Wanting To Please Can Become Our Failure

Close your eyes and imagine Neverland. Wendy is the girl who takes care of the characters of the story in this fantasy world, who is able to do what Peter Pan lacks the courage, who takes risks and responsibilities, seeking to please but always remaining in the background. Open your eyes again. Is this familiar to you?

It is a metaphor that reflects how we often try to please others by forgetting ourselves and what we really want. Thus, it is very common to say yes to proposals like having coffee with someone else when we don’t feel like it, or to much more important proposals like getting married, studying a certain profession or having children.

We choose the path that seems easiest in the short term, that of avoiding conflicts and ignoring what we want. We prefer to pay that price rather than add an extra discussion or worry to our stress-ridden days. However, what we actually do with this is to underestimate the price we will have to pay in the long run for such a concession.

We are afraid to say no and choose to please so that we don’t feel rejected or let the other person down, but what happens to us? Who we are? In fact, what matters is not the origin of this complacent behavior, but what we are doing to have this behavior that immobilizes us.

An irrational belief: I need love and approval

Psychologist Albert Ellis, creator of rational emotive therapy, speaks of eleven common irrational beliefs that infect and plague the rest of the thoughts and emotions that inhabit our minds, turning the horizon into a dark place and opening the door to a sense of mild malaise.

One of these beliefs is: “I need the love and approval of everyone around me” or “I need to be loved and have the approval of all the important people around me.” This belief, in different degrees, inhabits almost all heads and is what makes us want to please other people.

It is an irrational belief because being approved by everyone is impossible. If we need to be constantly approved, we will always be concerned about whether we are accepted or not and to what degree people like us.

It’s not realistic to think that we’re going to empathize with everyone. On the other hand, trying to be approved by others would require such an effort that we would have to let go of our own needs.

A rational way to face this belief is to think that we should eradicate the excessive need for approval or love. In this sense, it is more correct to seek approval for your attitudes and behavior than for yourself.

How is a person who seeks to please

A person who always tries to please is one who tends to give satisfaction or pleasure to the other person. That is, he is the one who manifests a certain inclination, more or less constant, to fulfill the wishes of others, even if this implies a personal price.

But the notion of complacency usually has a negative connotation, because people interpret that if someone always meets the demands of others, he cannot assert his position, nor defend his interests, but simply gives in to the preferences of others, neglecting his own. Some traits that differentiate complacent people are as follows:

• Perfectionism. Wanting to make things perfect brings guilt closer when things don’t go as expected, especially when it comes to satisfying other people. A complacent person is usually a perfectionist and doesn’t realize that this very perfectionism is what makes him feel frustrated.

• Feels essential. A person who constantly pleases others wants to feel indispensable, wants the people around him to depend on him because that’s what makes him feel accepted, respected and loved.
• Love is sacrifice. He understands that love means sacrifice and resigns himself to love and family relationships in which he feels discomfort and accepts it as a normal consequence of a relationship and love for the other person.

• Avoid conflicts. Seeking to please constantly means avoiding conflicts, so a complacent person avoids arguments, gives reason to others and apologizes for anything to get accepted.

• Sacrifice your happiness for other people. There comes a point of sacrifice that doesn’t make you happy, because you always think about what will make the other person happy. She doesn’t express her feelings and locks herself so much in herself that she no longer has her own ideas and doesn’t express them.