People Pleaser | Saying Yes | Anxiety | Work Stress | Burn Out | Fatigue | Mental Health | Depression
People may see you as efficient, hard-working and you may even sometimes stay behind at the office to get work done.
Looking after yourself is an inside job, and doing "all the things" isn't always productive. What about your own priorities in life? what are you not able to do because you're always doing things for others?
The reason why "People Pleasers" find it difficult to say "no" to others is because they have problems letting other people down. Maybe you have certain thoughts about yourself that may include "what if i say no, and they stop liking me?", "what if I say no, and they start thinking that I am lazy?", "what if I say no, and I lose my job?".
When you're asked to do something, notice the anxiety that immediately sparks before saying "yes". Then notice that feeling of dread that comes afterwards when you realise that yet again, you're putting your own work/time aside for others, when you know you have important things to do yourself.
Once you start noticing what kind of emotions are controlling your actions, then you can begin to identify patterns in your behaviour. Ask yourself "will i burn out if i continue to say yes?"
Remember if you don't know your own priorities, you will feel like you are being controlled by other peoples wants and needs. It's okay to take a breather and say "Let me see what I can do, I might not be able to get that done for you today as I already have plenty of things to do on my "to-do" list, but I'll try my best to get to it when I can".
The only way to change peoples expectations of you is to first change your own. It's important to recognise that you cannot do "all the things" and that's actually okay. Just because you "feel" like they may see you negatively if you say "no", that doesn't mean it's going to happen. In fact, they might start to respect you even more, as they understand what you're priorities are.