The Year I Stopped Being a People Pleaser

Soft entry. Read slowly — but sit up straight.

Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of music on TIDAL. The kind where you don’t skip songs — you let the algorithm quietly expose you. If I opened the “My Most Listened” playlist it created for me right now, do you know what would be sitting at the top?

“People Pleaser” by Kelsea Ballerini.

Which feels almost embarrassing in its accuracy.

Kelsea happens to be one of my favourite female country artists, but that’s not why the song is there. It’s there because I’ve replayed it more times than I’d like to admit. Not casually. Intentionally. Because something in it felt like it was holding up a mirror.

I have felt like a people pleaser for so long that I stopped seeing it as a behaviour and started seeing it as part of my personality. I was the flexible one. The understanding one. The one who could “see both sides.” The one who smoothed things over when tensions rose. I said yes to things that didn’t sit right. I agreed to timelines that overwhelmed me. I tolerated dynamics that chipped away at my sense of self.

And I called it maturity.

But there’s a difference between being mature and abandoning yourself.

This year, I had to admit that a lot of my “yes” wasn’t kindness. It was fear. Fear of someone being mad at me. Fear of being misunderstood. Fear of being seen as difficult. So I kept the peace. I adjusted my tone. I explained myself longer than necessary. I stayed agreeable long after something inside me had already gone quiet.

What I didn’t realize at the time was how much that quiet was costing me.

Because every time you override your instinct, every time you swallow the sentence you actually wanted to say, you teach yourself that your internal warning system isn’t that important. That your discomfort is something to manage privately. That harmony is more valuable than honesty.

And eventually, your body keeps the score.

The exhaustion I couldn’t explain. The resentment that showed up in small flashes. The heaviness that lingered even when nothing was technically “wrong.” It wasn’t random. It was the accumulated weight of choosing everyone else over myself, over and over again.

Healing, for me, has meant dropping the label of “people pleaser.” Not in a dramatic, burn-it-all-down way. In a steady, intentional way.

It has meant pausing before I answer. It has meant noticing the tightening in my chest instead of overriding it. It has meant allowing someone to be disappointed without rushing in to repair their feelings. It has meant trusting that clarity is not cruelty.

Not everyone likes the version of you that has boundaries.

Especially if they benefited from the version of you that didn’t.

That realization was uncomfortable. It still is. But it’s also clarifying. Because the version of me who said yes to everything wasn’t peaceful — she was anxious. She wasn’t generous — she was afraid. She wasn’t strong — she was unsupported.

I don’t want my life to be shaped by fear of someone else’s reaction.

I want my yes to be clean. I want my no to be steady. I want my relationships to be built on mutual respect, not quiet compliance. I want to stop confusing being agreeable with being good.

“People Pleaser” might still sit at the top of my playlist for a while. But I don’t hear it as an identity anymore. I hear it as a reminder. Of who I was. Of what I tolerated. Of the ways I bent to avoid friction.

And of the year I decided that peace isn’t something you earn by keeping everyone else comfortable.

It’s something you protect by finally choosing yourself.