An Interview With Brooke Young & Yitzi Weiner
See a therapist. Setting boundaries is really difficult work. It can be emotionally draining, and it is very easy to feel like you are so entangled you don’t know what to do. Seeking a trained professional is a great way to feel supported and decide what healthy boundaries will look like for you. Therapists are trained and have so many resources and tools to help with boundary setting. It is really overwhelming to try and do this work alone.
In today’s society, the tendency to prioritize others’ needs and expectations over one’s own can lead to significant emotional and psychological challenges. In this series, we would like to explore the complex dynamics of people-pleasing behavior and its impact on individual well-being and relationships. We would like to discuss the root causes of people-pleasing behavior, its effects on personal and professional life, and practical steps for cultivating healthier relationships and self-esteem. We hope that this series can provide insights, strategies, and real-life experiences that can help individuals navigate and overcome the pitfalls of being a people pleaser. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Maria Dunblazier, MS, LPCC, LPC, LADC Mental Health Therapist.
Maria is a mental health therapist and private practice owner. She helps people pleasers just like you: ones that have it within themselves to feel confident and satisfied in life, but just need the support to get there. She helps clients find clarity and strength by equipping them with the tools they need to improve their boundaries and find a more fulfilling life. Learn more about her work and get access to additional education at https://www.wonderfulyoutherapy.com/
Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us your “Origin Story”? Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?
I grew up in a small town in rural MN. I have two brothers, we are triplets. I am the oldest by 1 minute and that came with a certain amount of bragging rights. Also, it came with a lot of additional expectations as the oldest daughter, even if by only 1 minute. My family valued community involvement and hard work. All of us were involved in various school groups, community activities, and worked summer jobs once we were old enough. In high school I didn’t really know what career I wanted. All I knew was I wanted an office with my name on the door. We didn’t even have a mental health therapist in my town, and I had no idea what mental health therapy was. I took one career assessment in high school, and it suggested that I consider being a therapist. At the time I did not pay much attention to it at the time, but here we are..
After high school I went to Southwest Minnesota State University. Marshall MN is less small than my hometown, but still very rural. A few months before graduation I realized that I was not looking forward to a 9–5 job. It seemed like the only other reasonable option was continuing with school. I attended grad school in Mankato MN. The largest city I had ever lived in, and the most diverse. Although I was not 100% sure I wanted to be a therapist when I started grad school, by the end I had realized that somehow, I ended up in the right place.
Following grad school, I went back to trusty ole small town rural MN and started working as a generalist mental health therapist in a community agency setting. Community agency setting did come with several stressors. To be totally honest I disliked far more than I liked about that experience. But as a fresh grad needing supervision, I did not feel I had other choices. Briefly after I started, the community agency announced they would be closing. Leaving me with a 60-minute one way commute if I wanted to continue working at any community mental health center.
Well, I was just blissfully unaware enough, during that time, that I decided to start my own private practice. Something that I do not think I would have the same level of courage to do today knowing what I know. But that is how I ended up owning my own practice. Thankfully, all this led me to working with women and young adults, specifically those who struggle with self-esteem and confidence. This means I spend most of my days with clients working on providing education, developing heathy boundaries, and maintaining healthy boundaries. A topic that I truly do believe is lifechanging.
Can you tell us a bit about what you do professionally, and what brought you to this specific career path?
I am a self esteem and life transitions therapist for women and young adults in Minnesota and Missouri. I work mostly with women, college students, and some high school students.
Most of these clients are looking for ways to feel more confident and increase self-esteem. Sometimes they seek me out after a breakup, or when they are considering a breakup, starting a new job, or unhappy in their current role. Sometimes they come to me knowing specifically they want to work on boundaries and sometimes over time they learn that a lack of boundaries is what is causing their problems. Much of my time I spend educating about healthy boundary setting. As a therapist I have worked with a wide variety of clients and populations. I have found that this group is really what I am good at and what creates satisfaction for me in my work. Seeing clients create change in such meaningful ways really fuels me to continue learning so I can provide the best for my clients.
Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion about People Pleasing. To make sure that we are all on the same page, let’s begin with a simple definition. What does “People Pleaser” mean to you?
Typically, when clients come to me for people pleasing tendencies, they are talking about difficulties prioritizing their needs and wants. Often this means they are prioritizing others’ needs or feelings over their own. Many come with worries about upsetting someone, a fear that they might come across as rude, or others might not like them if they set boundaries. Finally, clients express an inability to say no and do things even though they don’t really want to. People pleasing is one aspect of a larger problem, unhealthy boundaries. Boundaries are the expectations you set for both yourself and others that allow you to feel good about relationships. Boundaries are the way we create healthy relationships and healthy self-esteem.
On the surface, it seems like being a person who wants to please others is a good thing. Can you help articulate a few of the challenges that come with being a people pleaser?
There are so many struggles with people pleasing. You might feel like the weight of relationships is on you. You probably find yourself overwhelmed during and after social interactions. You might notice that you are ignoring phone calls or text messages from certain people simply because you do not have the energy. Sometimes people will develop a sense of feeling like they are responsible for doing what the other person wants.
Usually, the scariest part of being a people pleaser is the belief that if you say no someone will dislike you. That fear of not being seen in a good light is scarier than being in a cage with a lion for us people pleasers. Honestly, I know a handful of people pleasers that would likely choose the lion over a confrontation with someone. People pleasing causes us to feel constantly run down and doesn’t leave any space for building healthy self-respect or self-esteem. After some time of people pleasing, it can be difficult to navigate what healthy boundaries look like. We have spent so long in an unhealthy space we really don’t know how to do anything different. Constant people pleasing teaches your brain that you are not a priority, leading to self-respect and confidence issues.
Does being a people pleaser give you certain advantages? Can you explain?
It might feel like being a people pleaser does give advantages in the moment but look at it long term. Long term you are setting up your life in a way that says, “I don’t have needs” and “treat me however you’d like.” This is not true, being human means having needs and wants. This leads to even well-intentioned people taking advantage of the situation. This happens for two reasons. Firstly, because even well-intentioned people do not know what you need if you have never told them. And second because humans are programmed to choose the path of least resistance. Least resistance means you in this situation. Relying on or requesting things of you is the path of least resistance.
People pleasing long term leads to decreased self-respect, increased anxiety, and difficulties with confidence. Avoidance of setting boundaries and confrontation grows anxiety about confrontation. It is almost always worth a 2-minute uncomfortable conversation to create long term healthy relationships.
Yes, being a people pleaser means naturally you get along with everyone and people will probably feel comfortable with you. To an extent this is good in some situations, but I have seen time and time again that the negative long-term consequences typically outweigh the positives of people pleasing behaviors.
Can you describe a moment in your life when you realized that your own people-pleasing behavior was more harmful than helpful?
I think people pleasing behavior is very common in the helping field, we are told over and over that we are helpers, and we serve. There is a strong message from the world and our training that our clients come first. We often offer services for lower than livable wages, during the time when we could be prioritizing other areas of our life.
When I first started private practice, I would allow clients to schedule at any time, whatever worked for them, without consideration of my needs. Often, I would drive to clients’ houses to make therapy more accessible for them. That lead me to dedicating more time driving, than I was spending in session with the client. I was spending more money on gas than I was making during the session because I wanted to prioritize what clients could afford. I couldn’t dedicate time to education or running my business. In the end I had to terminate therapy because it was not sustainable. This left me feeling very guilty for a long time and potentially left the client thinking this is something they can expect from another therapist in the future. Had I continued I likely would not have made it and hundreds of other clients never would have had the chance to work on boundary setting with me.
There are many times when, being in private practice, I had to put on my business owner hat and take off my instinctual people pleasing, therapist hat. That is a really difficult thing to do. Often people pleasing takes both a toll on the people pleaser, and on the people, we are pleasing.
In your opinion, what are the common root causes of people-pleasing behavior?
Many of us develop people pleasing tendencies well before we are adults. There are several reasons we develop people pleasing. As children we need to have age-appropriate practice with setting boundaries. Boundaries are tested from a young age and our brains pick up on all the responses we get. This helps form our ideas and beliefs around boundaries. From the first-time babies’ dislike food and throw it on the floor. They are setting a boundary with their caretaker by saying “I do not like this taste, I do not want it”, without any words. The way caregivers respond to that teaches our brains about boundaries. The caregiver responds in usually one of two ways. They say, “you need to eat this, it is what I have given you” or “ok you don’t like that, let’s try something else.” Option two shows respect for a boundary, while option one says your boundaries are not valid. Option one might even come with an eye roll or heavy sigh from the caregiver. Over years and years of these interactions our brains will develop beliefs and ideas about boundaries. If we are allowed to set boundaries and how we can expect others to respond.
Another way we learn boundaries is watching people model boundaries to us. Often, we see repeating patterns between parents and children in relation to boundaries. You only know what you have access to. If your parents tend to be people pleasers, it’s no wonder you learned the same skill set. And if nobody ever challenges that way of doing things your brain has no option but to use the skills it has. Until at some point your brain learns something different and we start practicing a different behavior.
All these little experiences teach our brains, and we are very good at learning these things. Our brains are constantly learning things, even things we are not consciously aware of. Some reasons for people pleasing we may be able to trace back and some things we won’t be able to.
Repeated boundary violations or lack of healthy modeling teaches our brains that people do not like boundaries. And we learn that if we set a boundary they will be mad at me. No wonder as adults we feel guilty and bad when we set a boundary. These experiences also teach us that people pleasing will result in better outcomes, you won’t get negative consequences if you do what your caregivers want. People pleasing behaviors are positively rewarded by parents, sometimes without the parents even being aware of it.
On a larger level, society tends to positively reward people pleasing as well. If we didn’t have people pleasers who would do the difficult, unsafe, messy jobs with low pay and benefits. If you work the system, you will be successful in our society, even if that system’s end goals are not something you want for yourself. A lot of times we feel stuck on what is now described as climbing the corporate ladder. Typically, that climb does include/promote a good amount of people pleasing. If you watch any celebrity interview, they always say things like “I just did what everyone wanted me to do”. People pleasing is being reinforced unintentionally everywhere, and sometimes we don’t even see it for what it is.
How does people-pleasing behavior impact personal relationships?
People pleasing can cause several interpersonal relationship problems. Typically, the people pleaser is left feeling burnt out, disconnected, and uncertain about the friendship. While the friend is left possibly not even knowing what is happening. There may eventually come a time when resentment starts setting or the people pleaser is passively setting boundaries. This leaves the other friend confused because it comes across rude and cold without any explanation as to the reason. It makes it difficult for either side of the friendship to feel secure in that relationship and often leads to anxiety or uncertainty about things.
People pleasing could lead to you cutting off relationships because we keep avoiding confrontation and the list of problems now so big that it would be unreasonable to bring it up. Ending the relationship because we are just “different people” tends to happen when boundaries are avoided overtime.
How does people-pleasing behavior impact professional relationships?
People pleasing at work can have huge costs. We can expect things like being underpaid and overworked, burn out, and increased negative emotions about work. Additionally, we are potentially setting ourselves up for long-term financial setbacks.
Confrontation is difficult for most people, even management. You might be missing out on opportunities solely because you are easier to let down. If you and an equally qualified coworker are up for a promotion and the other person does not shy away from confrontation and will challenge things. We all know the easier person to let down is someone who will just say “okay” and move on.
Humans are programmed to choose the path of least resistance. If you are offered a job, it’s possible, they did not offer you their top salary right away, because it is in the company’s interest not to. If you (like most people pleasers would) just take the job and don’t request higher pay you are setting yourself up for lower pay for your entire career. Every time your company gives a 3% increase your increase is going to be lower. When you start looking for a new job, you will have lower compensation expectations. You may even tell your prospective employers your current salary. They might take advantage of that by offering you a lower salary, than they would a candidate who came in with a higher salary from their current job. After years and years of these small people pleasing behaviors you could be seeing a drastic difference in salary. And the only real difference is your peers prioritized a difficult two-minute conversation about boundaries, in return for years of benefits.
How can long-term people-pleasing behavior impact an individual’s mental health?
Lack of boundaries impacts every aspect of our wellbeing and life satisfaction. As we have noted in previous sections, long term mental health is greatly impacted by people pleasing. It typically comes with higher levels of anxiety and stress. We see physical health impacts when we see things like losing sleep over relationship stressors. Finally, habits impact self-esteem and confidence.
We see troubles in romantic relationships, troubles at work, struggles with friends. This usually impacts extended family relationships. One of the first things my clients come to me with as young adults is stress about their relationship with parents. We are annoyed and upset about how our parents treat us, but challenging our parents carries a huge weight. We feel a life-threatening sense of fear if we think about asking mom to stop calling every day to complain about her annoyance of the week. Even though these requests are perfectly appropriate. And we should not be shocked right, parents taught us our boundaries framework and now we are struggling because that framework is not serving us well. And who more than our parents do we seek approval from. If this isn’t full circle, I don’t know what is. But that is even more reason why we need to set boundaries, even if it is difficult. You are worth healthy boundaries!
In your experience, what is the role of self-awareness in overcoming people-pleasing tendencies, and how can individuals cultivate it?
The role of self-awareness is huge in overcoming people pleasing. If we are not self-aware enough to see a problem, we are never challenged to do anything differently. However, there is a difference between noticing existing problems and creating problems. We do not need to be so self-critical that it causes negative self-esteem. A great way to cultivate self-awareness is just to notice our habits and how we feel about those things. If I am always declining a phone call from my dad or coming up with excuses that might mean more boundaries are necessary.
Another great way is to notice what we are complaining about most in our trusted relationships. For example, I realized I needed healthy boundaries when I was complaining to my partner about my friend’s behavior nearly every time I saw that friend. By complaining to my partner, I was speaking my boundaries, but not to the person who needed to hear them. If you find yourself complaining or venting about someone regularly, that’s a good sign to reflect on the relationship boundaries.
Based on your experience or research, what are the “Five Strategies Or Techniques That Can Help Individuals Break Free From The Cycle Of People-Pleasing”?
1 . Evaluate your relationships and identify areas you would like to set more boundaries. Really think specifically about what you want/need from these relationships that you are not getting. If you are feeling in a friendship, you are not getting enough center stage time, be honest with yourself about that. Recognize that having your own wants and needs does not mean others’ wants and needs are not devalued. We all have struggles and having your own does not take away value from those with “bigger struggles.” It’s reasonable and expected for humans to have needs, and it’s even better to communicate those needs in a healthy way.
2 . Start practicing boundary setting. Just try it, even if it feels anxiety producing, even if it feels like people won’t like it. They might not like it and that is probably a good reminder of why the boundary is needed in the first place. A boundary setting statement should only take about 30 seconds. Ideally boundary setting is a very short communication assertively telling the person what you want or need. For example, boundary setting is saying no when you need to “no tomatoes on my burger thanks”, “no, I am not going to give you money.” Boundary setting is also requesting more of certain behaviors “I really love when we spend time together, can we prioritize that”, “I need you to be on time.” Boundary setting can also look like boundaries you set for yourself “I am going to put my phone down after 30 minutes”, “I am going to stick to my bedtime routine and be in bed at 9.” Even if that means setting an external boundary (with friends) to maintain an internal boundary (with yourself). Boundaries take practice, we are going to feel uncomfortable because we have a lot of shame and guilt around setting boundaries. Feelings of shame and guilt can be unjustified. Meaning it does not always mean we are doing or have done something bad. Setting boundaries is not something we are doing TO another person; it is something we are doing FOR ourselves.
3 . Maintain boundaries. Once you have taken the step to set a boundary it must be maintained. You don’t want to put in all that hard work just to cave once that boundary is challenged. Continue to evaluate and put in the work long term. Unfortunately setting one boundary is not usually enough. Creating healthy boundaries is a lifelong process. We need to keep in mind that if someone responds poorly to a boundary that does not mean we just give up. People are likely not all going to be on board with you setting boundaries, because they were likely benefiting from the lack of boundaries. You can sit in uncomfortable situations; your job is to restate your boundary. Do not get sidetracked on other topics, achieve what you set out to achieve.
4 . Be kind and patient with yourself. These habits did not develop overnight, and it is going to take some time to create new habits. Celebrate the small wins. There was a point where even just requesting no tomatoes at the fast-food joint felt like too much of a burden for the cashier. We all must start somewhere and usually that is starting small, feeling confident about our wins, and then continuing to fine tune our skills. Being assertive, setting boundaries, and direct communication is not something that comes naturally for most of us (especially us Minnesotans). Do not give up if you can’t get it right the first time, or the first 50 times. Think “I can do difficult things”, “I am trading 30 seconds of anxiety for lifelong healthy relationships”, “It is okay if I mess up, I can learn and do differently next time.”
5 . See a therapist. Setting boundaries is really difficult work. It can be emotionally draining, and it is very easy to feel like you are so entangled you don’t know what to do. Seeking a trained professional is a great way to feel supported and decide what healthy boundaries will look like for you. Therapists are trained and have so many resources and tools to help with boundary setting. It is really overwhelming to try and do this work alone.
What steps should people pleasers take to establish healthier boundaries?
Recognize where healthier boundaries are needed. Acknowledge if setting healthy boundaries is something you are wanting to do. Reflect about the reasons you need more boundaries and how it will positively impact your life. Establish a specific plan to address each area of concern. Finally, start practicing. Making it into a science experiment, reflect, and adjust as necessary. Do it with the level of support that feels necessary. Obviously ordering a burger without tomatoes is pretty low level stuff that you can maybe handle on your own. But sometimes we are talking about some pretty big problems with really important people. Seeing a qualified therapist can really provide a great support. You can learn new tools and techniques while getting support and feedback. Fine tuning boundary setting, and boundary statements is difficult. Therapists have the resources to make it a little bit easier.
How can someone who is naturally empathetic maintain their compassion while becoming more assertive?
I think we need to challenge the way we understand empathy and compassion. People pleasing is not truly a healthy compassion to have. People pleasing as a form of compassion is only an immediate fix, leading to long term problems. It robs others of learning and understanding their own resiliency and strength. Just as when our children are learning to walk, we show compassion by allowing them to try again. Even though we know they will fall, and it will be difficult for both the parents and children. We do not carry them on our backs into adult years to spare the potential pain of falling. There is a big difference between providing empathy by saying “oh wow I can see that is really difficult, you can do this” and “I’ll do this for you.”
I think a more helpful way of viewing this is striving for healthy compassion for both ourselves and others. Being more assertive can increase self-compassion and show compassion to others. Healthy boundaries mean we have enough compassion for the other person that we want them to lead a more self-sustaining life. Healthy boundaries means we respect ourselves and the other person enough to work on creating a healthy relationship. We show compassion by letting other people learn and grow, by not giving them the people pleasing crutch. We have empathy and acknowledge that while change is hard for everyone it is vital to surviving and thriving. We remind ourselves of the long-term benefits and goals we have for our relationships.
What are the most common misconceptions about people pleasers, and how do these misconceptions affect their journey toward recovery?
A misconception of people pleasers is that they just don’t care about anything, or they do not think about it. Sometimes people would even say people pleasers are push overs. Most people pleasers do know what is happening and do have options about it. The struggle comes with having the skills and confidence to communicate that.
Another misconception is that people pleasing it just their personality and that’s the way it will always be. Direct communication is a learned skill that you can pick up at any time. Just because you are a people pleaser now does not mean you have to stay in that box. With any journey towards recovery mindset, beliefs, and values play an important role. There are a ton of beliefs we learned growing up as children that are just not true. Things like the “just world belief”, that as adults we can logically track the inaccuracies of it, but still our brains might be operating on that unhelpful belief. It is only once we start to recognize and challenge them that our thinking patterns change.
What role can therapy or counseling play in helping individuals overcome people-pleasing behavior?
I am biased, but I think mental health therapy for people pleasing can be hugely beneficial. You can start to see patterns of thinking and behaviors that you might not recognize. I have had therapy clients that do not come to therapy to address concerns of people pleasing, but a few sessions in they realize they are falling into people pleasing behaviors and it is causing problems for them. There is only so much we as individuals can self-reflect. Sometimes and often, it takes another perspective and feedback to really gain clarity. Your brain only has your current beliefs and ideas to work from. When you start therapy, you are introduced to other options or ways of thinking that might be more helpful. There is this idea that your life must be falling apart for therapy to be helpful, and that could not be further from the truth. When you wait until life is a mess to come to therapy, we spend all our time putting out weekly fires and getting back to a functioning baseline. We often don’t even touch on some of the deeper therapy topics, like people pleasing and boundary setting, because there are bigger fires to put out. Additionally getting connected with a therapist to build trust before the fires start is a great way to have a trusted professional you have access to if you need them.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
That is such a hard question. There are so many hopes I have for individuals in the world. I think the best way I can think of is to provide more education for people, specifically education on mental health. I would make a movement that spreads scientific evidence based mental health related education to people could be impactful. At the very least then people can make a more educated decision. I don’t think we are far from that movement currently; mental health is trending. I would just like to curve the trend a bit. The problem is that more and more clients are coming to me saying things like “I have ADHD, I watched a tik tok on it.” And while some influencers do have appropriate training, it is likely that most do not. And while listing some symptoms of ADHD might be helpful for some. I think general education about how important sleep and exercise is might do us more good. I want influencers to model how they are using mindfulness skills while they go on a walk. Trained mental health professionals spend years perfecting their skills and prioritizing their continued learning. It is hard when so much unhelpful and inaccurate information is so easily accessible and then taken at a high level of credibility. And part of that is on us as professionals, if we dedicated more time to getting evidence based trusted information out there, we probably wouldn’t have such an uphill battle. So sorry about that, that’s on us. But please get your information from credible sources. Better yet go to the source, if there is something you are wondering about just ask a mental health professional.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Check out my website to learn more about what I do. I also offer blog posts, education, and tips for people pleasers regularly on my education page.
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!
About the Interviewers:
Brooke Young is a multipassionate publicist, public speaking mentor, and communication consulting. She works with a wide range of clients across the globe, and across a diverse range of industries, to help them create, develop, and promote powerful messages through heart-centered storytelling. She has formerly worked On-Air with FOX Sports, competed in the Miss America Organization, and is the Author of a Children’s Book. She frequently works with children as a professional speaker where she educates on Volunteering and Therapy Dogs. She has over a decade of professional performing background and finds joy in sparking creative passions for her clients.
Yitzi Weiner is a journalist, author, and the founder of Authority Magazine, one of Medium’s largest publications. Authority Magazine is devoted to sharing in depth “thought leadership interview series” featuring people who are authorities in Business, Tech, Entertainment, Wellness, and Social Impact.
At Authority Magazine, Yitzi has conducted or coordinated thousands of empowering interviews with prominent Authorities like Shaquille O’Neal, Peyton Manning, Floyd Mayweather, Paris Hilton, Baron Davis, Jewel, Flo Rida, Kelly Rowland, Kerry Washington, Bobbi Brown, Daymond John, Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, Lori Greiner, Robert Herjavec, Alicia Silverstone, Lindsay Lohan, Cal Ripkin Jr., David Wells, Jillian Michaels, Jenny Craig, John Sculley, Matt Sorum, Derek Hough, Mika Brzezinski, Blac Chyna, Perez Hilton, Joseph Abboud, Rachel Hollis, Daniel Pink, and Kevin Harrington
Yitzi is also the CEO of Authority Magazine’s Thought Leader Incubator which helps business leaders to become known as an authority in their field, by interviewing prominent CEOs, writing a daily syndicated column, writing a book, booking high level leaders on their podcast, and attending exclusive events.
Maria Dunblazier of Wonderful You Therapy On How to Recover From Being a People Pleaser was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.