Pep Talk | Why You’ll Never Please Everyone at Christmas (And Why You Should Stop Trying)

0:08Hey, it's Zoe. Welcome back to MotherKind. We are sponsored by Wild Nutrition. women's supplements and every Monday in December I'm going to give you a little pep talk because let's be honest December is the mental load Olympics everything ramps up and I want to be a voice that is the antidote to all the Christmas pressure and perfection and today we're talking about something that is draining so many of us at Christmas and in December it is trying to please everyone almost every mother I'm speaking to right now is exhausted so you're not alone if that's you too. And also then you need this episode because you deserve to enjoy some of the magic that you are creating for everyone else.

0:49You really do deserve to enjoy it too. Okay. People pleasing. You literally cannot please everyone. I know this sounds obvious, but sometimes I really need to hear that. So I'm guessing you might really need to hear that too. It is impossible to please everyone. You have limited time, limited energy and limited capacity. and every yes you give to someone is a no to something else, usually to yourself. If you say yes to going somewhere you don't really want to go, you say yes to hosting when you're already exhausted, you say yes to just one more thing for the kids, for school or for family. What happens is that you very quickly start to feel stretched too thin.

1:29You might even start to feel resentful and you're actually not enjoying any of it. So what is the point? So you cannot please everyone. Where this is so fascinating is that many of us, particularly us millennial mothers, were actually trained to please. So if you recognize this people pleaser tendency, there's usually a reason. Most of us were actually raised to be what I call good girls. Don't make a fuss. Don't upset anyone. Say yes. Make yourself uncomfortable over making someone else uncomfortable. Ignore what you really feel. If it might make it awkward for someone else, many of us were raised with those memos and notes.

2:14So it can be really hard for us now to start growing this muscle in us that feels comfortable and confident to push back and to say no. So you might have learned really early on that your job is to make other people comfortable, even if you're not. So it makes sense that particularly in December, you know, when there are so many requests and pressures that you're really feeling this pull just to put yourself down the priority list and make sure everything else is OK. But the truth is actually the cost of doing that is really high. It costs you your energy because you overcommit and burn out. It costs you your peace because you say yes when your body is actually saying no.

2:57And it can even cost you your joy, right? Because if you say yes to something you don't really want to be at, you're going to show up resentful and you can't enjoy what you've agreed to do when you didn't really want to do it. And after a while, it can cost you your self-connection, your relationship to yourself, because if you keep saying yes when you don't want to, you might not even know what you want anymore. So that last one was a big one for me. When I was deep in people pleasing, I would often have no idea what I needed or wanted. So when everything in your life is organized around what other people need, you can just really quickly lose that sense of yourself.

3:32So what are we going to do instead? We're not going to please everyone. Let's get really practical. And I'm going to give you three questions and one challenge to think about.

3:45And now a quick word from our sponsors.

3:53So question one is, what do you need this December, this Christmas? Not the kids, not your partner, not your parents or the in-laws or your boss or your community or your school. What do you need? And you might draw a bit of a blank. That's okay. Stay with it. It might be, I need a bit of rest. I need one quiet morning. I need one weekend this month or one day of the weekend this month where we don't have anything planned. I need someone else to take over, X, whatever that might be. So I want you to write down whatever comes up, even if it feels really small or impractical, write it down. Okay, question two is what do you really want to do?

4:36not what you think you should do what you actually want maybe you want a really slow christmas morning at home just your little family maybe you want to say no to a particular event that every time you see it on the calendar it makes you feel like a shot of anxiety or fear maybe you want to spend more time just kind of sat on the floor with the kids instead of cooking all day and even if the exact thing that you want isn't fully possible because we live in the real world it tells you something important about your underlying need. It might be for space, for quiet, for connection, for fun. And when you see that need, you can then try and meet it in smaller ways.

5:13Okay, the third question is, what are you doing because you think you should? And this is where the people pleasing hides. So I want you to get really honest with yourself. And yes, it is quite hard, but it's worth it. I'm saying yes to this lunch just because I think I should.

5:31I'm buying Christmas this way just because I think I should. I'm saying yes to every invite just because I think I should. So I want you to get that list out. What are the things that I think I should be doing? And then I want you to see that the challenge for you is, could you take one of those and really think about what you've answered to the other questions? What do I need and what do I really want to do? And think about if you could change one of those shoulds into something where actually you really want to do it. Remember, nothing changes if nothing changes. So if you want to feel differently this month and this Christmas, then you're going to have to do something different.

6:13And yes, it might be uncomfortable. Change is uncomfortable. But I really think this is where we can start to chip away at some of those people pleasing tendencies and start to put ourselves a little bit closer towards our own priority list. So that is it. I hope that you've taken at least one thing that was helpful from this episode and I will see you next Monday for another December pep talk.

6:44What an incredible episode. I hope you loved it too. If you've got this far, then I am guessing that you did. So make sure that you share it with a friend and subscribe so you never miss an episode and I will see you Thursday for more. See you next time.