The People Pleaser

Does it affect our happiness to be constantly trying to please other people rather than trying to please ourselves?

For most of my life I have been a 'people pleaser', able to please multitudes of people in a single bound. But at what cost? I have to admit that pleasing others, while highly rewarding at times, can also have moments that cost me guilt ridden nights of no sleep, lying awake worrying about what other people think of me.
This worrying, this guilt that broils inside me until I can't sleep at night drives me crazy, and eventually it can ruin my whole week to the point that my mum can get worried about me.

How does one avoid this anxiety about what other people think. Oh to be the kind of girl who just thinks 'screw you'. While this isn't always a good quality, in some circumstances it would definitely be beneficial to a people pleaser like me.

Since I finished up University, I think it's gotten better. I'm no longer basing my validity in life by the marks I receive in assignments or essays, and I'm no longer basing the happiness of my week on a good exam mark. But when it comes to friendships, I'm still stuck in people-pleasing mania, and the anxiety of it all is killing me.

No offence intended here, but we're adults, or close to - we all understand how hard it is to make it in this world, and when you're a freelance journalist who works in the bar on the weekend, and babysitting three kids during the week and studying at night while trying to fit in sleep, friends, family and love...it can become just a little too much, just sometimes.
Why can't we all just understand that and accept an apt apology laid before us?

One thing's for sure, I'm fairly certain it's time to stop people-pleasing my way into push-over land, and start standing up for myself. I work hard, and I'm a good person.

Women, as I touched on in my previous post, have it tough at times - mothers, workers (sometimes the soul bread-winner in a family), domestic goddesses, and sometimes, mistake makers.
We're all in the same boat, so why don't we sometimes just give each other (and ourselves) a break?

<3