How much approval is too much

People pleasing doesn’t have to be a life sentence.  But, it can be common problem. This can be normal as we are part of a social and professional system that requires a very wide range of inter-relational skills for us to be happy, appreciated and successful. So, you might be wondering:  what makes a people pleaser? How people-pleasing shows up in your work, social life and more. In fact, every area of your life. And what you can do about it.

I will cover the following on this episode.

• Red flags that someone is a people pleaser.
• Dealing with people pleasers.
• How to overcome people pleasing and approval seeking tendencies.

Hello and welcome to the not so Travelling Introvert. Today, I want to talk about being a people pleaser or some people might see it as having a need, a deep need for approval, almost like an addiction.

Receiving validation from other people feels good for a lot of people. So, good that some people kind of develop almost an addiction for receiving that outside approval and take more weight in getting that outside approval instead of being motivated intrinsically. And therefore, they can't motivate themselves without somebody else's approval. It could manifest as if you're obsessed with people going to express interest in you.

Maybe you like being on social media, dating sites, or any situation where you can attract people and get their attention by having them express an interest in you. It might even be hard for you to settle down with like one human because you enjoy having people express an interest with you rather than just having that interest from one person. Maybe you need constant reassurance to make sure that your friends and family are not mad or upset with you.

Maybe you're often overthinking little confrontations and so you often ask for reassurance about how somebody feels about you. You might like to talk about how awesome you are and this can be weird, like, especially if you lack confidence. But some people who aren't confident will talk about all the impressive things they've done to appear worthier than they think they are, in the hopes that people hearing all the things that they've done will agree and validate their thoughts about said awesomeness, even though they might not believe it themselves.

You might find someone who is that really craves attention, loves to name drop. Do you find someone like name drops people who you may know who they have worked with or know a friend of a friend in order to make themselves look more important? This is a sign can be a sign of insecurity, especially when it's not done within context. So, that can be an issue.

Some people will go ahead and make friends with folks based on their wealth or their reputation. So, they look around at their close friends group and they might think, well, this person's rich, this person is a doctor, this person X, Y, and Z. But they might not know a lot about them as humans, and so they might not share the same values which can lead to issues.

Also, you might find someone who is a people pleaser or has a need for approval. They might change their beliefs or the way that they act, or how they act, depending on the situation or the company that they're keeping. They might change what they say or what they think about certain topics depending on who they're talking to.

They might also feel the need to be in control of each and every single social situation when it comes to networking and making friends or building relationships. They might need to be the one that is control of the event so that they can feel confident and comfortable. Because if they let other people oversee the social situations, it might be a bit scary because you might not therefore appear as confident or might not know what's going on. And, it could be a case of just being rejected in any way, shape or form could make that person feel out of control. It often happens with job searches. It can happen with just people that you know, someone you've just met and how they deal with that rejection can reveal whether or not they are a people please or maybe they have an approval addiction and things that don't help with these are social media, especially things like Instagram where what we call vanity metrics. How many followers do you have? How many people liked that particular post?

These things go towards hurting someone's self-esteem and making them more of a people pleaser. People pleasers need to stop and think and figure out who they are, make sure they have personal values and design a path to reach their goals based on their own values rather than what other people value them as.

Thank you for listening. This is janice@thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and to get hired. Have a great rest of your week!