Stop People-Pleasing: Deceiving Others and Yourself

Rethinking "People-Pleasing"

• 💡 The term "people-pleasing" is a misnomer because it implies that one can actually please others and that the behavior is about them.
• 🎭 Instead, it's proposed to call this behavior "people deceiving," as it involves smothering one's authentic self to trick others into liking them.

The Illusion of Control

• 🧠 You cannot control other people's thoughts or feelings; their thoughts create their feelings.
• 🎭 When you believe you are causing someone else's happiness or unhappiness, you are often responding to your own projections and anxieties, not reality.
• ⚠️ Even when someone states that your actions would change their feelings, they are mistaken; their thoughts are the true cause of their emotions.

The Real Motivation: Managing Anxiety

• ⚡ The core motivation behind "people deceiving" is not to make others happy, but to alleviate your own anxiety and guilt about potentially disappointing them.
• 🎭 You act in ways you don't want to or pretend to feel things you don't, to avoid negative emotions associated with not conforming to perceived expectations.
• 🤥 This behavior is a form of lying, as you present a performance of a fake person rather than your authentic self.

The Cycle of Inauthenticity

• 💔 The reward for "people deceiving" is a lifetime of fake interactions, as the approval is for a manufactured persona, not the real you.
• 😔 This ultimately leads to rejecting yourself and feeling terrible because you are not being seen or accepted for who you truly are.
• 🔄 The more you engage in "people deceiving," the more desperate you become for external validation, reinforcing the belief that others' opinions matter more than your own.

Steps to Authentic Living

• ✅ Step 1: Stop using the term "people-pleasing" and abandon the belief that you can or should please others.
• 🔑 Step 2: Recognize the specific thoughts and feelings you are trying to avoid when the urge to deceive arises.
• 🧠 Step 3: Practice directly changing your own thoughts instead of acting out to control external reactions.