeply about, and work I never took lightly.

For several of those years, particularly after having my second son, I knew I wasn’t supposed to stay. I wanted to build my own business. I wanted more freedom, more creativity, more purpose. But I stayed. Partly because of financial security, but partly because I cared deeply about my clients. The thought of leaving felt like letting people down.

Then one day I left.

After twelve years of service… my leaving gift? A £30 Amazon voucher. No card. No words. Nothing. And do you know what happened? The work carried on. Someone else stepped in. Life continued and those clients were cared for.

It wasn’t cruel, it’s simply how organisations work.

For years, I’d carried the weight of believing I couldn’t leave because people needed me. But in the end, the organisation carried on exactly as it was designed to. That realisation wasn’t painful, it was freeing. Which made me realise something. So many of us spend years sacrificing ourselves for places, roles and expectations that continue perfectly well without us.

And whilst we’re busy making sure everyone else is okay, who is making sure we’re okay?

Becoming Doesn’t Mean Becoming Selfish

This isn’t an article about caring less. It’s an article about disappearing less.

There is a difference.

Because the women I know who people please are some of the most generous people I’ve ever met, but generosity should never require self-abandonment.

Love should never require self-erasure.

Kindness should never require silence.

Perhaps becoming isn’t about learning to say ‘no’, perhaps it’s about finally believing your ‘yes’ belongs to you first.

The Woman You’re Becoming

I still care deeply about people.

I still want to help.

I still don’t enjoy conflict.

But these days, I trust myself enough to disagree.

To leave. To speak. To protect my energy.

I’ve learnt that boundaries are not something you build around other people, but something you build around the relationship you have with yourself.

Because every time I choose myself honestly, I’m teaching my children something too. That kindness and boundaries can coexist. That compassion doesn’t require self-sacrifice, and that becoming who you are will sometimes disappoint people who benefited from who you used to be.

Perhaps that’s one of the hardest lessons of all.

Not everyone will celebrate your becoming… but that doesn’t mean you stop becoming. Because every time you choose yourself, you stop leaving yourself behind.

With warmth,

Becky

Founder, Becoming Her