Of Course I had to be a...

"You can't please everyone so stop trying," they would tell me. I also heard, "Nobody likes a people pleaser." Of course even after I was told by friends and family a million different times, I still tried to please everyone I met. I couldn't stand the idea of someone not liking me and if someone didn't, I would constantly try to fix it.

This was my mindset all through elementary, high school, and even in college. I am finally learning to accept the reality that I cannot please everyone and not everyone is going to like me. Does that change the fact that I want them to like me? Not at all. However, no matter how hard I try, it would not change the fact unless I changed some part of who I am for every person who didn't like me.

Being a people pleaser is the most draining thing in the world in my opinion. The constant worry of why someone doesn't like you or doing everything for a person only to hope they continue to like you and want to be your friend is draining emotionally. From my own experience, I would say that a people pleaser might make up something in their head about someone not liking them when that person never had a problem with them. I have personally done that many times.

In high school all I wanted was to be liked. I wanted to be one of the popular girls. While I was a cheerleader, I most certainly was not popular or with the "in" crowd. I was unique and I am still unique. I am bluntly honest and probably a little bit too open about my story to other people. I always used to wonder why even though I was nice to everyone it always seemed like no one wanted to hangout or like no one really liked me. Over the years I learned that I am an acquired taste and sometimes I can be a lot to handle. I have an outgoing, bubbly, talkative personality once I get to know a person and I learned that is not everyone's cup of tea.

When I started college, all I wanted more than anything in the world was to be able to start fresh. I just wanted to find my people that I truly connected with. When I entered college, I had just started a business with ItWorks. If you don't know what that is, it is basically a health and wellness company that sells vitamins and other supplements to help you lose weight and stay healthy. Not everyone was a fan of that at my college. I was honestly hoping that it would be a bigger hit than it was. I decided to end that business after getting discouraged from being made fun of because I was a skinny person selling weight loss products.

After I ended that business, I was still really focused on trying to make friends. I found some really good ones fortunately and was very thankful for that. I learned that there will always be people that don't like me and that it is okay. I learned that it is important to be completely myself no matter what people say or think.

Something else I have learned is that the world does not revolve around me and not everyone cares. They have their own things to worry about or deal with. My personal problem is that I care too much. I care about everyone, want to help everyone, and I take things too personally.

Still to this day, I have a hard time not taking things personally. I would love to change this and I am working daily to get better at it but I am improving. I would love to meet other people just like me and we could work together to get better.

While I have always known that I am a people pleaser and that I care too much about what people think of me, I am learning that I can't please everyone or make everyone happy. I know that it is okay to care and it is okay to want to help people but I also know that I can't help or please everyone and that is okay.