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People-pleasing and Conflict Avoiding

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  • August 21, 2014 at 9:58 am #63759
    Little Buddha
    Participant

    I struggle with wanting to be liked by everyone, especially my colleagues at work – both junior and senior as well as my clients. I want everyone to get along. If I sense a conflict, I feel this need to try and fix their problems, issues, help them build consensus, find common ground, see eye-to-eye. Then, if I sense the slightess hint of disapproval because of something I said or did (if I take one person’s side over another), I panic. I then either reach out and seek their approval to get reassurance or avoid them in fear of that panic arising.

    Does anyone have strategies to avoid this pitfall? When you see a conflict and you feel the need to intervene, what do you do? When you feel the need to get some validation that “things are okay” or that “people approve”, what do you do? How does one let go? Where do you refocus your thoughts and energies?

    August 21, 2014 at 10:26 am #63760
    Will
    Participant

    When I see a conflict and I feel the need to intervene I try to remember that everyone involved is a grown-up, and that it is not for me to fix anybody else’s problems. I can’t, in any case, and trying just creates mental proliferation in everyone. (Or, to use a different term, it causes ‘drama’).

    When it comes to seeking approval, I have a line that’s catchy and easy to remember: “What other people think of you is none of your business.” Oh, it’s hard, for sure, but remembering that little joke helps me let go.

    Also remember that you’re not alone in seeking approval from everyone else. Everyone has insecurities and wants to be liked. In this way, you and your colleagues are in it together, all anxious, all trying to do right, all worried they’re messing up. That may make it easier to focus on dealing with your own business rather than everyone else’s.

    Work hard/good luck.

    August 21, 2014 at 2:15 pm #63766
    Little Buddha
    Participant

    Thank you Will. I really have to redefine my role at work, my views on leadership, and perhaps my role in life in general – always fixing, solving, wanting to make things better, being everyman to everyone, and what happens in the end? Drama! Nothing but mental proliferation and drama.

    I do like your little joke. I think some part of me equates not caring what other people think with being rejected and lonely, which I end up doing to myself anyway because of the energy I spend trying to please people just depletes me completely and I end up alienating myself from those who may want to love me and get close to me.

    If I don’t care what other people think, what’s is my compass? my barometer? How do I know I’m on the right path? I want my family to be proud of me. I want my bosses to approve of me. I want my colleagues to approve of me. I want my clients to approve of me. So much approval seeking, my god! It’s maddening! How else does one live if that’s the only program you know how to run?

    Thank you for helping to open my eyes to this craziness.

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