People-pleasing: Approval addiction and the fear of rejection

Let’s admit it; it feels good when your boss thinks you’re amazing and efficient, when your colleagues and friends have great things to say about you, when people you’ve just met think if everyone was like you, the world would be a better place. It feels good when you’re liked—when people appreciate your generosity and acknowledge that you’re a bundle of glowing energy that brightens the room. However, it can become dark when the fear of rejection and approval addiction become the motivating factors for your positivity and generosity.

Approval addiction and the fear of rejection—which are two sides of the same coin, leads to people-pleasing. While unconditional acceptance is a human need, approval addiction is when our need to be accepted, liked, and praised continuously inhibits our ability to be authentic and true to ourselves. Inauthenticity is when there’s no congruence in what you think, what you say, and what you do.

The fear of rejection is when not being liked and accepted isn’t merely uncomfortable, but terrifying and causes us distress and anxiety. When a person is afraid of being rejected, they most likely would arrange their responses and behaviours to conform to what they perceive is acceptable and admirable.

It is important to point out that not everyone who is popular, admired, hard-working, or friendly is a people-pleaser. Our motivations, which is the undergarment of our actions, is probably the only valid metric for determining whether we are people-pleasers or not. For instance, why did you gladly accept to go out of your way to pick-up the children of a “friend” you can barely stand? Why did you laugh heartily at a “joke” that hurt you? Why do you give compliments you don’t mean?

Some tips that might help:

Understand your motivations: sometimes, feeling unsafe makes us wear masks. At other times, we might be struggling with our self-worth. Or it could be something else—something lighter than fear but darker than worry. Whatever it might be, a good understanding of what drives you would be helpful in addressing your people-pleasing tendencies.

Explore your responses: it might be impossible to stop yourself in the moment when saying “no” would be best for you, but instead you say “yes”. However, after such moments, explore what you believed would happen if you said “no” and why it mattered to you that it was avoided.

Speak with a counsellor: counselling will help you gain a better understanding of your emotions, process your responses, and work on implementing strategies that foster a healthy relationship with yourself and others.

When people-pleasing behaviours go unaddressed, it might lead to stress, frustration, dissatisfaction with life, binge eating and drinking, feelings of resentment towards yourself and others, and so much more. Please reach out to your health professional or EAP service provider to discuss support pathways best suited for you.