People Pleasers

Looking for a sure recipe to failure and frustration? Try being a People Pleaser. It's a dead-end street. These sad folks have an insatiable and habitual desire to try to please everyone --an impossible quest. They eventually become approval addicts who may even try to become someone other than who they really are in order to please others. They obsess with seeking approval, which in turn compromises their convictions and leaves them with unhealthy boundaries. The ultimate outcome for people pleasers is misery.

The Pulitzer Prize winner, Henry Bayard Swope said, " I cannot give you a formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: Try to please everybody."

The root cause of people pleasing and approval addiction is a misplaced effort to satisfy deep needs. Everyone is created with 3 God-given needs - the needs for love, for significance and for security. All of us have those needs. Guess what? People can't meet those needs; only God can:

"God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus."
(Philippians 4:19)

So how to move from being a people pleaser? First admit the truth to yourself and significant others. Second accept personal responsibility for your happiness and peace - Don't let your happiness be dependent on others' happiness. Third, stop focusing on what the other person is doing and focus on what you are doing, (that can be a little scary-- especially the first time). Fourth move to emotionally safe relationships. Finally and most importantly, get your approval priorities straight:

" Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God?
Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to
please men, I would not be a servant of Christ."
(Galatians 1:10)

May we all care less and less about what people think, and more and more about what God thinks.

Now that's the heart of the matter.