Trying To Like And Please Exhausts

Many people desperately seek approval from their environment. Without it, they are unable to make decisions, to choose for themselves without hesitation, and to feel secure in their choices. The problem is that this destroys one’s self-esteem little by little, in addition to trying to like and pleasing exhausts.

As the publication Social Skills indicates ,  ” the need to please everyone is considered an irrational belief or expectation because it implies perfectionist and unattainable goals: it is impossible to please everyone”.

For this reason, trying to like and please in many cases only generates impotence. People who relate in this way have to change the way they are drastically depending on the context. This creates a tension that usually manifests itself with anxiety.

The effort to please that leads to rejection

Albert Ellis, father of the ABC theory, believed that much of our suffering depends on our interpretation of reality, rather than on reality itself. In this way, many of the irrational beliefs that we adopt are capable of generating a lot of pain. Thus, by questioning and eliminating them, we will improve our mental life and, therefore, also our sensory life.

Curiously, when we try to like and please others, what we receive, in most cases, is rejection. A rejection that hurts us and that collides with the belief that “if I am what others want, they will love me.” This dissonance between belief, action and the response we receive is what causes our pain and suffering to increase. But instead of trying to be ourselves, we try harder to do better. It is then when trying to like and please exhausts.

Perhaps at first we may like servile people and who always agree with us, but also this pleasant feeling of beginning does not take long to turn into rejection for identifying in the other an artificial being incapable of posing any challenge. This phenomenon is especially marked in some relationships: at first everything is great, but with the passage of time boredom arises.

Think how difficult it can be to get to know someone who never shows himself as he is. That is, to a being who never is, who has no voice and who for the vote photocopies what he senses written in the expectations of others.

The hidden side of liking and pleasing

Liking and pleasing exhausts and that is when its hidden face can emerge. People who practice this way of seeking approval from others can sustain the situation for a time. But when their energies falter, then they are flooded with a feeling of discomfort from which they do not know how to get out because they do not have their own references. A state that, on a behavioral level, can manifest as aggressiveness.

We all have a limit to simulation. As much as we behave in a complacent way towards others, sooner or later the pressure will appear. The feeling of no longer being able to play a role that exhausts, in this way a very intense relationship can cool down in a short space of time.

People who are very concerned with pleasing others are also usually all or nothing people. They are unable to distribute their attention, so when they get tired of one focus, they turn to dedicate it to another, forgetting the previous one. From responding like the best friend to doing it like a stranger.

This way of acting is quite harmful. Many people use it to manipulate; However, others do it because they do not know how to relate in a healthy way and have such low self-esteem that they think they will scare away anyone who discovers their true personality.

Working on self-esteem, changing what we can change and accepting what we cannot change at this time are solid pillars for social independence. An independence that has a lot to do with autonomy, a protective factor against emotional dependence.