NOVEMBER 2025 – Thanksgiving & “People Pleasing”

Welcome!

November, the month of Thanksgiving Holiday which is traditionally the time of year filled with gatherings of family & friends. Each year as I plan my trip to visit friends, I like to bring a gift they will enjoy or offer a way to help to relieve a life stress. I know I am a people pleaser and  I tend to  cross my personal boundaries of helping others, while ignoring my needs. I do not like saying, No!

I was pleasantly surprised when I found, Haily Magee’s book “Stop People Pleasing and Find Your Power” in which she discusses how to uncover one’s  origins of “people pleasing” behavior and offers exercises based on research and psychology strategies which are “Action Based Approach”.

Magee, in her book outlines and discusses the following detailed learning steps as a guide in the healing process:

1. FIND YOURSELF – “discover and prioritize your OWN feelings, needs, values, self-concept and wants”.

2. STAND UP FOR YOURSELF – “honor your needs in your relationships, make requests of others, set self-protective boundaries and reconnect with your own power”.

3. TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF – “through the growing pains we all face to break the people pleasing pattern (1)  learn to embrace bravery and become resilient toward guilt, fear anger, loneliness and grief (2) learn to navigate the challenges of outgrowing relationship and facing difficult transitions and (3)  how to reframe these challenges as powerful opportunities for growth and transformation”.

She explains people pleasing healing “isn’t a one-time event: it is a process of rededicating ourselves to ourselves, over and over again. Every time we redirect our attention back to our feelings, our desires, our dreams we are healing”.

Magee also provides 3 basic questions to ask yourself in order to determine if your actions are: Genuine Kindness or People Pleasing?  

1.      “How can I tell when my genuine kindness veers into people-pleasing?”

2.      “How can I set boundaries while maintaining my empathy and generosity?”

3.      “When is it appropriate to compromise on my needs, and when is it not?”

After reading Stop People Pleasing, I wish to thank Haily Magee for writing a concise, well research and organized book as it  helped me understand my “people pleasing” behaviors and provided a reference guide to learn how to set my boundaries to  control my people pleasing behavior and regain my personal power.

Do you feel you are a “People Pleaser”?  If yes, I highly recommend reading Stop People Pleasing.

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HAT - A Festive Fedora

A warm dark forrest green wool fedora with a brim trimed in green and a band of matching color braided coil ending in tassels.

Finished with a collection of fancy whimsical feathers.