The Cost of People-Pleasing: How to Stop Sacrificing Yourself for Others
Episode Description
In this candid and powerful episode, Jim Burgoon pulls back the curtain on a struggle many face but few talk about openly — people-pleasing. Jim shares personal stories of how his desire to keep everyone happy held him back from pursuing his dreams, building the right business, and caring for his own health.
He reveals the heavy cost this behavior had on his business, family, and identity — including moments of doubt, burnout, and chronic illness linked to a “fried nervous system.” But more importantly, Jim talks about how prayer, scripture study, therapy, and self-awareness became turning points that led him to reclaim his voice, set boundaries, and learn to say no without guilt.
If you’ve ever found yourself sacrificing your own needs to avoid conflict or please others, this episode offers hope, healing, and practical steps to start breaking free today.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
- What people-pleasing really looks like and why it’s so harmful
- Jim’s personal stories of struggle with mentors, family expectations, and fear
- The hidden costs: burnout, perfectionism, chronic illness, and loss of identity
- How prayer, scripture, and therapy can bring clarity and healing
- Practical, actionable steps to begin setting boundaries and prioritizing yourself
- Why putting yourself first isn’t selfish — it’s necessary
Key Takeaways
- People-pleasing is often driven by fear of conflict and a deep need for approval, but it comes at a high personal cost.
- Ignoring your own voice to keep others happy leads to burnout, perfectionism, and a loss of identity
- Real transformation begins with self-awareness — prayer, scripture, and honest therapy can unlock this.
- Saying no without guilt is a spiritual act that protects your calling, health, and relationships.
- Small practical steps like journaling your “yeses,” setting boundaries, and finding supportive community can start breaking the cycle.
- You are not a burden; prioritizing yourself is necessary to show up fully for others and your purpose.
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Transcript
Welcome to Online Business for Christian Creatives, the show that helps you build a business that honors God, fuels your creativity, and actually pays the bills.
Speaker A:I'm your host, Jim Burgoon, leadership coach, Faith first, entrepreneur, and a guy who's made just about every mistake so you don't have to let's get into it.
Speaker A:On today's episode of I want to get a little bit vulnerable, take back the curtain.
Speaker A:Because I think in entrepreneurship we have this.
Speaker A:Everybody has to be perfect and everybody has to make sure that we're all got our stuff together.
Speaker A:But you and I, as Christian entrepreneurs, we're a little bit different because in our imperfections, God has seen perfect.
Speaker A:So I want to pull back that curtain of imperfection that we try to show everybody so we don't have vulnerabilities and and show you something that almost destroyed me, which is people pleasing.
Speaker A:And so if you're ever some, if you're someone who's ever felt trapped after saying no, and you have this emotional need to make everybody happy, to serve everyone even after you said no, then this episode may be for you.
Speaker A:So let's begin.
Speaker A:People pleasing is where you're constantly trying to earn the approval of others and simultaneously avoid conflict, even when it means sacrificing who who you are and what you need to make everybody around you happy.
Speaker A:It feels like walking on eggshells.
Speaker A:Honestly, it really does because we're trying not to upset everyone.
Speaker A:And most times we end up ignoring our own voice, who we are, to make everybody around us happy.
Speaker A:And that makes sure that conflict doesn't exist or perceived conflict.
Speaker A:We outwardly want to agree or we're agreeable with everybody else, while internally we're dying inside, we're too scared to speak up or we're too afraid of the perceived conflict.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So here's where the problem comes in.
Speaker A:Over time, this leads to burnout, overthinking, perfectionism, second guessing, sometimes third guessing.
Speaker A:Have you ever been at a third guessing thing?
Speaker A:Feeling like you're a burden or losing your sense of identity in light of or the heaviness of this?
Speaker A:We want to make sure that we're not consumed with insecurity and running from God's calling?
Speaker A:We want to make sure that we're not flirting with God's calling enough that we feel like we're moving forward.
Speaker A:But in reality, under the surface, we're not moving at all.
Speaker A:We just feel like we do because we're constantly stuck in the cycle of people pleasing.
Speaker A:But don't worry, there's hope and we're going to talk about that.
Speaker A:So let's.
Speaker A:Let me give you some examples because I leaders will go first.
Speaker A:So I want to share with you some really big examples in my life and I'll go quick with them.
Speaker A:A few years back I was in a YouTube group.
Speaker A:Amazing group, amazing guy.
Speaker A:But there was a challenge that came up in this because I actually wanted to do YouTube growth.
Speaker A:And there's a part of me that wants, that is still going to offer this to my clients is YouTube growth.
Speaker A:I was in there and we were learning.
Speaker A:I was doing this and he was going over what we each want to do and I said, hey, I would love to think about getting into YouTube growth or at least offering it as a service among my clients.
Speaker A:And at that point he said some harsh things to me and then basically fired me from the program because he said, hey, I don't want you in here because I don't want to train my competitors.
Speaker A:And I wasn't a competitor because I don't think in competition terminology.
Speaker A:Well, after we split ways and we did it amicably, I still love the guy, but here's the challenge.
Speaker A:I never taught my people how to do YouTube growth.
Speaker A:I never taught anything about it.
Speaker A:I stayed away from it because I didn't want to have hurt feelings.
Speaker A:Not only my hurt feelings, but I want their feelings to be hurt when reality the pie is big enough for all of us to get some.
Speaker A:Another story, which this one hurt because this took 18 months to get through and realize was when I was joining the John Maxwell team when I was JO and I love the John Maxwell team and there's so many good things about it.
Speaker A:But when I was joined in the team, I was being coached and I am a speaker first and foremost.
Speaker A:My calling on life is for is a communicator, end of story.
Speaker A:But I was such in my people pleasing error that when I was coached by the onboarding coach and the John Maxwell team, they said, hey, you should go coaching because coaching is where all the money is.
Speaker A:Now if I just listen to the Holy spirit, I would have went into speaking, but I said, oh, coaching is where all the money is.
Speaker A:And here's an established coach telling me to go into coaching.
Speaker A:So why don't I go into coaching?
Speaker A:And long story short, I meant I spent 18 months building a coaching business that God basically had come back and said, you built the wrong business and you spent 18 months doing the wrong business.
Speaker A:He said, it's not that you're a bad coach or that you're not good at coaching, your anointing is in speaking first, coaching second.
Speaker A:And he said, you should have been doing this and had you listened to me, you wouldn't have lost 18 months.
Speaker A:And this was a hard truth to swallow for me because I was such in my people pleasing error that I'm sitting here trying to build that because I would.
Speaker A:We were in a place of almost being homeless.
Speaker A:We were trying to provide as a family.
Speaker A:So I'm trying to do coaching and I did get hired as coaching and I did make some money.
Speaker A:But what difference would have meant had I followed into what God had really put my anointing on and how different would I have been and how far along would I have been?
Speaker A:But because my people pleasing and it mixed with my fear at the time of being homeless, of not having money, not being taken care of, it all went together to say, okay, I'll do whatever you say because you said that's the way, instead of saying, okay, God, what do you say the way is?
Speaker A:And had I asked, we would have been a different place.
Speaker A:And I have a lot of these stories over the years I've been on this earth over 40 some years old and I have a lot of these stories because of the trauma, the challenges I grew up with.
Speaker A:But and if you're listening and you're still with me, you probably struggle with similar things.
Speaker A:You're struggling at some level, some point with people pleasing that you've been through something hard, you don't want conflict, you're struggling to get your voice heard.
Speaker A:You're struggling with this.
Speaker A:Here's the thing, my friend, is today is the day that we can put our line in the sand, our flag down and say, this is the day we're going to start making the decision to change because we can overcome people pleasing.
Speaker A:I have freedom, you can have freedom because you're made for more.
Speaker A:And the Holy Spirit that's in you is greater than he is in the world.
Speaker A:So therefore, if who's coming against you is not compared to who's in you, right?
Speaker A:We talk about this in church and in Bible and all these things.
Speaker A:But the reality of that story is there's so much inside of you that is powerful and you just haven't recognized it.
Speaker A:So let's talk about what it cost you to people, please.
Speaker A:And we're going to move into from cost to how to really start the process.
Speaker A:And I'm going to say start the process because this is not an overnight process.
Speaker A:This is not something that's going to go boom.
Speaker A:I did one thing and I'm done.
Speaker A:No, this is a long time process, especially if you've been people pleasing you most of your life.
Speaker A:So we want to come, pull back a little bit, start the process and gain freedom and make sure we work on any type of residual or residue that comes up at from time to time.
Speaker A:So here's what it cost me, here's what it's probably cost you.
Speaker A:It's the second and even third guessing every decision.
Speaker A:Because we lose a sense of identity, because we lose a sense of desire for what we want, because we put everybody else first and because we deal in, we've not really dealt with some of our trauma, we end up second and third guessing ourselves.
Speaker A:I found that I have a very good intuition and I think you probably do too.
Speaker A:We have to understand that if we're second and third guessing ourselves, it means we don't trust our intuition because we're listening to our trauma.
Speaker A:We're afraid of conflict and we don't want to move forward.
Speaker A:We mean secretly.
Speaker A:We do want to move forward, but we don't know how to overcome the hurdle to actually move forward.
Speaker A:Because we are.
Speaker A:That's what a cost is.
Speaker A:We're struggling.
Speaker A:Perfectionism, you probably have two, three, four things to launch to make money.
Speaker A:I have about 75 things over the years that I've launched maybe two of the 75, but we're going to launch more.
Speaker A:I'm not going to launch all 75.
Speaker A:But because we feel rejection, because we're dealing with people pleasing, we don't want to offend people, we don't want to seem salesy, we don't launch or we try to make it so perfect that it never gets launched.
Speaker A:But here's what perfectionism really is.
Speaker A:Perfectionism is a mechanism to hide you because you have a fear of being seen.
Speaker A:So here's the deal.
Speaker A:You want to be seen, but you're afraid of being seen.
Speaker A:So you end up being a perfectionist so that you can make sure that you have forward momentum in the feel of being productive.
Speaker A:And you'll never be seen because you're never launched.
Speaker A:These are the high cost of people pleasing.
Speaker A:The other one is you're.
Speaker A:You feel like you're a burden to others.
Speaker A:People pleasers have a tendency to be highly empathetic and we feel like we're a burden to others.
Speaker A:Like we don't want to have depth of friendship where I'm vulnerable.
Speaker A:I'm honest with you because I feel like my emotions, my things are a burden.
Speaker A:My friend, I gotta say, that's not the case, it's not the truth.
Speaker A:It's something that we believed.
Speaker A:A lie of the enemy to keep us isolated.
Speaker A:You are not a burden and you're but your people pleasing has created that mindset and we've got to overcome that.
Speaker A:Because one of the most beauty of the beautiful things of Christianity is that we are based in community.
Speaker A:You cannot be the highest level of Christianity if you don't have a supportive community.
Speaker A:And I'll also say that for entrepreneurship, where it's always about who you run with and you feel like a burden, you remove yourself from any community that's healthy and you place yourself in communities that are just going to perpetrate the cycle of people pleasing.
Speaker A:One of the other costs is that you become a guy or a lady who does everything for everyone but never anything for you.
Speaker A:And that's a challenge because we're burnt out, we're resentful, we're angry because we make sure everybody else's needs are taken care of.
Speaker A:But who makes sure our needs are taken care of?
Speaker A:That let's get real.
Speaker A:Who do we allow to take care of our needs because we feel like such a burden that we do everything and we don't let people take care of our needs because we don't want to be the burden.
Speaker A:And so that's a challenge and it costs us a lot.
Speaker A:And we live in this place of recyclical insecurity and just rejection, sensitivity, and that yet the very things that we need are the very things we won't allow because of what they mean or what they can cause.
Speaker A:Being conflict, hurt, pain, rejection.
Speaker A:And that we can just isolate ourselves and we tell ourselves we're okay, when secretly we're not.
Speaker A:And this affects every area of your life.
Speaker A:This affects your family, this affects your business.
Speaker A:If you're in ministry of some sort.
Speaker A:I'm in ministry in the marketplace, which means God has called me to be a missionary to the entrepreneurial space.
Speaker A:So wherever that looks like for you, it's going to affect that area of life.
Speaker A:Currently I'm struggling with chronic illness.
Speaker A:I'm struggling with autoimmune disease.
Speaker A:I have a fried nervous system because I spent most of my life, decades of my life, pleasing others at the cost of myself.
Speaker A:And don't think that doesn't come with a cost.
Speaker A:It does.
Speaker A:Because if you don't take care of yourself, you will fall apart.
Speaker A:It's like a car.
Speaker A:If I don't put oil in it, it'll lock down.
Speaker A:If you don't take care of yourself, Your body will lock down and force to take care of it.
Speaker A:But, and then it comes back to.
Speaker A:And if you think about what's costing you, we're living on crumbs while we give everybody else cake.
Speaker A:And that's not what you should have.
Speaker A:That's not worth it.
Speaker A:That's you are worth so much more than that and you should never accept less than that.
Speaker A:And if somebody's giving you less than that, have a deep conversation with them and, and tell them that is it conflict?
Speaker A:Yeah, it's going to be conflict.
Speaker A:But that's okay.
Speaker A:You deserve more, more.
Speaker A:And you've got to ask yourself, is it worth it?
Speaker A:And then you got to talk to yourself, am I worth it?
Speaker A:And then fight the people pleasing because you are worth it.
Speaker A:So let's talk about the turning point, the self awareness.
Speaker A:And it comes down and you're going to hear a lot of things in Christianity.
Speaker A:You're just going to pray more.
Speaker A:But I think we get it backwards what prayer really does.
Speaker A:Prayer doesn't really.
Speaker A:So it does change the environment.
Speaker A:But prayer was meant more to change your heart than it was to change your environment.
Speaker A:And so when we understand the proper under, when we have an under, a proper understanding of prayer, we understand that in prayer my heart becomes more in line with God.
Speaker A:And then as my heart's in more aligned with God, anything we ask according to his heart we will see answered.
Speaker A:But we have to get into the place of praying for relationship with him, not praying for stuff.
Speaker A:The second thing is a huge difference in dynamic is your scripture reading.
Speaker A:You gotta dive more into reading and you gotta dive more into studying.
Speaker A:Most people can read the Bible.
Speaker A:Most people are illiterate when it comes to understanding the Bible.
Speaker A:Get into Chat GPT and I'll create a training where I'll show you how to use ChatGPT as a fully fledged commentary to help you study your Bible and how it transitions into your entrepreneurial journey.
Speaker A:And we've got to study it because what we're asking is how does my life and the fruit that I'm creating line up with the Bible?
Speaker A:And if it doesn't, we've got to, we've got to have some massive differences.
Speaker A:The next thing is about getting honest.
Speaker A:Most people will never be honest with themselves because they'd rather be deceived than honest, because honesty sucks.
Speaker A:But I'm going to tell you, deception is much worse.
Speaker A:So the difference is, and you've heard it before, what you know, choose your hard.
Speaker A:Being honest with yourself is hard, but deceiving yourself is hard.
Speaker A:The only difference is when you're honest, you feel the hard now.
Speaker A:When you're deceiving yourself, you feel the hard later.
Speaker A:So do you want to deal with it now or later?
Speaker A:But I promise you, if you deal with it later, it's going to be 20 times harder than if you just swallow that pill right now.
Speaker A:And then you've got to get real with a therapist.
Speaker A:Yes, I have a therapist.
Speaker A:Yes, I highly recommend a therapist for everybody at some point in their life.
Speaker A:And it's not anti biblical, it's not anti scriptural.
Speaker A:Anybody that tells you that, I will argue with them on that all day long because I've seen the value of it.
Speaker A:Pick a good therapist.
Speaker A:Not just any therapist, obviously.
Speaker A:You can even get Christian therapists.
Speaker A:But you need therapy.
Speaker A:I need therapy.
Speaker A:And dive deep.
Speaker A:Because when you have the prayer, you have the scripture, and you get real and honest and you deal with it with a trained professional, not just your pastor, because most pastors aren't trained in therapy.
Speaker A:But you get a trained professional, you will become more self aware.
Speaker A:And the more self aware you become, the clearer you'll see your issues.
Speaker A:The clearer you see your issues, the more you'll be able to change them.
Speaker A:Because you can't deal with what you don't see.
Speaker A:And if you don't see it, you can't deal with it.
Speaker A:So see it, deal with it and move forward.
Speaker A:Because at the end of the day, the path, the path of the people pleaser isn't sustainable, it isn't healthy.
Speaker A:You will crash, there will be problems.
Speaker A:It's just going to be a dependent, dependent upon when.
Speaker A:That's, that's really it.
Speaker A:As we close this episode down, we're going to talk about the new era.
Speaker A:We're going to say no.
Speaker A:Now, I know right there that word no is hard for you.
Speaker A:It feels icky.
Speaker A:But no is the most spiritual thing that you could possibly do because you get into a place of no to certain things so that you can say yes to God things.
Speaker A:And we need to be in a season where we're going to say no, I am no longer sacrificing myself, my health, my wealth, or any relationship for you.
Speaker A:Like, I'm not going to do it.
Speaker A:And you need to have that same thing.
Speaker A:We need to say, I'm going to be my healthiest version of myself so that I could be the best version for you.
Speaker A:And so we've got to learn to say no without the guilt.
Speaker A:That's gonna be key.
Speaker A:No without the guilt, I'm gonna Put my family first.
Speaker A:I'm gonna put my health first.
Speaker A:I'm gonna put Christ in the center of all that.
Speaker A:And out of that, we're going to build the business.
Speaker A:We're going to do all the things.
Speaker A:But you got to say yes to you first, yes to Jesus first, and no to everything else that doesn't serve those, doesn't serve God's purpose in your life and doesn't serve what God's telling you.
Speaker A:End of story.
Speaker A:No, you can have the same freedom, but you got to work on the certain things.
Speaker A:So this is our no error.
Speaker A:So say that with me.
Speaker A:I am walking into the era of no, and I'm going to be okay with it.
Speaker A:And so we get into these things where we're.
Speaker A:We just make sure that we're doing the things to break free.
Speaker A:Now, we talked about the prayer, the.
Speaker A:All that stuff.
Speaker A:I'm going to suggest that you start noticing when you say yes, make a journal.
Speaker A:Like you're going to do a couple journal things, like entries.
Speaker A:You can do them.
Speaker A:Entries.
Speaker A:What did I say yes to that I, out of obligation or expectation that I had no desire to do, but I said yes anyway.
Speaker A:What were those things?
Speaker A:Write them down, chronicle them.
Speaker A:And you're going to find that you're saying no or saying yes to things you're like, why did I say yes to that?
Speaker A:And you're spending your energy, your time and your health on things you don't need to be doing.
Speaker A:So use a journal.
Speaker A:Secondly, I would say journal your prayers.
Speaker A:What did you ask God so you can go back and actually check them off when he answers?
Speaker A:So you say, praise God.
Speaker A:I got.
Speaker A:Not only do I have a prayer journal, but I have a gratitude journal when I see the.
Speaker A:The answer.
Speaker A:And so you're going to.
Speaker A:And you're also going to do quiet reflection on the scriptures as you study them.
Speaker A:What, and what does that look like?
Speaker A:You're going to go and say, hey, the scripture says this.
Speaker A:How do I match up?
Speaker A:And then journal about it and what was really said and how do you really feel?
Speaker A:You're going to practice small boundaries now I'm going to have to do a whole episode on boundaries, because that's a challenging one.
Speaker A:But you need them.
Speaker A:We need them.
Speaker A:But we have to say no with grace, no with love.
Speaker A:But we also got to understand that no is loving ourselves just as much as I'm loving you.
Speaker A:I got to be at my best for you, so I have to be my best for me.
Speaker A:So no, right?
Speaker A:Because no.
Speaker A:And then find support.
Speaker A:Find the community, the mentor, coach, trusted friend, church.
Speaker A:Find a healthy support group.
Speaker A:Create one around you.
Speaker A:Because without support we really are isolated and we really dive into these wrong thinkings and wrong patterns and we never know it because nobody's there to call them out.
Speaker A:So find support.
Speaker A:And so with that being said, I want to thank you for making it this far in the episode.
Speaker A:Thank you for listening.
Speaker A:Thank you for being on the journey as we made the rebrand into the online business for Christian Creatives so that we can grow in God's calling together.
Speaker A:As you take time through this episode, take a moment to reflect.
Speaker A:Where are you people pleasing too much?
Speaker A:Reflect on that, journal about that and then feel free to share your thoughts and your stories with someone you love.
Speaker A:Or heck set write them in the comments if you're listening.
Speaker A:If you're watching this on YouTube or maybe on Facebook or send me an email, you can find that in the link www.leadwithjim.com it's in the link.
Speaker A:Send me an email and say, hey, this is where I'm people pleasing too much and this is and then ad and I'm going to give you a caveat, add this is what I'm going to do about it.
Speaker A:Take a small step, not all the steps.
Speaker A:So what is the first small step?
Speaker A:And let me know because I want to have that conversation with you.
Speaker A:And just remember, you deserve to put yourself first.
Speaker A:It's not selfish, it's necessary.
Speaker A:That's the key.
Speaker A:It's not selfish, it's necessary.
Speaker A:And if this episode has helped you, I'm going to ask you to subscribe on whatever platform you're listening.
Speaker A:Just hit the follow, hit the subscribe and let's follow.
Speaker A:Let's be friends.
Speaker A:Let's be on this journey together.
Speaker A:And then here's the other caveat.
Speaker A:Share this with a friend that you say friend, you please listen to this because you need it.
Speaker A:Because the deal is as we get the word out, we can grow.
Speaker A:And as we grow, it means more impact.
Speaker A:And more impact means greater kingdom advancement.
Speaker A:So let's impact each other for the greater of the kingdom.
Speaker A:Let's grow, let's develop the fruit of the spirit and let's bring the kingdom of God to this earth.
Speaker A:Now my friend, I will see you on the next episode.
Speaker A:So thanks for the real talk.
Speaker A:Thanks for the conversation where we talk about leadership, creativity, online business, faith and the convergence of that.
Speaker A:So we'll be talking soon.
