The People-Pleasing Pattern

  • Do you frequently go along with what people want?
  • Do your needs get overlooked?
  • Are you always trying to make people happy?
  • Are you stressed out because you say Yes to every request?
  • Are you afraid to assert yourself?
This is the People-Pleasing Pattern. Click here for more information.
XIf you have a People-Pleasing Pattern, you have a tendency to go out of your way to please people. You often try to be who other people want you to be, to agree with them, to fit in. You try to make yourself think, feel, and want the same things as others even if this doesn't reflect your true feelings.

If you are in a relationship, a part of you may be trying to “merge” with your partner, to feel and believe the same as they do. You just defer to their preferences, values, and goals without quite realizing you are doing it.

If you frequently agree with what other people want and they seldom go along with you, this is an indication that you have the People-Pleasing Pattern. Another indication would be if people express frustration that you never seem to come up with ideas or preferences of your own and always “follow the herd.” 

You also might go far out of your way to give people what you think they need to make them happy, especially when you do this without even considering what would make you happy or when you try to please others at your own expense.


You can transform your People-Pleasing Pattern
and take care of yourself.

Self-Therapy Journey is an interactive online tool
for resolving psychological issues such as the People-Pleasing Pattern.
With Self-Therapy Journey, you can transform your People-Pleasing Pattern into the Assertiveness Capacity, which means you can...
  • Be clear about your needs.
  • Ask for what you want.
  • Set limits so you have time for yourself.
  • Have your personal power and your connections with people.
 Click here  for more information on the Assertiveness Capacity.

You can create a personalized practice
for activating the Assertiveness Capacity in your life.

Learn How Self-Therapy Journey Works with the People-Pleasing Pattern

People-Pleasing Quiz
What Drives You to Please People?  If you haven't already, take this quiz to learn about the underlying psychology behind your People-Pleasing and how to change it.

People-Pleasing Email Sequence
Click here to receive an email sequence on transforming the People-Pleasing Pattern. You will receive an email every few days describing a step in the change process for People-Pleasing, illustrated with a person's story. 

People-Pleasing Welcome Video
Click here to watch a short video welcoming you to Self-Therapy Journey to work on your People-Pleasing Pattern.

What People Are Saying

"Self-Therapy Journey helped me to work out my People-Pleasing tendencies with my employees and my supervisor. I liked the lists of feelings and behaviors because they gave me a place to check in with myself about each of them to see if I was improving or if I still am falling into old habits. I also appreciated being able to create an action plan that I could quickly apply to my situation."
-- MW, manager

Click here for more endorsements.

People-Pleasing Webinar
Click here to get this two-hour webinar with Jay Earley. Learn about the underlying psychology behind People-Pleasing. Do an IFS guided meditation on People-Pleasing. Jay also demonstrates how to use Self-Therapy Journey to transform People-Pleasing into Assertiveness.

People-Pleasing Online Community Group
Click here to join a forum/listserv where you can share your insights and progress, ask questions, learn from other people, find a partner for IFS or STJ work, and develop community with people who are struggling with similar issues. Jay Earley and other staff are available to answer your questions. 


"I used the practice plan in my real life and it helped a ton. I would not have done it if I hadn't had the plan. Usually, instead of just saying what I need to say, I take twenty minutes to overly gently lay it out so the other person doesn't get upset. In this instance, I was able to get out what I needed them to do for me and offer a benefit for them to do it. Without the fluffy words, what I want doesn't get lost in the mix."
-- Andrea King

"I first developed an interest in Jay Earley's Internal Family Systems programs after realizing I had a "people-pleaser" pattern that led me to giving up my own needs in interactions and sometimes being taken advantage of. When Self Therapy Journey was launched, I was naturally excited and started using it almost from the very first day. I found it offered me a way to work through my feelings when my People-Pleasing tendency came up. It also allowed me to create empowering plans to practice expressing and asserting my own needs and opinions in interactions with people on a daily basis. I am now looking forward to working on other patterns having gained the confidence from seeing STJ work in real-life situations."
-- Jayakrishnan Nair

Self-Therapy Journey is a powerful tool
for transforming your People-Pleasing Pattern
and cultivating your Assertiveness Capacity.

But that's not all!
It works with many other psychological issues as well. It will help you work through a wide variety of patterns and develop many different capacities.

You Can...

  • Take command of your personal growth
  • Work at your own pace in your own time
  • Heal your emotional wounds
  • Gain self-confidence and courage
  • Open to intimacy and love
  • Feel hope and optimism about your life
    - each and every day
Discover how the powerful inner process of Self-Therapy Journey can change your life. It is an interactive web application that includes...

  • Check lists for understanding behavior, feelings, and motivations
  • Stories
  • Guided meditations for healing emotional wounds
  • Journaling
  • Customized reports
  • Personalized homework practices for behavior change
  • An online community for support
  • Systematic tracking of your progress
  • And much more

You can have the life you have always dreamed of,
at a tiny fraction of the cost of therapy.

Learn How Self-Therapy Journey Works with the People-Pleasing Pattern

Self-Therapy Journey is brilliant. It's been an absolutely great experience to use it. Every time I had a thought like, "What about this?" there was something in the online system to handle it.

-- Athena Murphy


I think Self-Therapy Journey is immensely helpful. You can go as deep as you want.

-- Elizabeth Moulton,
Clinical Psychologist


It is impressive that this tool was so helpful to me considering that I have done ample self-work for over 25 years.

-- Faith Curtin, MA
Clinical Psychology

Working with Self-Therapy Journey will help you:

  • Dramatically increase your self-awareness
  • Understand your partner's behavior (and that of other people close to you)
  • Recognize when you are caught in self-defeating patterns - and change them to positive actions - right in the moment
  • Significantly lower your level of stress and reactivity
  • Be free of the constricting hold of old emotional wounds
  • Work through your fears so you can live authentically and courageously
  • Become emotionally stable and healthy, leading to peace and satisfaction
  • Enhance your ability for love, creativity, personal power, and living a life of purpose

Hi,

I have been a psychotherapist for 40 years. I have helped hundreds of therapy clients to resolve troubling psychological issues and find love, success, and peace. And hundreds more people have used Self-Therapy Journey to make similar changes. My self-published book Self-Therapy has sold nearly 20,000 copies, and I constantly get emails from readers telling me how much the book has changed their lives.

I created Self-Therapy Journey as a place for you to do your own inner work. I want to make psychological healing available to a wide range of people. When you enroll, I will be personally available to support you in using it. I hold free teleseminars and webinars regularly on Self-Therapy Journey. Please join me.

Try Self-Therapy Journey so you can experience how powerful it is and how easy it is to use.

Jay Earley, PHD

Introductory Video with Jay Earley

Learn How Self-Therapy Journey Works with the People-Pleasing Pattern

Self-Therapy Journey is based on
two comprehensive and powerful systems!



Click here to see a larger version of this chart.

1. The Pattern System®

The Pattern System is a breakthrough in understanding personality, a Periodic Table for psychology, created by Jay Earley, PhD.

It is a systematic approach to understanding your personality oriented toward psychological healing and personal growth, Self-Therapy Journey contains about 25 patterns, which are ways of behaving and feeling that you might want to change, such as people-pleasing, perfectionism, self-criticism, or avoiding intimacy.

Self-Therapy Journey helps you transform each pattern into a healthy capacity, such as assertiveness, ease, self-esteem, or cooperation. It also allows you to heal 14 different emotional wounds from childhood, such as being deprived or judged or feeling unlovable.

Everyone is unique! And the Pattern System recognizes this. You aren't put into a box. You get to understand the details of your particular personality.

The Pattern System provides the psychological content and IFS provides the therapy process.

Click here to learn more about the Pattern System.

2. Internal Family Systems Therapy

Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) is on the cutting edge of psychotherapy. It allows you to understand your psyche in a new way and create deep, powerful healing of old emotional wounds and trauma. IFS is a recognized, proven method for individual psychotherapy with a robust training program and thousands of certified therapists.

IFS enables you to understand each of the parts of your psyche, sometimes called sub-personalities. You can think of them as little people inside you. Each has its own perspective, feelings, memories, goals, and motivations. For example, one part of you might be trying to lose weight, and another part might want to eat whatever you want.

We all have many different parts, and we each have a spiritual center, the Self, which is compassionate, understanding, and grounded. Through IFS you can learn to stay in Self, develop a relationship with each of your parts, and heal them.

The key is that the your healing comes from you! This means that you can do IFS on your own, without a therapist, which is what makes Self-Therapy Journey possible.

Click here to watch an interview of Jay Earley on IFS by Tami Simon of Sounds True.

Support and Witnessing

You can work on Self-Therapy Journey completely on your own, or you can find a buddy or mentor from our online community to witness your work and support you in making changes in your life. You can also find a therapist guide from our list of professionals who will guide you in using Self-Therapy Journey and provide additional therapy if you want it.

In our online community, you can join a group of people who are dealing with the same issue. You can share with them your progress in your Self-Therapy Journey work and get answers to questions.

Learn How Self-Therapy Journey Works with the People-Pleasing Pattern

I was amazed with the ease of use of STJ and how quickly it helped to identify areas in which I was having difficulty. The guided mediations helped me understand the underlying intention behind my pattern. The homework practice turned out beautifully, allowing me to be more cooperative with others. I learned to re-state confusing feelings in an accepting and loving way. I can now let go of those parts that are no longer serving me.

-- Colleen A.


The greatest benefit of Self-Therapy Journey is its ability to reveal the hidden motivations behind our limiting patterns. I recommend it highly.

-- Nick Lal,
Personal Development
Practitioner


The problems that I worked on using Self-Therapy Journey have been resolved. The Pattern System has jump-started a lot of my clients in understanding their issues at the beginning of their work.

-- Cathy Duke
Licensed Counselor

Have other issues you need help with?
Wondering if Self-Therapy Journey deals with them?
Click here to find out
Are you a therapist, coach, or other professional,
wondering about using Self-Therapy Journey with you clients?
Click here for all the information you need

Learn How Self-Therapy Journey Works with the People-Pleasing Pattern

X Assertiveness involves having a firm knowledge of what you feel, think, and desire, as opposed to being overly influenced by other people's opinions, feelings, and needs. It is part of being an autonomous adult.

Assertiveness involves exerting power to ask what you want, explain why something is important to you, and follow through even if others don’t go along right away. You can bring up difficult issues with people in order to try to improve your relationship with them. You can stand up for yourself and set limits on people when they are harming you in some way. You can say No when someone asks you for something you don’t want to give.

Assertiveness involves being able to initiate action, take risks, accomplish goals, and move forward in your life. Sometimes it involves reaching out for connection with someone. Sometimes it means saying clearly what your opinion is or what you believe is right.

Assertiveness can also involve exerting power to take care of others or to achieve what you think is right or best in a given situation. It can involve assuming a powerful or responsible role in a group or organization.

But keep in mind: Assertiveness involves doing these things without needing to be aggressive, controlling, rigid, judgmental, or otherwise extreme. Assertiveness naturally integrates with cooperation, so you are open to other people's needs and opinions without giving up your own.