Progress Over Perfection: Why People-Pleasers Need Safety, Not Fixing
The goal in life is progress, not perfection.
As a recovering perfectionist, that’s still hard for me to admit. I’m also a recovering people pleaser, and while I’m worlds away from where I used to be, I still catch myself slipping into old patterns.
And that’s okay.
Because growth isn’t about never slipping, it’s about noticing sooner and choosing yourself faster.
Several months ago, a friend invited me to a swimwear fashion show. She invited me via text and sent the link to secure a ticket. Our tickets were free because she knew a vendor, so all I had to do was click, register, and show up.
The day of the event, as we were waiting in line to get in, I ran into a guy that I know from surfing. And when I say “know,” I mean just that. I simply know him. I am not friends with him. And I wouldn’t call him an acquaintance either.
I know his name. I kind of know what he does for work. But other than that, we generally only talk about surfing.
Let’s call him Tom.
Tom was visibly anxious and was alone. Online ticket sales had closed, and he didn’t have a way in. I could feel his nervous system before he even said anything. If you’ve ever lived with chronic anxiety, you know that feeling, and you can sense it in others immediately.
Tom leached onto me and said, “Hey, can I tag along with you guys so I can get in?”
My body immediately tensed. My intuition was certain that something was off about the entire situation. Every single cell in my body was screaming, “No! This is too uncomfortable.”
My brain wanted to tell him that I couldn’t help him. In all fairness, I didn’t even know how the ticket situation worked because we had used the vendor link.
Instead of saying any of this, I said, “Okay.”
Fortunately, the line moved fast, and we only had to wait for a few minutes, but those few minutes felt awful because I felt so weird and gross about the entire situation.
Long story short, he didn’t get in, and I told my friend what was really going on when we finally ditched him. And telling the experience to her out loud made me realize what had really happened:
I made his comfort more important than my own.
I was afraid that if I told him I couldn’t help, he would feel weird and uncomfortable. So, what did I do instead? I put myself in a weird and uncomfortable situation.
If that is not self-abandonment, I don’t know what is.
I used to justify people-pleasing as being nice, but you’re not being nice to yourself when you lower your internal standard for how you allow yourself to feel.
People Pleasers are afraid of disturbing the peace.
DTP, as Luda would say, is a people-pleaser’s biggest fear. But the funny thing is, keeping the peace externally almost always costs us our internal peace.
So whose peace are you really protecting?
At a certain level of growth, protecting your internal peace becomes non-negotiable, not because you’re selfish, but because you’re self-led
Your number one priority in life should be to protect your emotional and physical safety. The only exception to this is if you are a caregiver and whoever you are caretaking is in emotional or physical danger.
If something or someone is rocking your internal boat, it’s your job to stabilize it, even if that means making someone else uncomfortable.
Other people aren’t always going to like it when you exercise your personal power.
And that’s okay.
You aren’t here for their approval anyway. You are here to be aligned.
Alignment is the currency of your next level.
Progress Looks Like Awareness, Not Perfection
Immediately after telling my friend the story, I asked myself:
What can I learn from this?
(That question alone tells me I’m no longer operating from survival, but rather that I’m operating from self-trust.)
I was aware that I had people-pleased and I took that as an opportunity for learning instead of shaming and beating myself up. I decided that the next time something similar happens, I need to ground myself and say, “That sucks that you don’t have a ticket, but I’m not going to be able to help you.” Or whatever the situation requires.
And, yes, that may feel uncomfortable in the moment. But it feels way less uncomfortable than abandoning myself.
The goal isn’t to ever people-please again. The goal is awareness, integration, and choosing yourself faster each time.
The goal is to become the kind of woman who notices misalignment early and respects herself enough to respond.
Progress, not perfection, is how self-trust is built.
And that’s what real growth actually looks like.
Glow Tip:
Safety Over Performance
If you keep telling yourself, “I should be better at this by now,” but your body still freezes at the thought of disappointing someone, your nervous system is still running the show.
Because performing feels safer than being seen, but it’s also why nothing actually changes.
For most of my life, I thought being agreeable, helpful, and low-maintenance was a strength. What I was really doing was keeping old survival identities alive, so I didn’t have to feel guilt, risk disapproval, or grieve who I was outgrowing.
Up-leveling doesn’t happen when you try harder. It happens when your nervous system feels safe enough to stop performing.
Safety isn’t a weakness. It’s regulating. When your body feels safe enough to choose yourself, it stops scanning for approval and starts orienting toward self-trust.
Grieving the version of you who survived by disappearing isn’t regression. It’s the initiation into the woman who no longer abandons herself to belong.
When you stop asking, “How do I keep everyone comfortable?” and start asking, “What standard am I available for now?” everything recalibrates: your boundaries, your confidence, your relationships.
That’s what real up-leveling looks like.
That’s what it means to shine from the inside.
If this story stirred something in you…
What we’re really talking about is approval addiction — the habit of outsourcing your safety, your worth, and your belonging to other people.
It’s self-abandonment.
People pleasing isn’t who you are. It’s a survival pattern your nervous system learned a long time ago, and intention threatens it.
That’s why I created the People Pleaser to Powerhouse: Break Free From Approval Addiction Masterclass.
https://www.runninginslippers.com/masterclass
It’s not about becoming colder, harder, or selfish. It’s about becoming safe being yourself.
I’m Angie Hawkins, Inner Glow Coach, and I help women stop chasing love and approval and start radiating it from within, so they can feel happy, free, and loved for who they are.
And I don’t teach this from theory. I teach it because I lived it.
Most self-help content gives you insight and leaves you inspired, but unchanged. This masterclass is different.
Every lesson includes clear, actionable steps designed to interrupt old habits and install new ones, in real time, in real life.
You won’t just understand why you people-please. You’ll learn exactly what to do differently in the moments that matter — conversations, decisions, boundaries, money, relationships — so your nervous system actually learns something new.
Insight creates awareness. Action rewires behavior. Behavior is how beliefs change.
Inside the People-Pleaser to Powerhouse Masterclass, you’ll learn how to:
Recognize approval addiction as a nervous-system survival response (not your personality)
Understand where these patterns came from without blaming yourself
Stay grounded when guilt shows up around boundaries
Dismantle the three core approval-seeking mindsets keeping you stuck
Stop performing for worth and start embodying it
Translate this work into real change in your relationships, confidence, and decisions
This is identity-level reprogramming, not motivation.
By the end of the masterclass, you won’t just know more, you’ll notice yourself:
pausing instead of panicking when someone is disappointed
saying no without over-explaining or spiraling
feeling calmer in your body during conflict or decision-making
choosing yourself without rehearsing a justification
trusting your inner voice more than outside opinions
That’s how you know the nervous system is learning.
If you’re done managing everyone else’s comfort, done performing for love, and done abandoning yourself to be chosen, then this is your next level.
You don’t need to try harder. You need to feel safe being yourself and know what to do when old patterns show up.
Join People-Pleaser to Powerhouse: Break Free From Approval Addiction
and let your success finally feel like freedom.
https://www.runninginslippers.com/masterclass
✨ Let’s turn your light back on without abandoning yourself to do it.
