The Ultimate People Pleaser Litmus Test

As “recovering people pleaser” Natalie Lue opens her book, The Joy of Saying No, “Suppressing and repressing my needs, desires, expectations, feelings, and opinions to try to influence and control other people’s feelings and behavior was as natural to me as breathing. I thought it was normal to tell people what they want to hear (read: lie) to make them feel better. I believed I was ticking the boxes of being a Good Person by being kind, generous, hardworking, conscientious, loving, eager to help, attractive, and intelligent, and doing what others needed and wanted.”

If you, too, are ticking “Good Person” boxes while making yourself miserable, this episode is for you. Natalie and I discuss the five types of people pleasers, what we continue to struggle with today despite decades of awareness-building, and how to build the skill of saying no.

This crossover episode originally aired on the Pivot podcast on July 2, 2023.

More About Natalie: Natalie Lue used to have very low self-esteem, a litany of problems including bad boundaries, toxic relationships with emotionally unavailable and shady folk, and a crippling immune system disease, but this all changed in the summer of 2005. Now, she is a recovering people pleaser. She’s the author of The Joy of Saying No: A Simple Plan to Stop People Pleasing, Reclaim Boundaries, and Say Yes to the Life You Want and for 8 years hosted The Baggage Reclaim Sessions podcast. Natalie helps people learn how to reclaim themselves from their emotional baggage and increase emotional availability through self-care, making a profound difference in their lives via her substack On Knowing Yourself.

🌟 3 Key Takeaways

• When “resentment enters the room” that’s a sure sign that you’re caught in people-pleasing. Natalie says, “People pleasing is code for I am (or was) anxious about something. It’s an anxiety-management habit that ironically keeps you locked in a cycle of anxiety because it’s hyper-vigilance.”
• Natalie’s five types of people-pleasing: Gooding, Efforting, Avoiding, Saving, and Suffering.
• Saying no, and finding the joy in it, is a skill: You can’t change what you don’t know, and until you know your no, you can’t know your yes. Remember, “Boundaries are not miracle workers.” You may still need to call it at some point with a toxic relationship and let go. love care trust and respect make d

✅ Try This Next: Check in with yourself when you feel pressure to be or do something in a certain way—is this a preference or is this programming?

🔗 Resources Mentioned

• Natalie on the web, Instagram: @natlue, Twitter, Facebook, Substack: On Knowing Yourself
• Take the Quiz: Are You a People-Pleaser?
• Video: Natalie’s TV Show appearance on How To Stop People Pleasing & Start Saying No With Author Natalie Lue! | Lorraine

📚 Books Mentioned

• The Joy of Saying No: A Simple Plan to Stop People Pleasing, Reclaim Boundaries, and Say Yes to the Life You Want
• Natalie’s earlier books: Mr Unavailable and the Fallback Girl, The No Contact Rule, The Dreamer and the Fantasy Relationship, and Love, Care, Trust and Respect: Reclaim your relationships from the jaws of pain, fear and guilt
• Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business
• Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
• Life After College

🎧 Related Episodes

• Podcast: The Baggage Reclaim Sessions with Natalie Lue
• Nat on Good Life Project: How to Stop Pleasing Everyone but Yourself | Natalie Lue
• Pivot:
• 338: Is Midlife Messing with Your Enough-ness? + Busting Other “Not Enough” Scams with Mandy Lehto
• 282: The Honor Roll Hangover with Melody Wilding
• 56: Perfection Detox with Petra Kolber
• 112: Whose Voice is in Your Head? Perfection Detox Round Two with Petra Kolber
• Free Time: 54: The Hard No ❌ and 152: Do Less — On Entropic Bloat & Business Haircuts ✂️

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