How People-Pleasing Holds Lawyers Back

People-pleasing is the pattern of thinking and behaving in ways that that prioritize what other people think over what you think.

Have you ever bitten your tongue when someone said something sexist at work because you were afraid to make it awkward by speaking up?

Have you ever gone along with an inappropriate conversation with a client because you were worried about risking the relationship if you spoke up?

Have you ever stifled your disagreement in a meeting because you didn’t want people to think you were being difficult or shrill?

If any of these scenarios sound familiar, you’re struggling with people-pleasing.

People-pleasing is the pattern of thinking and behaving in ways that that prioritize what other people think over what you think. In truth, people-pleasing is really other-people pleasing, because someone is always going to be pleased, but when you are in people-pleasing mode, you are trying to ensure that other people are pleased. And you’re willing to sacrifice pleasing yourself to do that.

Lawyers in particular struggle with people-pleasing – especially women lawyers – because we are trained to obey and respect hierarchy and not to speak out of turn or try to assert our own opinions. We may be able to argue a substantive legal point aggressively, but when it comes to expressing our own values or beliefs, we shy away. Law school trains us to advocate for our clients, but not for ourselves. And if you’re socialized as a woman and taught that you should always be pleasant and friendly and placating, it only compounds the problem.

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The truth is that a phenomenon like “people-pleasing” is at the most basic level just a collection of thoughts. It’s a collection of sentences that you think cause certain feelings for you, and those feelings motivate your actions. Let’s take an example.

Let’s say you’re at a work conference with some colleagues. They want to go to dinner afterwards. You are exhausted and know you’d rather get to bed early and that you’ll be better prepared for your own presentation the next day if you go to bed now and get up to practice in the morning. But you feel anxious about saying no. Why? You’re thinking something like “They are going to think I’m not friendly” or “They are going to be disappointed if I don’t go” or “They are going to think I’m stuck-up if I don’t go.”

So you end up going. You get to bed late. You don’t get up to practice. And your presentation isn’t as good as it could have been, you don’t impress the people you wanted to impress, and the conference ends up being a waste of your time and energy.

In the end, here’s what really happened: You traded what you could control – your own schedule, your own performance – in favor of trying to manage something that is completely out of your control (thoughts in other people’s brains).

You can’t control someone else’s feelings or thoughts no matter what you do. What you can control is your own emotional life – your own thoughts, feelings, and actions. So people-pleasing is a terrible bet. You’re putting your money on a completely uncertain outcome (how other people’s brains will process you) instead of a completely certain outcome (what you actually need and prefer for your own benefit). You’re trading the certainty of acting on your own behalf for the possibility of having some influence on the thoughts and feelings of someone else who you can’t control anyway.

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If you want to start to change this pattern of thinking and behavior, the first step is to pay attention to when you find you are feeling guilty about prioritizing yourself or anxious about what other people will think of you. Keep a running log in a notebook or your phone. Just gather data on the phenomenon.

Once you have a good data set, maybe a week or two of notes, look them over and see if you can identify any themes. What are the thoughts you think over and over again about this? Odds are it will actually only be 2-3 core thoughts that you’re having over and over again.

Finally, you want to come up with a mantra thought that you can practice whenever you notice that you are feeling guilty or anxious about what someone else wants you to do or thinks of you. Some of the variations my clients have found helpful are:

  • What someone thinks about me has to do with their own history, upbringing, and personality. It has nothing to do with me.
  • The only thing I can control is my own thoughts and actions.
  • Other people aren’t thinking about me 1/100th as much as I assume they are.
  • Other people mostly think about themselves – just like I do.

If you recognize yourself in this article, you may be interested in hopping on one of my free webinars, which teach you what causes perfectionism, people-pleasing, imposter syndrome, and validation-seeking thought patterns and behaviors – and most importantly, how to change them! You can sign up for the next webinar date at www.unfckyourbrain.com/webinar.

Kara Loewentheil, J.D., C.M.C., is a former litigator and academic who now runs a boutique life coaching practice, with a focus on high-achieving women who believe in empowerment but don’t always feel empowered. As a Certified Master Coach, Kara is intimately acquainted with the unique challenges high-achieving women face in their professional careers and personal lives. Kara teaches her clients cognitive-based techniques for dealing with stress, anxiety, and lawyer brain so that they can build the lives and careers they want. She is also the host of the only podcast that teaches lawyers and other accomplished women how to actually rewire their brains so that they can feel confident and get what they want in life, The UnF*ck Your Brain Podcast, available on iTunes or wherever else you get your podcasts. To download a free guide to curing imposter syndrome, go to www.unfckyourbrain.com/imposter.