Why do we people please?

it? I think just before we go any further, I'm just mindful that some people may not have heard of people pleasing before.

How could we describe what people pleasing is? For me, it's basically a person that...

kind of just do whatever they're told to do.

They will struggle to say no, you know, at work, if they're asked to do something, but they're already working at maximum capacity, they'll still say yes, rather than saying, actually, no, I'm really sorry, I can't, that's too much for me.

If somebody wants to go in this direction, but actually you want to go in the other direction, you'd probably still go in the other direction, even though you don't want to go in that direction just because you want to please the other person.

So for me, it's all of those behaviours.

Would you agree? Is there anything else you want to add to that?

No, no.

I think it is just like basically not wanting to say no to somebody, taking on more work than you probably anticipated.

Isn't it almost like putting yourself in a more disrupted situational position because you couldn't say no.

And like you said, like walking in a different direction, for example, even though that's going to take you probably 20 minutes longer, but you're going to do it anyway.

Or wearing heels because, I don't know, your sister bought you them for Christmas and you feel obligated to wear them even though you hate them and they're uncomfortable.

So anything that kind of puts you in a bit more of a diminished position or an uncomfortable position because you couldn't say no.

Yeah.

I love those examples you just gave.

Great.

The question then that we're talking about is why do we do this? Why do some people people please? Why do some people find it so hard to say no? I think this is a really interesting and highly relevant topic to be discussing because I think to a certain extent, everybody can people please at some point in their life.

And I think we go through periods where you might do it more than others.

Some people might describe people pleasing as just who they are, part of their personality.

I personally disagree with that.

because I believe that people can change and we're always changing.

But what comes to your mind when we talk about the, when we ask the question why, what theories do you have around why people behave in this way? Do you know what? I

feel like so many of our episodes that we've recorded lately kind of come back to this Cosmo brush.

Ha ha ha! And unfortunately, as Brits, we are like, just based on the place that we are born, we are naturally obligated to people please because that's just part of who we are.

And as a society, we put far too many ridiculous expectations on people to constantly say yes and people please and be polite because it just feels so uncomfortable to not.