The #1 Skill People Pleasers Are Missing (And How to Fix It)
Let me guess—you’re the nice one. The dependable one. The one who says yes even when every cell in your body wants to scream no. You’re the helper, the peacemaker, the one who smooths things over and makes sure everyone else is okay, even if it means you’re secretly not.
I know, because that used to be me. In some ways it still is (because changing this takes a long time)! As the eldest daughter, a big sister, and “the responsible kid,” I was well trained to not cause drama at home, to identify what tasks needed to be done before people asked, and to call it maturity when I swallowed my voice to avoid rocking the boat. But behind the scenes? I felt guilty when I had big emotions or needs, I didn’t trust that people actually stepped up for me and, though I didn’t realize it at the time, I was very disconnected from what I actually wanted.
So today, I wanted to talk about what I’ve found to be the linchpin that actually helps you start breaking the people pleasing pattern. I’ve spent over 6 years, investing serious time and money into personal growth and healing and from my experience, this is the real key to actually making change.
People pleasing looks like kindness, but it’s often anxiety in a nice outfit. And there’s one core skill most people pleasers are missing that keeps them stuck in that cycle:
Tolerating Discomfort.
This one skill changes everything. Because at the root of all people-pleasing is an inability to tolerate other people’s discomfort—especially when it’s a result of you doing what’s right for you. So let’s talk about it.
What It Really Means to Be a People Pleaser
People pleasing isn’t just about being thoughtful or generous. It’s about managing how other people feel—often at your own expense.
You say yes because saying no feels too scary. You apologize when you haven’t done anything wrong. You avoid confrontation even when something is hurting you. You make yourself small because taking up space might make someone else uncomfortable.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve been this way as long as you can remember. That’s because people pleasing comes from the behaviors we learned as kids to keep ourselves safe. It’s not a flaw, it’s a survival strategy.
On the surface, it looks like you’re just easygoing. Underneath, it’s often a fear of being disliked, rejected, abandoned—or even just mildly disapproved of that feels strong enough that it kicks in even when you’re not even thinking about it.
And if that hits a nerve? Good. That means we’re getting to the truth.
The Real Missing Skill: Tolerating Discomfort
Here’s what most advice gets wrong: it focuses on what people pleasers need to do differently. Say no. Set boundaries. Speak up. And yes, those things matter—but the real reason you haven’t done them consistently isn’t because you don’t know how. It’s because you haven’t built the capacity to sit with the discomfort that comes during or after.
Because that’s the real talk: when you start trying to break the pattern of people pleasing it’s going to feel very wrong for a while. You’re going to feel like you’re being aggressive to speak up for what you want, when in reality, you’re just so used to being completely docile that a normal amount of voicing your needs feels extreme. You’re going to feel like you’re pushing friends and family away by speaking up for yourself, when in reality, you’re just finally living in a realistic world where people aren’t happy with you 100% of the time.
For people pleasers, there’s real discomfort in someone being disappointed in you. Discomfort in being misunderstood. Discomfort of not fixing someone’s problem or emotion.
It’s not just that you’re afraid of being disliked. It’s that your nervous system equates someone else’s discomfort with danger. And so you rush in to rescue, to fix, to make things smooth again—because you haven’t learned to just let discomfort exist. (This last bit also involves a pattern called codependency, when we feel responsible for other people’s emotions in a way that’s detrimental to our own emotional processing and I find that every single people pleaser struggles with it.)
Why It Feels So Hard
If you trace it back, a lot of people pleasers started this pattern early. Maybe in childhood you were praised for being “the easy one,” or got love by being helpful, agreeable, or self-sufficient. Maybe your home didn’t feel emotionally safe unless you were keeping the peace.
So you learned: my needs are a problem. My feelings are too much. Other people’s comfort is my responsibility.
That’s not something you consciously decided. That’s a coping mechanism—one that might’ve helped you survive a complicated emotional environment. But now? It’s running your adult life, and it’s costing you your peace, your time, your boundaries, and your authenticity.
The truth is, discomfort is not the same as danger. But until your body learns that, you’ll keep defaulting to people-pleasing even when you know better.
Why Boundaries Alone Haven’t Worked
If you’ve ever tried setting boundaries and felt like they didn’t “work,” you’re not alone. Maybe you wrote the perfect script or said what you needed to say, but the second the other person pushed back—got cold, questioned you, looked disappointed—you folded.
That doesn’t mean you’re weak or that boundaries don’t work. It means your nervous system wasn’t equipped to handle the emotional fallout.
Because boundaries aren’t just about knowing your limits—they’re about holding them through the discomfort that comes with disappointing people who benefited from your lack of limits.
So if you’ve failed to enforce your boundaries in the past, it doesn’t mean you suck at boundaries. It means you need to build the muscle of staying grounded when things feel emotionally messy.
How to Start Building the Skill of Tolerating Discomfort
Okay, so what does this actually look like in practice? This isn’t about going from people-pleaser to stone-cold boundary queen overnight. It’s about small reps and building up your mental strength over time.
Here’s where to start:
1. Learn to tune into your body first. People pleasing is often a full-body stress response. Learn to notice when your stomach clenches, your breath shortens, or you get that urge to fix. That’s your cue to pause and ground yourself. You won’t be able to learn new behaviors if you don’t catch when this existing behavior is happening.
2. Use a mantra to start to regulate. Something like: “I can survive this discomfort,” or “I can handle hard feelings” or “I’m strong enough to handle this.” This will give you something to focus on when you’re feeling the anxiety kick up around whatever is triggering you. Focus on your breathing and any sort of calming motion (swaying, bouncing or I love rubbing my chest while I breathe.) Over time, the combo of the mantra and motion will train your body to anchor your nervous system when it wants to flee.
3. Seek out non-emotional challenges. Battling people pleasing will feel intense because it’s tied to those deeper desires to be loved and safe and seen. So we can start at the beginner level of tolerating discomfort in less existential environments. Whether it’s the annoying task around the house or that hot yoga class (exercise has become a huge tool for me in this way), doing something hard can be a lower stakes way to show your body that you actually can handle the discomfort.
4. Debrief with yourself after. After a moment of discomfort (a no, a confrontation, a difficult truth), journal about what happened. What did you feel? What did you fear? What actually happened? Most of the time, the world doesn’t end.
5. Celebrate the reps. Seriously. Every time you hold a boundary, say no, or sit with someone else’s discomfort without fixing it—you’re rewiring a pattern. That deserves acknowledgment.
What Changes When You Build This Skill
At first? It feels awful. You’ll feel guilty. You’ll question yourself. You’ll want to rush in and undo your own progress.
But with time? Things shift. Profoundly.
You stop feeling responsible for other people’s emotions.
You start hearing your own voice again—the one buried under years of "being nice." (Usually helps you get more clarity on what you like and want in your life, rather than what other people will approve of.)
You show up more honestly, and your relationships get more real (and in some cases, some relationships fall away—and that’s a good thing).
You become someone who can hold tension, speak truth, and trust yourself in the face of other people’s reactions.
It’s not that you become colder. It’s that you become clearer.
And ironically? You become easier to truly connect with. Because people can sense when you’re showing up as a version of yourself versus your actual self.
This Is the Work
Tolerating discomfort is the work. If you don’t learn this skill, you’ll keep abandoning yourself while smiling through gritted teeth. You’ll keep calling it “mature” when you’re really just scared. You’ll keep trying to solve your people-pleasing habit with boundary scripts instead of nervous system resilience.
But the version of you on the other side of this work? She’s powerful. She doesn’t need to be liked to feel okay. She knows that other people’s reactions are not her job to manage. And she’s not afraid of discomfort—because she’s learned she can survive it.
And that, my friend, is freedom.
