Hello Urban Mamma! Happy new year!!!!! Today is Rosh Hashanah- Jewish New Year. Apples and honey for everyone!! 🙂 The kids are out of school and we have a lot planned but before all that gets going I wanted to share my New Year’s resolution: I resolve to stop people pleasing!
Oh Honey (and apples), this is HUGE for me. I’m the people pleasingness (is that a word?) person I know. So much so that I will become heart sick and extremely unhappy.
Rewind to three weeks ago and I was right there. Unhappy. Just simply unhappy! Taking my poor attitude out on others and feeling like a victim to life. What’s really wild about it is that I knew I was unhappy but I didn’t know what I was unhappy about.
So I took all of those crazy feelings and my hurt heart and prayed for an answer. God, in His usual faithful way, answered my prayer by showing me what was really going on: I had relinquished my own autonomy and was allowing what I thought other people wanted, to run my life. Hisssss! Booooo! Farrrrt! All in the name of OPO: Other People’s Opinion.
So, what’s a person to do once they come face to face with an ugly habit? (yes, people pleasing is just a habit not a personality trait) well they change their ugly and foul ways, of course! LOL.
So here is my resolution in action
But first… A brief exercise. Well, two exercises. First, make a list of the people you feel most compelled to please. Usually we aren’t trying to please every single human on the planet. Usually we are trying to win the pleasure and approval of a few, really important people in our lives. My list has 4 people on it. Once you’ve made your list, set it aside.
Now take a second to imagine a person you would not give a second thought to attempting to please. Not the person you hate and wouldn’t try to please if they were the last person on earth, person. Imagine the person you simply would not feel the least bit compelled to please. Here’s my guy. I have named him Gus!

I would not give two flying farts ( my 2nd time using that word in this post hehehe) what the blind, deaf, mute, unable to smell or touch, perfectly happy with life,convenience store check out clerk, who has never met me and lives on the planet Mars, thinks of me and my life decisions. I’m sure that Gus, the alien, is very nice. I’m sure that Gus is a lovely person err alien, however I simply do not care what he thinks of me.
Have you created your “Gus”? Great! Did you give him or her a name? Age?? Wait, tell me in a second. I’m dying to know.
Take those feelings you have about your “Gus” and apply them, cart blanche, to everyone in your life and especially to your “List”!! Now practice this blanket application of IDCaboutOPO regularly and enjoy the freedom it brings you.
Remember that you are fearfully and wonderfully made. You are God’s handiwork! He created you to do good work, not please people :).
Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. Colossians 3:23
Let’s talk tomorrow about what us recovering people pleaders need to always remember!
Oh! BeeTeeDubbs (BTW) tell me all about your “Gus”!!