You know, I find that a lot of people, women especially, are trained at a young age to be sweet, kind, accommodating and so on. Your environment, from parents to teachers to friends, keeps enforcing this ideal ‘mold’ on you which pressures you to actually meet that ideal. Which sucks, because then whatever else you wanted is lost in the void called ‘what I wanted, but instead…’ And as you practice the art of the ideal ‘mold’, you slowly become that ‘mold’ until you forget how to voice your want and desires because you’re too busy being that ‘mold’. But the ‘mold’ was created by other people, it wasn’t created by you. So it’s a good thing that you’re starting to realize that the ‘mold’ you are putting forward in everyday life is not yours, it is people’s idea of you. That’s the first step.

The next step is something I recommend so feel free to ignore it. But there’s something called behavioral psychology, the research in acquired behaviors through conditioning. There are psychologists who have studied cognitive behavioral therapy and work with clients to help them change certain thoughts and behavior. There are multiple techniques that the psychologist go through with clients over multiple sessions so that the clients get comfortable with their new perspective of actions that they can employed in everyday life. There are also many sessions in assertiveness too, but for now, I think it would be best for you to understand the underlying reason of why you want to please others so much. It’s not a bad thing to have compassion, but not at the expense of your own health and certainty not when it crosses your boundaries. So it would be best to find someone, it usually takes a few tries before finding a therapist you click with, to help you put together a narrative of your people pleasing behavior so that you can understand and start healing from the root of it rather than just change your behavior that’s only seen on the surface.

Good luck.