Why You Keep Putting Your Dreams Last: Trauma Responses That Hold You Back
Do you feel like people-pleasing and perfectionism run the show sometimes? If so, you're not alone. These two behaviors can be hard to live with and limit us from achieving our potential and living our personal and professional dreams. In this article, I argue that perfectionism and people-pleasing can keep us stuck. They both can be responses to trauma, and as such, they're present in many people's lives - including that of multi-passionate creatives and entrepreneurs.
We'll go into depth on people-pleasing as a trauma response, the source of people-pleasing, and how to heal from it. We'll also discuss perfectionism and how it can keep people stuck in patterns of self-sabotage and far away from achieving their goals.
What is people-pleasing exactly, and why does it affect multi-passionate creatives and entrepreneurs?
People-pleasers are people who have learned to prioritize other people's needs before their own. This behavior is an unhealthy coping strategy that depletes you and leaves your needs unmet. I know because I've been there.
People-pleasing can be a response to trauma, or it might happen because of toxic caregivers, which is pretty much the same thing. Exposure to toxic people for an extended period can be as traumatizing as childhood abuse or even a short-lived catastrophic event.
In people-pleasing, when you're unaware of the mechanics, even when you think you're doing what is best for you, others are in control. Your behavior is an, often unconscious, response to their demands and expectations of you. This makes it difficult for everyone because people-pleasers often do things that hurt themselves to please someone and, in that process, create an unhealthy balance in the relationship.
For multi-passionate creatives and creative entrepreneurs, people-pleasing can be a learned strategy to conform. Even if you experienced a loving and warm childhood, you could still carry the stress and anxiety from trying to fit into the educational system, having to pick a major in college, or wanting to make your parents happy by choosing a 9-to-5 job you know will make you miserable.
The way you might have dealt with these painful demands is by developing people-pleasing or perfectionistic tendencies, or both. The problem with these strategies is that they're no longer helpful. When we're reliant on our caregivers for security and love, conforming is often the best (if not only) strategy. But you're an adult now, and you can take care of yourself. The strategy that helped you at some point is now working against you.
Long-term, people-pleasing is not a sustainable strategy.
First, people-pleasers never feel free to be themselves; they end up constantly censoring their thoughts and actions to avoid rejection.
Second, people-pleasing erodes self-confidence because people-pleasers constantly live under what they perceive to be others' judgment. If you care about what people say or think about you, then it's likely that people-pleasing has been operating your life for a long time already.
Third, people-pleasers have an increased risk of developing depression and anxiety disorders along with other mental health issues because being cut off from your feelings and needs is not a healthy state of mind. If you can't connect with who you are as a person, how are you to be happy?
Following these points, it's clear that as long as we keep on people-pleasing, we'll never get what we truly want. That's why it's so detrimental to our dreams and keeps us from being truly happy (alongside the many other toxic effects it can have on us and our wellbeing, something I won't go into here, but that is important to be aware of).
Let's take a look at how perfectionism fits into this before we move on to three things you can do to stop the cycle and start putting your dreams first.
Perfectionism often comes across as people-pleasing on steroids.
Like people-pleasers, perfectionists are people who think they should meet others' needs before their own. But it's not really about other people; it's about the fear of failing, not being good enough, or being found out for who you truly are. A perfectionist is maybe willing to tolerate disappointment from others but never from themselves. They're afraid that people won't like or love them if they don't put enough effort into everything they do or if they aren't perfect all the time.
The problem with perfectionism is that there is no such thing as an objectively determined "perfect" person, career, house, outfit - you name it. Perfection is a moving target that people adapt to in order to feel safe. The sad thing is that, while you're trying so hard to do everything right and never make a mistake, you're too afraid to take a step towards your dreams.
I've seen many clients claim they were going after what they wanted, only to find out later it was only a "safe" or watered-down version of what they truly dreamed about. If you don't believe you're good enough for something, you'll never go after it - not really.
In the end, people-pleasing and perfectionism are two sides of the same coin: both responses to trauma or learned behavior and both keeping people feeling unhappy and unfulfilled long-term.
So what do we do about this?
One important thing you need to understand is that people-pleasing and perfectionism often (but not always) come from a place of fear. That means that these behaviors protect us from more pain - at least they did when we were children; they're reactions we developed to survive. But now you're a grown-up who can take care of yourself.
I don't know about you, but I've personally experienced people-pleasing and perfectionism as a way to avoid being rejected, not being good enough, or being found out for who I am - all fear-driven reactions that originate from a place of vulnerability and insecurity. In my case, from a hard and painful childhood in which there was no room for me to express my needs or have them met. So I tried my best to adapt and understand what I was "doing wrong." To let go of these detrimental behaviors, it's important to realize you're good enough as you are that you deserve your dreams.
To stop people-pleasing and perfectionism, people need to understand how much they're hurting themselves by putting other people's needs ahead of theirs while at the same time sacrificing what they genuinely want in life (even if this self-sacrifice is at an unconscious level). People also need to learn healthy ways to regulate emotions so that people-pleasing and perfectionism are replaced by behaviors that help them take care of themselves and others.
How to change?
Awareness, as often, is the first step.
While people-pleasing might seem like the more accessible behavior to change, people who adopt people-pleasing as their way to relate to people are often very well aware that something is off but find it difficult to change their behavioral patterns. Especially in women, culture will reward the caring and the gentle ways people-pleasers operate. This makes it hard to change.
On the other hand, people who are perfectionists are sometimes less conscious about what they're doing because this behavior has become second nature over the years and is often also praised.
Whatever your situation, if you think this applies to you, I want to invite you to reflect on when you might be putting others first and your dreams (and yourself) last. Or when you might be expecting too much of yourself and being stuck out of fear.
Whatever your case, remember that you're good enough just as you, that perfection doesn't exist and that it's ok to choose yourself.
Are people-pleasing or perfectionism keeping you stuck?
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