Pleasing People

It’s frequently difficult to please the people around us,
especially when those people are the ones that we love dearly.
Although Life is more than just pleasing others,
I've always found it difficult not to try to make other people happy,
even when it results in feeling like life has been drained from me.

For many years of my life,
I felt like I was never a good enough person,
never a good enough daughter,
never a good enough mother.

This is a problem shared by many people.
We often feel driven by the need for approval from those we love.
It is easy to allow the expectations of parents or spouses or children
or teachers or friends to control our lives.
Many adults are still trying to earn the approval
of unpleasable parents...
…or even unpleasable adult children.

There are many keys to success, but one key to failure
is to try to always please someone else.
It is impossible to do everything people want us to do.
If we don't know our own purpose,
we will always try to do too much,
and that causes stress, fatigue, and conflict.

In order to develop the inner resources
that are required for us to give to others,
we have to survive,
and to figure out how to make ourselves thrive.

It is important to always keep in mind that our goal in life
can't be to simply please others.
It is not a bad thing to do good things for the ones we love,
but our primary goal must be to figure out a way
to take care of ourselves.

Like in an airline emergency,
we have to put the oxygen mask on ourselves first,
in order to be able to help another person with theirs.

Here are some things that I've learned.

It’s okay to have my own thoughts and opinions. 
I don’t have to agree with the views of everyone else. 
This doesn’t mean I have to be in conflict with others over differing ideas. 
There’s a lot of value in the ability to “agree to disagree”, and
I don't have to attend every argument I'm invited to.
 
My feelings are important. 
It isn’t necessary to always downplay my feelings in deference to others. 
This doesn't mean that I ignore the feelings of others. 
It means that I have a right to my feelings, too. 
We often think of feelings as “good” or “bad”
when they just are what they are. 
 
There’s nothing wrong with allowing our own needs to be a priority. 
Sometimes we can think that we are weak to even have needs,
but that isn’t true. 
Having needs merely means that we’re human. 

Just because we recognize our needs
and try to find ways to meet them doesn’t  mean that we’re selfish. 
Some people are selfish with their needs,
but if a person has a strong tendency to please others,
that isn’t likely the case. 
 
It’s impossible to please everyone. 
I do my best to accept that and allow myself to be me. 
I am not responsible for other's expectations, their thoughts or their feelings.

It's sometimes worth considering,
that if others genuinely have unrealistic expectations of you
and take it out on you if you don’t meet them,
perhaps these aren’t healthy relationships. 
and it may be time to distance yourself from them.
 
We need to also consider
that we might perceive that others
have higher expectations of us than they actually do. 
People who are perfectionists,
and who have very high expectations of themselves,
sometimes believe that others expect the same of them
and that isn’t always the case.
 
Sometimes we may have worked so hard at pleasing others
that we aren’t even sure who we are. 
It's okay if it takes time for us to look inside
to see our own thoughts and feelings about things. 
 
It is important not to leave behind the person you are, 
or can become, for the sake of pleasing others. 
It isn’t a fair trade-off. 

Your thoughts, your needs and your feelings are important, too. 
There is no reason you have to ignore them in order to please others. 
Your weight-loss and maintenance efforts are going to take a lot from you.
Focusing on pleasing others can be a big distraction
and none of us needs that. 

Each of us is a special person in this world. 
Put your Focus on who you are and who you want to become.