I had been a people pleaser for a lot of my life. I craved the approval of other people because frankly, I didn’t like myself.
I believe that if other people approved of me or liked me, then I would be happier and I would somehow feel better inside. Perhaps this stemmed from me being bullied as a child, who knows…
What I found as I got older was that trying to please people was a foolish endeavour because I couldn’t please all people all the time. Many times, I didn’t want to do the things that would have people approve of me. Whether it was my parents, my friends, or my teachers.
I started to see in my 20s that doing things for my own approval was far more important for my well-being and happiness than doing it for other people. Which further developed into my 30s and ultimately led me to leave my safe corporate job behind to pursue coaching full-time.
What shifted this into overdrive was last year when I created my document, which is a set of declarations I created through my coaching Steve Hardison that I repeat twice a day out loud. I have framed it in my office and it really is my north star in how I show up in the world.
It was a huge commitment for me to create this as I had to fly to Phoenix to meet Steve Hardison in his office to go through this process. I can honestly say that it’s been one of the best investments I’ve ever made in my life.
I’ve taken over two dozen people through this process now and I have seen huge shifts and transformations in their lives and their businesses. If you are on Facebook, check out the documents that Peter McCammon, Deryl Sweeney, Moritz Lembert and Sachin Sharma have all shared.
My advice to anyone who wants to stop people pleasing is to start with taking small steps in doing things that you want to do because they make sense to you and not because other people want you to do them. If you really want to supercharge this process, I advise you to reach out to someone who can help you create your own set of declarations – your document – which I would suggest would be best done in person with a coach over several sessions.
If you want to know more about this process, read the book – The Ultimate Coach by Amy Hardison and Alan D Thompson, available on Amazon.
With love and appreciation,
Ankush Jain
Coach and Author of Sweet Sharing – Rediscovering the REAL You
