People Pleasing Is Hurting Your Calling: How to Say No & Chase God’s Purpose
Description:
People pleasing isn’t kindness — it’s often a slow drain on your calling, your health, and your walk with God. In this episode, Jim unpacks the psychology behind approval addiction, the biblical truth about boundaries, and why saying “no” might be the most spiritual word in your vocabulary.
You’ll discover how to protect your alignment, break free from chains of constant “yes,” and move from earning love to living loved — so you can step fully into the purpose God designed for you.
Key Insights:
- The Psychology of People Pleasing: How it’s rooted in childhood patterns, trauma, and low self-worth.
- The Spiritual Perspective: God says “no” to protect and redirect; Jesus modeled healthy boundaries.
- The Cost: Mental, physical, and spiritual burnout when your “yes” isn’t aligned.
- The Yuck Factor: Why discomfort when saying no is a sign of growth.
- From Earning Love to Living Loved: Shifting your motivation from seeking approval to fulfilling your calling.
Faith Connection:
Boundaries are a biblical principle. Colossians 3:23 reminds us to work “as for the Lord, not for human masters.” This episode encourages listeners to put God’s approval above all else, making “no” an act of obedience.
For Multipassionate Creators:
If you’re an author, speaker, coach, or content creator juggling opportunities, this episode will help you discern which “yeses” are truly yours to carry — and which “nos” will set you free to do your best Kingdom work.
Scriptures referenced in this episode:
- Romans 8:1
- 2nd Corinthians 12:7-10
- Deuteronomy 3:23-27
- Mark 1:35-38
- Colossians 3:23-24
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Thanks for listening!
#peoplepleasing #purposeoverapproval #christianleadership #faithandbusiness #boundaries #livingloved #leadwithjim
Transcript
Have you ever had a time in your life where you said yes, and then instantly you regretted the thing you just said?
Speaker A:Like, you were like, yes, and then you were like, what?
Speaker A:I should have said no, but I said yes.
Speaker A:And now you're stuck in this loop of, I don't know how to get out of it because I'm too afraid of conflict.
Speaker A:So you sit in the yes and silently dread about everything that's going to come next.
Speaker B: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 B: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.
Speaker B:Let's get into it.
Speaker A:There are times when we say yes when we should have said no.
Speaker A:Or maybe there are times when God told you that you should have said no and you said yes.
Speaker A:Which now we're getting into levels of different things that can lead to some spiritual problems, lead to some emotional mental problems, because we're not chasing purpose.
Speaker A:And as a recovering people pleaser, I want to be able to sit here with you on this journey towards health, towards chasing purpose and not chasing being liked and not chasing being that person who has to constantly feel like they say yes all the time because of the expectations we put on ourselves.
Speaker A:So let's just say this for today.
Speaker A:On today's show, we're going to say Romans 8:1.
Speaker A:I want you to go look it up at some point, Romans 8:1.
Speaker A:Therefore, there is no longer any condemnation through all those in Christ Jesus.
Speaker A:So as we unpack today, we're going to make sure that we understand that we're not here to feel shame.
Speaker A:We're not here to feel guilt.
Speaker A:We're here to understand where we've come from.
Speaker A:We.
Speaker A:Who we are.
Speaker A:And how do we get beyond that?
Speaker A:Because here's what I know.
Speaker A:The more you say yes to people, the less you're able to say yes to yourself, at war, yes to God.
Speaker A:And so we get stuck in these places and then we shame them.
Speaker A:Guilt ourselves.
Speaker A:And I shouldn't have said yes.
Speaker A:I should have said no, but I didn't have the courage.
Speaker A:So shame and guilt come on us.
Speaker A:And this is not what we're here for.
Speaker A:We're here to expose the lie, live in the truth, and.
Speaker A:And move in a place of healing from people pleasing to purpose, chasing.
Speaker A:And by the end of this conversation, I want you to feel that little discomfort.
Speaker A:Why?
Speaker A:Because you can't Grow in comfort.
Speaker A:Comfort is the enemy of growth.
Speaker A:So if we're going to truly grow, we cannot change, we cannot heal what we don't uncover.
Speaker A:So let's just start with the fact that you and I, recovering people pleasers, and I use the word recovering because there's still some tendencies as we heal.
Speaker A:Or maybe you're not a people pleaser at all, and that's good.
Speaker A:I'm here to speak to some people in Christian entrepreneurship.
Speaker A:Maybe you're a creator, author, a content creator, a speaker, whatever you are, but you're dealing with this people pleasing.
Speaker A:You say more yeses and you just don't know how to say no.
Speaker A:But what are the psychological problems with people pleasing?
Speaker A:Because psychology has also done some deep study in this.
Speaker A:And psychology defines people pleasing as a pattern of behavior where we put others needs ahead of our own.
Speaker A:Now, that doesn't sound too bad at first, right?
Speaker A:But this is where the rubber meets the road.
Speaker A:This is where it gets real, real little shaky is when we put the people's, you know, needs ahead of our own so much that we neglect or ignore our own needs.
Speaker A:And everybody else's needs around us are more important.
Speaker A:And this is why we have to understand the patterns of people pleasing.
Speaker A:Because now we're neglecting ourselves and we, we're putting other people in front of us, which means at some point we're going to deal with some emotional issues, some physical health issues, some burnout, all of this stuff because we're trying to go after fear.
Speaker A:We're trying to go after approval and run from fear.
Speaker A:What we want people to like us.
Speaker A:We don't want people to reject us.
Speaker A:So there are a couple things that we grew up with in a childhood trauma that has caused this cycle of people pleasing.
Speaker A:Number one, it really does often start in child childhood.
Speaker A:Maybe you were rewarded or complimented on doing good things with good results.
Speaker A:And maybe when you messed up or made a mistake, you were highly criticized or you were like punished because you made a mistake and you, it wasn't what the person wanted.
Speaker A:And instead of encouraging you and coaching you and loving on you, they made you feel like you were the worst person in the world.
Speaker A:That's the environment where people pleasing and perfectionism is born in.
Speaker A:The second thing is it can be tied to your trauma.
Speaker A:Now maybe you were just somebody who grew up in a criticized home and this was your learned behavior.
Speaker A:But people pleasing can oftentimes more often than not be tied to deep childhood trauma or even adult trauma.
Speaker A:But most likely it's childhood.
Speaker A:And because You've lived, you lived in instability and there was that constant feeling of being unsafe, or you might have learned to avoid conflict at all costs.
Speaker A:You needed to say yes to whatever was asked of you.
Speaker A:The last thing is, it's rooted in a low self worth.
Speaker A:I lost for a long time my own self worth, that I was never worthy nor believed I was good enough to say no because I was believing that value came from doing for others.
Speaker A:That value, my value was, was seen or felt for me most when I made others happy.
Speaker A:It's because of what I lack that I overcompensated to try to make sure everybody else had.
Speaker A:And this is where we start.
Speaker A:Because faith and psychology should not be separate at, you know, any times because we understand that the patterns in the science of the brain and the spirituality of the Bible should intermix to a place where we understand what or we're getting to the place of healing and understanding our own challenges were based on environmental factors.
Speaker A:Now, the problem is, is that science also shows us that chronic people pleasing is linked to higher levels of cortisol, the stress hormones.
Speaker A:So if you're a chronic people pleaser, you find yourself under a lot more stress than normal, or I don't even know what we would call normal, but you find yourself under this deep level of stress.
Speaker A:The second thing is, is that this means that your NER system stays in a fight or flight or fawn in order to make yourself safe.
Speaker A:And so people pleasing, perfectionism, or, or, you know, the whole imposter syndrome are all interconnected to a nervous system that is broken down into dysregulation constantly.
Speaker A:And in order to feel safe, we mask it by saying, how can I help?
Speaker A:What can I help you with?
Speaker A:And this is why we struggle with when people ask you as an entrepreneur, what do you do?
Speaker A:Well, I do whatever you need.
Speaker A:Who, who do you help?
Speaker A:Whoever needs help.
Speaker A:That is the chronic signs, or not the chronic, that is the telltale signs of a chronic people pleaser.
Speaker A:We don't know how to define who we're helping and we don't know how to define what we're helping them with.
Speaker A:Because for us, for a long time, and as a recovering people pleaser, I went through this a long, long time, is that we want to help everybody do whatever we can because that's where we got value, that's where we felt safe.
Speaker A:And so we never were able to commit to the one thing because it felt unsafe to be committed.
Speaker A:Because if we were committed, we would say no.
Speaker A:And if we said no, Then the problem becomes now we're struggling with the lack of the comfort, the lack of the safety zone and we're moving in to this place of we're just gotta run.
Speaker A:We gotta run.
Speaker A:Yes to everything, no to nothing.
Speaker A:And we're just gonna hide and mask.
Speaker A:And that's not God's plan for you guys.
Speaker A:That is not what God wants.
Speaker A:That is not what God desires of us.
Speaker A:So let me give you a biblical perspective.
Speaker A:If you thinking saying no isn't biblical, I've got some news for you.
Speaker A:God says no all the time.
Speaker A:And if your theology doesn't allow for God to say no, then we need to check your your theology because God says no all.
Speaker A:So let number just break this down.
Speaker A:I'll give you a couple examples.
Speaker A:A couple, because there's a lot more.
Speaker A:2nd Corinthians 12, 7, 10.
Speaker A:Paul begged God to remove the thorn in the flesh.
Speaker A:And what did God say?
Speaker A:No, my grace is sufficient for this.
Speaker A:And before.
Speaker A:And he goes on and says, beside, my power is seen in your weakness.
Speaker A:He did.
Speaker A:He said no.
Speaker A:We have to make sure that we understand that there are times God says no.
Speaker A:Then there's Deuteronomy 3,23,27 where Moses pleaded with Pharaoh to not Pharaoh.
Speaker A:Moses pleaded with God to enter the promised land.
Speaker A:And God was like, no.
Speaker A:Moses was not allowed to enter into the promised land based on something Moses did that was against what God wanted.
Speaker A:God says no all the time.
Speaker A:And we've got to build around a truth that we allow for that to happen.
Speaker A:Because God's no is never meant to harm us.
Speaker A:It's meant to protect us and to redirect us.
Speaker A:Because what if the very thing that you're trying to go after is the very thing God is like that's going to really hurt you.
Speaker A:Or what if the very thing that you were like saying yes to everything God is trying to put pull you back so you don't burn out or burn up and you're useless for it's basically nothing.
Speaker A:You're not useful for anything.
Speaker A:And God's like, hold on, there is rest.
Speaker A:I want to give you rest.
Speaker A:And if you keep saying yes to everything, you're building your house on the sand and you will never be able to enter into a rest.
Speaker A:So there is a value in saying no.
Speaker A:And so we just understand that Jesus even modeled this himself.
Speaker A:Mark 1, 35, 38, 38, he withdrew to pray.
Speaker A:Now, I don't think we realize that this is something that Jesus basically said no to the crowd so he can spend personal Time with God.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:If Jesus was such a yes person, he would have said yes to the crowds and spent no personal time.
Speaker A:Jesus withdrew himself to the to prayer.
Speaker A:He had boundary and he said no.
Speaker A:Crowds look for him.
Speaker A:Disciples told him and he was like, nah, we gonna pray and will go somewhere else.
Speaker A:That is a no.
Speaker A:So even Jesus modeled this.
Speaker A:And so no, and this is something I've taught for years.
Speaker A:No is some of the most spiritual things or actually the most spiritual thing you can say.
Speaker A:Because when I say no to something, that means I'm opening myself up to saying yes to something important.
Speaker A:If I say no to your request, it doesn't mean I angry or upset with you.
Speaker A:It doesn't mean that I don't like you.
Speaker A:It means this doesn't match what God has for me.
Speaker A:So I say no to you currently so that I can redirect and say, God, what would you like me to say yes to?
Speaker A:And we have to understand this is the level at which we have to dive into the Word, dive into hearing the Holy Spirit and in our own personal health, our psychological, mental and emotional health, to understand that no is not unsafe.
Speaker A:In fact, no is safe.
Speaker A:Hear me when I say that no is a safe word.
Speaker A:You don't like it.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:It doesn't align.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:And then moving into the place where we say yes to whatever God has for us and yes to the things that we're here to do, the people we're here to serve, and we're just.
Speaker A:It's not that I'm being unloving by telling you no.
Speaker A:It's just that I'm redirected over here to where I'm the greatest use.
Speaker A:And there's somebody else that's going to come in your life and be the yes that you need it.
Speaker A:We've got the spiritual perspective.
Speaker A:Now let's unpack for the next three to five minutes.
Speaker A:Why no is the most spiritual thing you can do.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Because we want to understand why.
Speaker A:Now remember, we're not here to shame ourselves.
Speaker A:We're not here to condemn ourselves.
Speaker A:We're here to uncover the thing, the patterns we have lived in so that we can live in the healthiest version of ourselves.
Speaker A:Number one, you're protecting your alignment.
Speaker A:You're keeping your time, your energy, and your focus on what God's called you to.
Speaker A:Those are priorities, my friend.
Speaker A:And if you keep saying yes, you get yourself out of alignment.
Speaker A:And then we cry.
Speaker A:If you're out of alignment, you feel like you're out of alignment.
Speaker A:I'm gonna go tell you check your nose because your nose represent your boundaries and your priorities.
Speaker A:If you're out of alignment, your priorities are off and you have no boundaries.
Speaker A:Let's just call it like we see it.
Speaker A:The second thing is we're breaking chains.
Speaker A:You're interrupting the cycles of people pleasing.
Speaker A:Every no you have is a cycle breaker.
Speaker A:Like, as somebody who is a recovering people pleaser, no at first was incredibly hard for me.
Speaker A:Incredibly.
Speaker A:It felt like acid on my skin every time I said no.
Speaker A:But now I can say no left and right because like I said, I'm recovering people.
Speaker A:Please.
Speaker A:I put the recovering there simply because there are still places, deep places in my own mental and emotional health, physical journey that I still struggle with this stuff.
Speaker A:I still am quiet when I should talk.
Speaker A:I'm still like, doing the things, running at times.
Speaker A:But I'm on.
Speaker A:I'm on a place of healing and.
Speaker A:But every time I say a no, another chain gets broken.
Speaker A:And that keeps not only myself out of bondage, but everybody who is following and drawing from me, also out of bondage, because I'm breaking chains every time I say no.
Speaker A:And the very thing is you can do the same thing.
Speaker A:You can break the chains with every no.
Speaker A:So if you grew up in that trauma, because we opened up the show with the trauma that from our childhood we had that conversation.
Speaker A:So you learned a lot of things.
Speaker A:A ways to fly, fight, flight, or fawn.
Speaker A:You know, your trauma responses, all that.
Speaker A:Every time you now put a boundary up and a priority and say no, you're breaking a chain and you're rewiring your brain to know that, to understand that no no is safe and you're okay, and you are a better person for having that in your vocabulary.
Speaker A:The last thing is this.
Speaker A:It's making room for obedience.
Speaker A:Every yes is a no to something else.
Speaker A:Now, I said this a few minutes ago, but I want to unpack it just for a second.
Speaker A:Because there are a lot of times saying no to the wrong thing frees you up to saying yes for the right thing.
Speaker A:How do I know it's the wrong thing?
Speaker A:Go back to the first thing I said.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:Are you in alignment?
Speaker A:Do you have priorities and boundaries?
Speaker A:If you've been in prayer, if you've been journaling, if you've been talking to God, then guess what?
Speaker A:You're finding your alignment.
Speaker A:Learn to put boundaries and cross guards on all of that so that you can say yes to every time it comes up and God says, here's where you need to go.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:The challenge I see with us Whether you're an entrepreneur, a creator, an author, a speaker, or a minister, whatever you're doing and following the call of God, the challenges I see is we've said yes to so much that we have no time, energy, or focus to say yes to what really matters.
Speaker A:So let's reframe that and let's put that into a place of saying no to this and yes to the things that we need to say yes to.
Speaker A:So I. I don't want to sugarcoat this, because there's going to be the yuck feeling.
Speaker A:You know, the yuck factor.
Speaker A:We'll call it the yuck factor.
Speaker A:We have birthed something here today, the yuck factor.
Speaker A:Because as I was saying earlier, the first time, it felt like acid on my skin.
Speaker A:It hurt my heart.
Speaker A:I felt like I was failing Jesus.
Speaker A:I felt like I was failing people.
Speaker A:It was so painful.
Speaker A:But then I realized the more I said no, the more I was able to show up, the more I said no, the easier it was to do the things I know I was meant to do.
Speaker A:Now, do you stumble and fall?
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:But you've got to start somewhere.
Speaker A:And I would almost challenge you this week that.
Speaker A:Find something you can say no to and then say no.
Speaker A:If you're a parent, you have.
Speaker A:You should have mastered this when your kids come and say, can I have?
Speaker A:Can I have?
Speaker A:Can I have?
Speaker A:No, no, no, no, no, no, no should be the answers right now.
Speaker A:Let's take that same practice you've been doing with your kids.
Speaker A:Take that no and put it internally and go, what can I say no to?
Speaker A:That protects my piece, that gives me more energy, that makes me aligned properly and protects me.
Speaker A:And yet I can show up powerfully.
Speaker A:Let's do that on the internals of our own self so that we can show up in an incredible way.
Speaker A:So as we start to.
Speaker A:To land the plane, there is no right or wrong in doing this.
Speaker A:I want to make sure you understand this.
Speaker A:This is not one of those things where you're going to be like, I said no to this, and I said yes to this.
Speaker A:There's no checklist.
Speaker A:Like, we don't get instructions for life.
Speaker A:Like, life's hard and it hits hard and it hits fast.
Speaker A:And I told you I wouldn't sugarcoat this.
Speaker A:And there's no room for overthinking.
Speaker A:Overthinking is oftentimes our way of protecting ourselves from actually committing.
Speaker A:So we have to learn to detox from the things that we've basically built up over the years, the toxic negative responses.
Speaker A:And then we're going to retrain our nervous systems and it's going to feel bad at first because anything that's going to be good oftentimes will feel bad.
Speaker A:If you don't believe me, go work out for a little bit and you're going to find that sucked.
Speaker A:But I love the results.
Speaker A:Same thing with your nervous system when you're resetting it, it sucks, but you're going to love the results when your body starts getting back into alignment and it does what it was created to do and, but the object is, is making sure that we're, we're moving from the places where we feel unsafe and we move into feeling safe and safe in God's hands.
Speaker A:So I want to encourage you real quick.
Speaker A:God's no isn't always pleasant, but it always has purpose.
Speaker A:Your no may not always be pleasant, whether it be no to yourself or no to someone else.
Speaker A:But there should always be a purpose.
Speaker A:And that's what we're trying to get to.
Speaker A:The mature faith that understands that, that receives that.
Speaker A:Because here's what it's costing you as a people pleaser.
Speaker A:Physically, it is starting scientifically, it's starting to be shown that chronic stress wrecks your immune system and you end up insomnia.
Speaker A:You end up with some autoimmune issues, you have no energy.
Speaker A:All of these things are now being discovered that it's being connected to a dysregulated system.
Speaker A:Number two, emotionally.
Speaker A:If you're such an over people over accommodating people pleaser, you're going to be resentful, bitter, disconnected, angry.
Speaker A:Because you're constantly saying yes because you've never taken time for yourself.
Speaker A:Spiritually, you burn out, you lose focus.
Speaker A:The kingdom assignment is missing simply because you don't know how to frame your your yeses and nos correctly.
Speaker A:That's why we're going to practice.
Speaker A:We're going to say that this week and we're going to say no to the things we need to say no to and yes to the things that we need to say yes to.
Speaker A:Are we going to get it wrong?
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:But through practice and discernment we can get more right than we're wrong.
Speaker A:But start somewhere, start small, take steps and get there.
Speaker A:Because you cannot fully enter into your calling if you're constantly running on empty.
Speaker A:So here's the shift from earning love to living love.
Speaker A:Let me say that one more time.
Speaker A:We're moving from we feel the need to earn love, or maybe you can even say earning respect, earning to be seen, earning the right to exist.
Speaker A:We're moving from that to being living loved, living respected, living seen.
Speaker A:Because now we're changing the focus from I need everybody's approval to feel these things to I'm going to live these things whether I have your approval or not.
Speaker A:Because God has approved me.
Speaker A:He said he loved me.
Speaker A:He gave me the spirit of adoption.
Speaker A:He's with me the whole.
Speaker A:He says he'll never leave nor forsaken, so forsake me.
Speaker A:So therefore, if I reframe this and I live a life of love or being loved, or I am loved and I learned to love myself, I am not dependent on earning your love or earning your respect or earning anything from you.
Speaker A:And your addition to my life is a blessing that I can.
Speaker A:I feel love from you, but I don't need you to love me.
Speaker A:Do you see the difference?
Speaker A:I'm not codependent on you.
Speaker A:I am dependent upon God.
Speaker A:And so.
Speaker A:And with every encounter that we have, you know, with God, with people, it isn't about making someone like you.
Speaker A:Colossians 3, 23 and 24.
Speaker A:Let me read this.
Speaker A:Whatever you do, work at it with all of your heart as working for the Lord, not for human masters.
Speaker A:That is purpose chasing.
Speaker A:Nah, that is freedom.
Speaker A:That is freedom, guys, because here's the deal.
Speaker A:Who is your master?
Speaker A:Your need to be loved makes people your master.
Speaker A:So you can't say no to your master.
Speaker A:Living from a place of love because Christ loved you, he died on a cross for you.
Speaker A:Living from that place of love changes the game entirely.
Speaker A:We're not fighting for victory in Christ, we're fighting from victory in Christ.
Speaker A:The mentality is different, the energy is different, the way we approach things is different.
Speaker A:So let's instead of fighting for love, fighting for the need to feel loved, let's fight from a place of we're already loved.
Speaker A:Let's fight from a place that we're already respected.
Speaker A:I promise you the energy will be different, the direction will be different, the purpose will be different.
Speaker A:And you're going to live a full life in a mature life.
Speaker A:And at the end of the day, you're going to understand what it means to love others as yourself.
Speaker A:And I think that's really where the rubber hits the road is getting to shift from that purpose or that, that people pleasing to purpose changing or purpose chasing.
Speaker A:Learn to balance.
Speaker A:Get in there, get out there and do the thing.
Speaker A:And with that, I will see you on the next episode.
