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Why People-Pleasers Find Decision-Making Difficult

Why People-Pleasers Find Decision-Making Difficult

What if I choose this option? Will people judge me? If I pick the other one, I might not be happy. But does my happiness matter if it means others are pleased or disappointed? What if I make the wrong choice? What if people don’t like my decision? What if I get criticized or someone gets mad at me?

©Photo by Siora Photography on Unsplash

If you’re a people pleaser, you probably learned early to focus on what others want and need. You listened to their opinions and beliefs. 

As a child, you were taught to ignore your own needs and wants, making others happy first. 

You also learned that it’s important for others to like you.

All of this makes it hard to make decisions. I’m going to explain five reasons why being a people pleaser can make you indecisive. 

Knowing these reasons is important because once you understand why, you can start to change it.

Let’s start by considering how much we care about making others happy. 

This affects how we make decisions in different ways. The main idea is, trying to make others happy is impossible. Even if our choices influence them, it doesn’t guarantee their happiness or they have to find it themselves.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t be nice to people or care about how they feel, we definitely should. 

But if we think our choices will determine whether someone is happy or not, we’re focusing on something we can’t control.

In the webinar “Rewire Your Brain,” it’s discussed how people pleasing feels like trying to push a heavy boulder uphill and it’s never-ending. 

Sometimes, it seems like we’ve made someone happy, but it doesn’t always last. Trying to control things beyond our control causes anxiety. Many of the things we worry about, such as how others feel, are not within our control.

Another important aspect to discuss is the misunderstanding of selfishness.

Many people who tend to please others, myself included when I’ve been in that mindset, often don’t understand what being selfish really means. In my 4 years as a writer, working with people who lean towards people pleasing, this is a common concern: 

“If I do this, am I being selfish? I don’t want others to see me as selfish. I don’t want my choices to come across as selfish.”

What’s selfishness? We often learn about it at home, where we’re told to put others first. A helpful way to understand it is when you’re called selfish for not doing what someone else wants.

In some families, kids are told it’s selfish if they don’t do what their parents want. I’m not saying kids shouldn’t listen to their parents. 

Good parents give guidance. But calling a child selfish for not obeying is different from knowing kids don’t plan like adults. They don’t understand consequences the same way, so they need parents to help them.

Sometimes, people don’t get what I’m saying, so let me explain: I’m not saying parents shouldn’t guide their kids or teach them not to take things or hurt others for a toy. But calling their actions selfish ignores that kids struggle with controlling their impulses. 

It’s a parent’s job to help kids learn and develop this control.

Sometimes, in certain families, we learn that being selfish means going against what the main caregiver wants. 

If you grow up believing this, it can really mess with how you make decisions as an adult. It makes it hard to choose for yourself, and if you always put others first, you won’t be happy.

The third thing that affects people-pleasers when making decisions is the desire for everyone to like them.

It’s like wanting everyone to be happy but it just can’t happen. Not everyone will like us, and sometimes it’s not because of anything we’ve done. 

People have their own opinions and biases. They might not even like themselves or see something in us that they don’t like in themselves. 

People decide if they like us for all sorts of reasons.

If we’re always trying to make others like us, it’s tough to know what will happen. This really messes with how we make decisions. Wanting people to like us is normal because we all do.

But people who always aim to please others put it before everything else, even their own needs and values. 

Sometimes, they’ll do things they don’t believe in just to make others happy and get their approval. I talk more about this in my other articles on people pleasing, but it definitely affects decision-making.

Number four is that people pleasers often don’t know what they really want, need, value, or feel. 

If you’ve always focused on others’ feelings, you might not understand your own. If you don’t know how you feel, how can you know what you want? If you’re not aware of your feelings, how do you know what’s important to you?

If you’re not sure what selfishness means, it’s hard to know what you truly need versus what you just want. 

Sometimes, you give up what you want to please someone else who says they need it, but it’s often just their preference. 

People might say their wants are must-haves, but often it’s just their choice versus ours. Needs are important, from basic things like food and shelter to higher-level stuff like feeling fulfilled and living according to our beliefs. 

Being happy and true to ourselves is important for a satisfying life, and each of us is responsible for finding our own path to it.

Being confused like this makes you lose touch with yourself. If you don’t know your feelings or what you need, want, desire, or value, how can you make decisions?

Number five is linked because if you don’t know these things about yourself, you’re disconnected from them. 

So, you can’t prioritize values or know your real goals. What do you want? What does being your best self mean to you? Now, let me explain how these factors affect why decision-making is hard, whether you’re a people pleaser or not. 

Our brains naturally avoid risk and lean towards negativity. 

Also, our upbringing shapes our beliefs and values, influencing how we see ourselves and our role in the world.

let’s talk about why decision-making is tough for everyone. 

One reason is our urge to control things we can’t control. When we can’t accept life’s uncertainties and our lack of control over many situations, we keep searching for the perfect decision, even when it doesn’t exist. 

This struggle is common for anyone who finds decision-making hard. And when you add in the desire to please others and make everyone like us although that’s not always possible it makes decision-making even more challenging.

Another challenge in decision-making is dealing with conflicts in our values. Sometimes, we find it hard to decide because our values clash. 

For instance, if you’re a people pleaser, you might prioritize making others happy, but you also have your own desires. 

This creates a dilemma. Value conflicts are common and they make life more complicated, but everyone deals with them. Learning to handle these conflicts is important.

I hope you found this article interesting and useful.

Thanks for reading! Please take a moment to share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below. Don’t forget to share if you found it informative ❤

Let me know what you think, I’m trying to keep it simple. God bless you, Love you all, take care!


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❤ Thank you Everyone! Love you all, Stay Vibrate Higher — Ryan Hwa❤

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