Spending my life trying to please others

[W.I.F.T.S.]

Why do I feel so weighed down with other people's expectations of me? Why do I feel the need to try to please and impress people all the time?

It seems like my main motivator is to impress people. I remember when I started work in the tv industry thinking "great! now girls will like me"

I want to impress people, so that they like me and I feel loved and safe. It stems from my mum. When I was a kid she always used to tell people how clever I am and how "when he's rich and famous he'll buy me a bungalow".

I suppose, as a kid, I took that literally and it became my quest to rise up from working class-dome and to be succesful enough to buy my mum a bungalow.

I am full of drive and ideas, but it's confidence that I lack and so, in any new venture, if it started to go well I'd probably panic and pull out. Therefore, I stay stuck as a failure.

I have always had an 'underdog' mentality. I like people not to expect too much of me and then surprise them by doing something wonderful.

It's so frustrating (depressing). I feel like I have the potential to do really wonderful things, but I feel unable to unlock it.

I guess my family probably think of me as a bit of a waster or as a wimp. I've been to Uni and now I'm stacking tins of beans.

I know that it's actually me putting the pressure on me and that they wouldn't care what I'm doing as long as I'm happy. I think, by coming home and trying to do a regular job and settling down (so that they couldn't moan about me), I've ended up going against everything that I want and making myself really miserable.

I hate monotony. It makes me so miserable doing almost exactly the same thing for the majority of the year. And having a fiancee from my home town, who hasn't really done anything and has no ambitions to live anywhere else makes me feel tied here.

Ships in harbour are safe..but that's not what ships were built for.

[Coral]

Hi, I can relate to being a people-pleaser. I worry too much about what others think of me too. the good thing is that you know this, I din't realise this about myself for ages...

for me it was a matter of giving myself permission to do what i wanted to do, other people's happinness is not my responsibility, and it's not yours.

Even when you put all your energy into impressing others and making them feel good, there will always be plenty of people who say that's not good enough, so you might as well be yourself and feel good about that anyway.

good luck