Makena: Hello, everyone. Happy belated Thanksgiving to all of you in the U.S.! 

Gigi: Hello, hello.

Makena: We are recording this episode leading up to Thanksgiving so we can have a nice holiday break. Gigi and I are going to be seeing each other in Nashville.

Gigi: Yeah, I can’t wait. We’re going to visit Brianna.

Makena: My sister lives in Nashville–so we’re going to spend the holiday there. We’re bringing our dog, Chloe, and it’s going to be lots of doggies, my husband, and it’s going to be super fun.

We hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving and everyone else in the world a great last week of November. 

Gigi: More into Christmas and everything, right? The festive times.

Makena: Yeah, absolutely! Or whatever holidays you celebrate. 

Today, we want to talk about a topic that came up in a coaching session recently.

We were both in a session with a client, and I was taking notes. I thought, “This would be a great topic for the podcast,” which is people-pleasing. 

A lot of people say, “I struggle with this. People-pleasing is something I do, and I don’t know how to shift it.” 

So we want to share some things that have worked for us or our clients and support you with this important topic.

What do you see, Gigi, around people who do a lot of what they call people-pleasing? 

Like doing for others all the time, maybe at the expense of themselves, or feeling like they have to say yes to everybody else when asked.

 What’s usually going on there? Tell me a little bit about this.

Gigi: Well, I think you should share what you observe because you’ve worked with a lot of people.

Often, I see resentment underneath–they feel frustrated and unheard. I think that’s the other thing. There’s resentment, and people feel unheard because they feel like they can’t say anything.

What about you? What have you experienced when you’ve seen it with clients?

Makena: There’s definitely this feeling of, “I do all this stuff for everybody else, and I’m not taking care of myself first.” 

This is something we talk about a lot on the podcast–the importance of caring for yourself first or putting yourself first.

Often, it’s a pattern. The main thing about people-pleasing is it’s a pattern. 

Somewhere along the way, when you were young, it was helpful. It got you attention or helped you feel more connected to your parents or feel loved. 

It’s not about making that wrong but being aware of it. Then it’s about asking if you want to shift this because you have to want to shift it to really make a change. That’s true of anything. 

But often, there’s something that people get out of people-pleasing too.

There’s the part that doesn’t feel good, but there’s also something you get from it, or you wouldn’t keep doing it. That’s really important.

Gigi: I see a lot of times people do it because they want to feel loved. They think that by doing it, people will reciprocate. 

And when they don’t, that’s when they feel disappointed or let down. It’s like, “I’ve done so much for this person or my family, and I don’t feel like it’s coming back to me.” 

Often, it’s done because we want to feel loved.

Makena: Loved or appreciated. I think a lot of times we want people to notice, you know, that we’ve done these things and maybe to feel more connected to them.

So it’s really important to look at what do you get out of it. 

Because then you can really take a look and see, is there another way you could get that? Or is it something you’re really willing to make a shift in? 

And so, one of our clients–we were on a call recently–and she really saw that she’s in this space in her life where her kids are grown.

And she really wanted to make a change in the people-pleasing department, or in her case, maybe it’s not just people-pleasing, but it’s putting everybody else ahead of herself, right? Doing all these things for the family, doing all these things in her relationship, and for other people in her life as well.

When we talked, she really saw that, oh, there was a part of her that had chosen to do those things. She really took responsibility for that and was like, “I made that choice,” and that was really empowering for her to see. 

It’s also about taking ownership of the fact that you’re choosing to do that in some sense. Maybe it’s an unconscious choice, or maybe it’s just something you’ve always kind of done. But if you’ve chosen to do it up to now, you can actually choose something different.

And we’ll talk more about that.

Gigi: And so what did she see, Makena, about how she wanted to change that when she noticed it and chose it?

Makena: The main thing is, she just saw that she was ready to make a different choice. Not that she didn’t want to do things for the people in her life, but that she wanted to choose more consciously the things she did want to do–let’s say for her family, or her partner, or her friends.

So she could really walk through and go, “Okay…” 

Maybe even write down–I don’t think we did this in that particular call–but you could write down, what are all the things I end up doing for other people, right? All the ways I end up people-pleasing or going out of my way for others. 

And then really ask, “What do I want to do here? What do I really feel good about?”

Because some of these things feel good to do for other people. I think you’ve said this, Gigi–that often there’s a component where people genuinely want to do things for others. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Gigi: I think it’s about making that distinction too. What do you want to do for people? 

If you want to do it for them, then shifting your attitude to come from a place of wanting to do it is key. 

If you don’t want to do it, then it’s about choosing differently.

It depends. If you have to do something, a lot of times, it’s about changing how you approach it. 

But I think it’s so important to see this because a lot of times people want to do things for others. 

I’m very much a service person. I love being in service to people. When I consciously choose how I’m in service, it brings me joy. I actually love it.

Sometimes, people ask me, “Why do you do that?” And I think, “I do it because I enjoy it.” 

But what gets in the way is when you start doing things you don’t want to do–or when you do things that bring you joy but you don’t feel appreciated. 

That’s when we can get resentful and make it feel like a chore.

Makena: There’s so much here we could unpack. Going back through some of the things we’ve already said, what do you get out of it? 

And not to make that wrong, either. If you really enjoy it, if it brings you joy, that’s one thing.

If you’re doing it to get people to appreciate you or love you more, then maybe that’s something to take a look at and say, “Maybe that’s not the healthiest or best reason to do it.” 

Do the things that bring you joy, that you enjoy doing for the sake of doing them, even if they didn’t appreciate it. 

Or, of course, they might appreciate it on some level, but even if they didn’t say it verbally or didn’t do something in return, that’s still a healthy way of giving to others or pleasing others.

It’s also about the language people use. I hear terms that have become very common in popular culture, and “people-pleasing” is one of them. 

It puts a negative slant on something that, for some people, isn’t all negative.

As you said so beautifully, Gigi, “I’m a service person. I enjoy giving to others.” As long as you’re giving to others from a healthy place, where you’re taking care of yourself.

Gigi: And Without expectation, because that’s what gets in the way. When we do something, we project that people are like us. 

And believe me, I’ve had that happen many times. I’m in service to people, and unconsciously, I don’t realize I have some kind of expectation. 

I think, “Oh, well, why wouldn’t they do the same?”

But that’s just not a healthy way to approach it because everybody is different. When I go into something with an expectation, it takes the joy right out of it because I’m waiting for someone to do something for me.

Makena: Yeah, and a barometer for that–a way of checking–might be to tune in and ask yourself, “Do I feel frustration? Do I feel resentment when I’m doing these things? Or do I feel joy?” Is it actually feeding your energy and increasing your joy, so to speak, or is it draining you and making you feel frustrated?

Sometimes, people will swing the pendulum the other way, as well. 

Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Because people often go, “Oh, I’ve been giving, giving, giving to other people, and now I don’t want to do that anymore.”

Gigi: What I see there is sometimes people start being really rude. They’ll say, “No, I can’t do that.” Or it’s like when you hear people talk about boundaries–they start setting boundaries, and then they start saying, “No, I’m not going to do that,” or, “No, I’m not going to cross my boundaries.”

It’s the same thing with people-pleasing. 

Instead of coming from a place of, again, “What is it I want to do? What is it I don’t want to do?” and then really having a conversation and saying, “Listen, I don’t want to do this anymore.”

You don’t need to be really rude about it. You can say, “That is something I’d like to handle differently. Let’s see how we can get that handled without me having to do it.”

I think that’s what we do with our clients. We help them get really clear on what they want to do and what they don’t want to do, and then, again, we set up systems to help them make those changes.

Makena: Otherwise, it’s this thing of people–like you’re saying–they start getting, as you called it, a little rude. They start getting very abrupt with their loved ones, or they just say, “Well, no, I’m not going to do that,” or, “I don’t do that anymore. I’m taking care of myself first,” or something like that.

Versus, like you’re saying, the other alternative is to really be clear and say, “Here’s what I’m available for,” and to be in communication about that. “Here’s what I’m not really available for.”

And to your point, Gigi, if it’s something you’ve been doing for a long time and you suddenly make that switch with your loved ones, it’s going to be a big shift for them. 

They’re going to be like, “What?” You’ve basically developed this role, and you’ve helped establish a pattern. 

Let’s say it’s a child of yours, and they’re used to you doing certain things and behaving in certain ways. That’s a pattern you’ve created in your dynamic.

And then if you suddenly change that and say, “I’m not going to do that anymore,” they’re going to be like, “What is going on?” Of course, there’s going to be some pushback. 

That’s where I think a lot of breakdowns happen when people start to make these changes, versus really being in there and asking, “Okay, what is the need that I was filling before that’s not going to be met anymore?” 

And, like you shared, “What’s a system we could put in place? How can we approach this differently so that you’re on a team with your loved one and not just leaving them hanging and changing everything overnight?”

So, when we’ve done this with different clients, there are a couple of stories we wanted to share. 

For one client, her family members were coming and asking for money for different things. Do you want to share a little bit about what we did?

Gigi: So finally, we had that client really look and see–what did she want to do? How did she want to contribute financially to the different family members who were coming to her?

Because before, she was giving a lot of money and taking care of so many things. We had her reflect on what she was willing to do and what she wanted to do. 

She got super clear about where she wanted to give, where she didn’t, and where she wanted to stop completely.

She went in and had those conversations. They were a little uncomfortable, but it freed her up so much because, first of all, she no longer had those energy leaks–where she was feeling frustrated or taken advantage of. 

The other thing was the financial leaks. She got to decide where she wanted to allocate her money and how to use it for different things.

She really cleared up all these areas, and it strengthened her so much. She felt empowered in her life, and it gave her a skill set. 

Now, when people come to her, she thinks through decisions very clearly–whether it’s about giving financially or with her time. She decides exactly what she wants to do and then communicates it to the person, saying, “This is what I’ll do.”

A lot of times, people will come to you and say, “This is what I want,” and we feel like we have to bend ourselves out of shape to meet their expectations. 

But when you own it and get super clear about what you’re willing to do and what you want to do, it takes all that frustration out. It stops the resentment as well because you’re in the driver’s seat in your life.

Makena: And in this case, but also in many other cases of people-pleasing, sometimes the people who are asking for whatever it is–it could be money, it could be time, or it could be something else altogether–might make you feel a little guilty, whether that’s consciously or unconsciously.

There’s this thing of using maybe a story or bringing up something that might be true, but in a way that sparks guilt for you. Then you feel like, “Oh, I have to do this,” or, “If I don’t do this, I’m a bad person.”

What we’re talking about here is really getting clear in advance. If you know those kinds of things come up with certain people in your life or in certain dynamics, take time to get clear in advance on what you want to do. What do you want to give? What feels good for you? What feels like enough? Or do you not want to give anything at all? 

It completely depends on the dynamic.

Then, have that conversation with the person. Know that they may still come back and say the same kinds of things–or something else entirely–to make you feel guilty. 

You’ll have to sit with that a little bit but stick to your guns in terms of what feels really right for you.

Is there anything else you see around that?

Gigi: No, that’s good.

Makena: One other scenario I see a lot with people-pleasing is when someone becomes the person everyone goes to because they know they can ask for favors, or they’re always there to help or pitch in a helping hand. 

So, everyone asks–friends, family members–and that person often says yes. But then frustration starts building, or resentment starts building, or they’re just tired and overextended.

What would you say to that person, other than what we’ve covered already?

Gigi: I would say you have to step back and see what you want. In those situations, I find it’s often people who may have more time, and it’s kind of become known that they’re the person to go to because they’re willing to do it–simply because they don’t have “their thing.” They’re not taking that time for what they want to do.

It just becomes this bad habit of saying yes, but it’s a little bit of a distraction from actually taking the time to sit down and really ask, “How do I want to be spending my time? What is important to me? What do I need to do for myself? How do I want to spend my next year?” 

Instead of thinking, “How do I want to spend my next year doing all the different things for everyone else?”

It comes back to what we say about everything: looking to see what you want and making sure that you come first. 

When you do this, and you have a clear, grounded feeling in that, then you can’t be pushed and pulled all over the place. You choose very wisely about the activities or the ways you want to be in service or the ways you want to give that are, first of all, in alignment with your values. 

And second, in alignment with the time you’ve allotted to be in service, help, or support.

That’s a systems issue there. They have to create the structure for it. It takes a little time to sit back, reflect, and figure out what that is, and then work forward from there.

Makena: Yeah. I was just looking back to see if we had any podcast episodes that could help with that. 

We have: Your Greatest Gifts, Discover And Own Your Superpowers – Episode 21. We can link to those in the show notes. 

That’s really nice to really get in and see if you’re not sure how you want to be spending your time or what your focus or purpose might be. 

We also have What’s Next, Getting Clear On Your Direction – Episode 17. 

And I think the last one I would say is Become The Woman You’re Meant To Be Confidently Create Your Biggest Dreams – Episode 5. 

So those might be some interesting ones. 

If you do find yourself in that position–and of course, everyone’s busy, and everyone has things to do–it’s not that we’re saying you have nothing going on. It’s about really looking at what you want to put your energy into.

When you have things you’re excited about in your life, things you’re working on and moving toward, people will naturally stop reaching out to you all the time. Or if they do, you’ll have something going on and can say, “I’d love to, but I’ve got this going on.”

So that’s a really great perspective–another way of thinking about it.

Gigi: I think it’s super important, and it depends on where you are in your life. Are you retired? Are you doing a lot of charity work? Or is it because your family requires a lot from you?

But again, you have to ask, “What is the amount of time I have that doesn’t completely derail my life?” And then that’s the time you have. From there, you choose wisely. 

First, like we talked about, where’s the joy? Where do you want to give? If it’s your family, where do you really want to be in service so that you feel the person truly needs support and you want to be there and be supportive?

If it’s someone in your business and you’re busy, then it’s about asking, “Where is this in alignment with my values and the way I want to give back and be of service?” 

And a lot of times, another way to look at it is, “Where does it also grow me and serve me–whether it’s in my business, my life, or whatever?” That’s another important perspective to consider as well.

Makena: Great question. Someone asked me this years ago, and it really stuck with me. This was more in the sense of how you want to give back in the world and things like that. But when you’re feeling overwhelmed with all the different ways you feel like you could give or should give–and this could be true in your relationships as well–a great question to ask is, “What is mine to do?”

What is mine to do? Or, to your point, Gigi, “What do I want to do?” Between those two questions, I think you can really find what’s in alignment with your values or what you feel called to.

One other thing I see with people-pleasing is that there’s often a fear or a desire to avoid conflict or confrontation. That may be why the people-pleasing is happening. You don’t want to say no because you’re worried that people will get mad, or they won’t want to be connected to you anymore, or whatever that is.

It’s really important to make that conscious and ask yourself, “What am I afraid of here? If I say no, or if I say I’m not available for that, what do I think might happen?”

 In some cases, you might think, “Oh, I think they’re just going to get upset with me.” In other cases, you might think, “They would cut off the relationship or blow up,” or something much more dramatic.

It’s important to walk that through and think, “Okay, maybe that’s not a healthy dynamic in the first place if that’s true.” Or, maybe they would get mad and then come back later, and everything would be fine.

Being worried about conflict isn’t enough of a reason to keep going past what feels right for you again and again, because that’s not the foundation of a healthy dynamic over time.

Gigi: And again, the way you approach that is by saying something like, “I love you, and I feel like I’ve really been supporting you, but I’m in a position in my life right now where I can’t do that.”

So you don’t go, “I’m not going to do that anymore.” 

The way you approach it is huge. They still may get mad or upset, but at least you’re coming from a place of kindness and acknowledgment, not from being abrupt about the situation–like we talked about earlier.

Makena: Yeah. And I would really recommend the episode Harmony at Home to learn more about the skill of acknowledgment before you go in and have these conversations.

Gigi: Are you looking at a list? How do you remember?

Makena: I was before. I’m not now. That one’s off the top of my head. 

Gigi: Like, wow, we did a podcast on that. Wow.

Makena: They all start to blend together after a while in our minds. Earlier, I was like, “Let me look at the list and see what might be helpful.” 

But this one, Harmony at Home, is about conflict and having more harmony in your relationships. We do talk about the skill of acknowledgment in there.

And that’s something I wanted to highlight, or you mentioned earlier, Gigi, that when they come to this kind of conversation, if they have the tool of acknowledgment first, it can really bridge something. 

Because otherwise, if you go in saying, “Oh, I’ve been doing all of this, and I’m not going to do it anymore. I’d like to do it this way,” even if you bring it in a very respectful way, people can get defensive. 

They might say, “Well, I didn’t tell you that you needed to do this,” or, “You’ve always done this, and I do all of this for you.”

When you go in really acknowledging first–and we talk about how to do that in the episode–it can create a bridge to have the more challenging conversations.

Gigi: Yeah.

Makena: Yeah. So, one last thing we wanted to touch on here is how people can approach this. 

Let’s say you have a recurring dynamic of doing a lot of things for other people. We see this a lot in families, especially when the kids are grown now.

For example, let’s say the parents are planning a family trip. In the past, everybody just expected you to do everything, right? You plan the trip, you look everything up, and everybody else just shows up. 

How could someone approach this differently, Gigi? How do you see they could approach it differently?

Gigi: Yeah. How do you see they could–what could they do there?

Makena: The biggest thing is to get everybody involved and really make a request for what you would love.

Like we said before, it’s about getting clear on what you want to do and then inviting and involving everybody else. That could be done in different ways. 

You could think through all the different components of planning this trip that you normally take on. Then make a list of those components and put a little mark next to the ones you enjoy doing or would like to do. 

For the ones you don’t want to do, you call a family meeting. This could be over Zoom if you’re not all close together.

You might say, “Hey, we all want to take this trip–super excited about it. Normally, in the past, I’ve done a lot of the planning. I’ve taken a lot of this on. I’d love to approach it differently this time and get everybody involved. I think it could be really fun. Here are some things I’d love to get your support with. Here’s what I’d like to take on, and I made a list of the other areas I usually handle. I’m curious–who would like to volunteer to do this or that? What else do you see? What ideas do you have?”

By getting everybody involved in such a way, if nobody volunteers, you might have to assign tasks. 

For example, you could say, “Everyone takes a vote on who thinks this person should do that,” or something similar. That way, everyone is part of the process.

Usually, what we see is that people actually have fun with it. They enjoy being part of the planning process. 

This is true not just for family trips but also in other contexts like leading teams. People often want to help, but they aren’t given the opportunity because you’ve been taking on all the pieces yourself.

Gigi: Yeah, absolutely. You can say, “Here’s the budget,” and that’s a beautiful way to approach it. You can do that in your personal life, and you can also do it in business.

For example, if you have all these things to accomplish, you can ask, “Who wants to take on this, this, this, and this?” 

And like you mentioned, Makena, people are sometimes hesitant because they feel like they can’t do it, or they’re not going to do it the right way, or they won’t do it the way you expect it to be done.

So you have to really open up and let other people take control. 

You can even make someone else in charge of it. They can come to you and bring updates as they’re working on it, and you can give your approval along the way.

Makena: Yeah, and there is some degree of not micromanaging here too. It may not be done the way you would do it or to the degree you would do it. 

If there is something that’s really important to you, then you take that one on.

For example, if it’s really important to you that the restaurants are a certain way, then maybe you’re the one researching the restaurants. 

And then there’s acknowledgment–acknowledgment and appreciation for what others do contribute and what works. 

Recognizing how people are contributing is so important.

Call a family meeting

Gigi: Yeah, it’s great to have a family meeting.

Have everyone come together and see where you are in the project. Everybody gets acknowledged for what they’re doing and appreciated, and then they want to contribute even more. 

That makes for a fun trip.

It’s no longer about you having to do everything. It’s about everybody feeling like part of the process, and it makes for such a richer experience.

Makena: Yeah, and we just did this. Sunny’s parents were in town for about 10 days. 

As we did growing up, Gigi always called family team meetings, and then we would all do acknowledgments.

We would all share what we wanted to be acknowledged for–what we were proud of, or some way that we had contributed or shown up in a way we were proud of. 

So, we did that with his parents while they were here a couple of times. We’d all be sitting in the kitchen, making lunch or something like that, and I’d say, “What does everybody want to be acknowledged for?”

His dad would say, “I want to be acknowledged for this,” and then we’d all clap–wildly clap for each other–and then move on to the next person. 

Sunny and I do this in our relationship a lot as well. 

It’s something you could do even while you’re on that vacation: call everybody together and let everyone share what they want to be acknowledged for–what they did to help contribute. Then everybody claps and gets a chance to be seen.

Gigi: Yeah. Nice, nice. 

Makena: Yeah. Beautiful. Well, that’s a few notes on people-pleasing. 

So, we do want to share–today, the day this episode is coming out–is Black Friday. Yay! 

We’re doing something we’ve never done before, which is offering some amazing, amazing Black Friday offers on bundles of different courses that we offer. 

Be sure to check them out at wayofthemuse.com/BlackFriday. They’ll be up for just a few days.

Most of the bundles are about 70 percent off–somewhere in that range. 

This is something we’ve never done before, and I don’t know if we’ll ever do it again. 

It’s really an opportunity for you to jump in. If you’ve been curious about working with us or taking a course with us, you can get several courses in one.

We have smaller bundles and bigger bundles to support you on a lot of different levels. So, check those out at wayofthemuse.com/BlackFriday. And we’ll see you next time. Bye, everyone.

Gigi: Happy Holidays. Bye-bye.