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PODCAST EPISODE

#23: Why We Fear Letting Others Down: The Psychology of Control and Consistency

23-why-we-fear-letting-others-down

What to do when you (or your clients) are struggling with people-pleasing behavior but are okay with letting themselves down will struggle to achieve their wellness goals.

The best way to stop being a people pleaser is to learn why you fear letting others down.

In this episode, I explore why we fear disappointing others, the biological need for control, and the discomfort of inconsistency. Learn how to shift your mindset, manage cognitive dissonance, and focus on your own self-worth while navigating life’s challenges.

Get my 5 FREE lessons in behavior change and mindset. These lessons will help you coach your clients to overcome all-or-nothing thinking and fixed mindset, stop self-sabotage, develop more self-control, and increase motivation and follow-through.

Episode Highlights

>>(10:16) One place people pleasing comes from not being able to control the narrative or how people feel.

>>(14:15) People pleasing comes from a desire to be, or at least appear to be, consistent.

>>(16:45) Another reason people are more likely to worry about pleasing others and not worrying about themselves is the fear of abandonment.

>>(19:27) The importance of being there for yourself rather than focusing so much on people-pleasing.

Listen to the full episode to understand why we neglect our own needs but have people-pleasing tendencies.

Click here to listen!

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Episode’s Full Transcript

[00:00:00] Hello, welcome back. You know, when I started this podcast thing. I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t actually just like speaking into a microphone. I wanted to be able to record it on video for those of you that are watching on YouTube. Hello. I love you. Nice to see ya. Um, chop up the YouTube video, turn it into Instagram reels, basically be able to split this as many ways as possible and turn it into many different pieces of content.

The thing that I didn’t think about. Was the fact that I have to actually look presentable every time I record a podcast. Like, the number of times I’ve been like, this is, would be so much easier if I could just look like a gremlin instead of my couch and talking to my microphone. Instead of [00:01:00] having to put myself together for camera.

And I know, I know, like, I don’t have to, theoretically, right? But I don’t want to see my reels popping up on my Instagram page if I’m looking like a gremlin. So, I bring this up because, um, I got a, a facial peel this week on Monday. Today is Wednesday. That took far too long. It is a Wednesday, I go to den Monday.

It was like a salicylic acid peel. For those of you who are like, not into skincare or this is like, just, you’re like, a salawada. Um, it’s essentially just like a, a low, a lower tier chemical peel. Like it’s not super intense. And I use a lot of like, active ingredients. Um, I have very acne prone skin, so I can handle a lot like, more like oily skin.

So I can handle a lot when it comes to, like, sloughing off layers of my skin. Gross. You’re gonna be like, [00:02:00] Casey, get to the mindset stuff. But listen, I got a story, okay? Um, and so I did that on Monday and she was like, you probably won’t peel a ton. I’ll probably just kind of dry flaky, whatever. And And I’m going to an event tonight Wednesday night and she’s like by Wednesday you might start and I’m like Let’s hope that it’s holds off like through Thursday but it is like you I don’t even know if you can see it because I just tried to like kind of fix it on my face, but I went and looked at myself in the mirror before I sat down to record this and was like wow I literally have like pieces of skin like kind of peeling off and i’m not sure it would be happening if I didn’t put Makeup on but that’s kind of like What’s causing it, I think.

Um, anyway, I say all of this because I’m like, now having massive, massive visions of a chemical peel that I had, oh my god, like, this time last year. Like, almost exactly this time last year. That’s crazy. For those of you who have been following me on Instagram for a while, at least a year, you would have seen I actually broke my [00:03:00] wrist because of the peel, the chemical peel that I got.

And I was not given enough information about this chemical peel, and when I tell you, my entire face, like, froze. And peeled off in like massive chunks. Actually, Isaiah, for those of you that are watching YouTube, why don’t we throw up a photo of what my face looked like? Um, and Isaiah is my video editor, for those of you who are like, why didn’t she just say a random name?

Um, so let’s put that up there for the people to see. Um, And it was also during an HMCC launch week. So I went in thinking like, I’m going to take an hour away from computer screens, do this for myself, like self care. And she was like, I think we should try this peel. And I’m like, okay, I’m going to Bermuda this weekend.

And I also have to be on camera a bunch this week. So it can’t be like anything intense. And she was like, no, it’ll, it’ll peel, it’ll go away like pretty quickly. I think you’ll be fine. It would, I was not fine. It was certainly not fine. And then I had a friend moving to Austin where I live that weekend too, like right before I was leaving for [00:04:00] Bermuda, wrapping up the HMCC launch.

And so we were going to go out to dinner and my face is peeling off. So I was like, you know what? Fuck it. I’m still going to go. I’m still going to go with my face peeling off in sheets. And I wore a hat. I wore a sun hat. And then I got on a scooter. And the hat started to blow away and, like, your initial reaction on the scooter is to, like, grab the hat as it’s flying away.

So I did that, but then forgot that I do not have any balance at all. I’m the least coordinated person to walk this planet. And I fell, obviously. It was not a hard fall, and I had literally just, like, started to accelerate. That’s why the hat was flying off. Um, but I think the way I landed and, like, Every ounce of my weight on this specific bone in my wrist, it broke.

However, I didn’t know it broke. I just thought I, like, sprained it or something, got back on the scooter, went to dinner, wrist was swelling, my friend was like, maybe we should go to Urgent Care, and I was like, [00:05:00] no, I have a flight to Bermuda at 6 a. m. tomorrow, and she was like, then we should definitely go to Urgent Care.

So I go, and the Urgent Care ladies are like, we’re just like, joking around, having a great time, and I was like, just tell me, is it broken? Like, you see stuff like this all the time, and she’s like, well, we can’t really say, and I was like, yeah, but you saw the x ray, and she goes, honey, it’s broken, and I’m like, sick.

Um, Didn’t fly to Bermuda the next day. Went to see an orthopedic surgeon instead, who said. But the fracture was so bad I needed surgery to set it correctly, so I did not go to Bermuda. I did sit on my couch for like the next week. What was great is that my friend who just moved here during that time, she moved across the street from me.

And I live in an area of Austin where I don’t have other friends very close by. So, and she also was waiting on her furniture to arrive, so she like didn’t really have a place to stay. Like, she was going to stay at my place when I was in Bermuda, so instead she got to stay at my place and be like my, at home nurse.

So things, like, oddly worked out. Like, there’s a reason I was [00:06:00] not supposed to go to Bermuda, I think, during that time. Uh, I’ve since been back to Bermuda twice. Uh, I have friends who live there, so I’m in Bermuda a lot. So it wasn’t like, uh, I’m missing out on, like, a, a massive, like, opportunity to go to, like, this exotic island I’ve never been to before.

Um, in fact, I’m going to Bermuda in two weeks. So, which, you know, great timing now that I’m thinking about it. But, anywho. We have, uh, a little bit of PTSD when it comes to chemical facial peels, but now I know all of the questions to ask and I’m very cautious about it. This, what I got done to my face, was nothing, literally nothing, close to, uh, what happened on that dark day.

But anyway, should we talk about mindsets? Jeez. And I actually have, like, a very different type of topic for you, and this came from my girl Hayley. If she’s listening, she is a Health Mindset Coaching Certification graduate, so she’s a previous student. [00:07:00] She’s actually in Level 2 with us right now, and we are talking about something that she brought up with me today, and she said that this came up, um, in a client call, and it was a very interesting question, and she brought it to me, and she was like, I would love to hear your perspective on this.

And I was like, you know what? I’m going to do a podcast. I’ll do you one better. Let’s do a podcast episode. Um, because I thought it was really interesting, and I think you may find it interesting, too. So, the question at hand is, And like, trying to understand, the thing that we’re trying to understand here is that Haley’s client came to her and said, It doesn’t really matter if I’m disappointing myself, but if I know I’m going to let someone else down, like at work or elsewhere, that is the top priority.

And then the question becomes, why is that? Why is [00:08:00] it that we may be okay, hunky dory, with disappointing ourselves, but if it means we’re going to disappoint someone else outside of us, like, don’t take me there. Right? Like, what, what’s up with that? What’s up with that? And to some degree, we would almost kind of want it to be the opposite, right?

We should, Want to care more about, like, disappointing ourselves, like, we are our own life partner. You’re the only, you are the only person in your life that’s guaranteed to be there for frickin forever. But yet we’re so worried about What other people think and obviously there’s like different ways to look at this, right?

Like one could be I’m just concerned what other people think of me I don’t want to like disappoint their like belief or like vision of who I am or It could be that like I’m dropping the ball on something that I said I would do, you know Like those are different things like being concerned with how people see you versus not wanting to let your [00:09:00] loved ones down different things Right?

So, with that said, but just like talking in general about why we care more about disappointing others than disappointing ourselves. Like, where does this stem from and why? And I had to like, I had to noodle on this for a second. I actually came up with like three, I’m sure there are many things, right?

This is a complex, multifaceted pondering. But three things I came up with that I’m like, that came to me pretty quickly from a psychological perspective. The first one is that you can adjust the narrative. You can control your feelings around a situation, you can give yourself grace, you can see the whole picture of something, like, why you may have not been able to do something after you said you were going to do it.

You can control all of that. But you can’t control. What other people think, what their perception is, why they see things a certain way, and [00:10:00] how they are connecting the dots and building a picture and creating a narrative for themselves. Like, you can’t actually control that. Like, you obviously give them information and try to direct the narrative in a certain way, but ultimately you don’t have control.

So, in situations where you’re worrying about letting someone else down, this often feels worse. Because we don’t have control over the situation. So it feels even worse to let someone else down versus letting yourself down. Because you at least can go, okay, well, there’s a reason that all of this happened and I can see it for what it is.

I can tell that other person that, but they’re probably still going to feel let down. Right? And you don’t like that. You don’t like that you can’t control that situation. Biologically, we crave control because we crave safety. And that’s where it’s kind of like embedded in. And I actually grabbed this quote from Lauren Lee Lioti, I think is how you say her last name.

She’s a researcher at Rutgers. She said, The need for [00:11:00] control is a biological imperative for survival. The perception of control is not only desirable, but it is a psychological So belief in your ability to exert control over your environment, of situations, to produce a desired result, which in this case would be like to not disappoint someone else, to not let someone else down, that is essential to your well being.

So. It makes sense in this case. Why would we care so much more about this situation? Because we feel like we can’t control it, and we feel like we want to be, we, we feel best when we feel like we have some sense of control over our environment in a situation to create some sort of desired result. And this is not something that we learn, it’s something innate, it’s biologically motivated.

If we are in control of our environment and can predict what’s going to happen, we are more likely to survive. [00:12:00] And that is, plain and simple, why we care to feel in control. Which we all understand, like, that that is something that we desire, right? But you probably didn’t even thought about it that in this type of situation where we’re more upset disappointing someone else than ourselves because of this lack of control of the situation.

So kind of interesting, like, if you think about it, if you knew you could control someone’s reaction or feelings after you don’t follow through on something, or do what you said you were going to do. then you probably wouldn’t worry so much about it if you could guarantee that they’re actually not going to be upset and you could, you could control that situation.

And in some cases you can, right? Like, you know, like, they’re going to understand why I was not able to do this thing for them, and so they will be less disappointed because of it. So we feel better in those situations because we feel like we can actually control their reaction. So, Here’s the thing with this, too.

It doesn’t actually have to be actual, tangible control. [00:13:00] If you believe that you have control over the situation, that’s already going to be enough to alleviate any of, like, the negative feelings that are involved with it. And this is like, you know, mindset matters or something. Your belief about your ability to control is enough to start to make you feel better.

It doesn’t actually have to be that you for sure can control it. Interesting, right? That makes sense. Makes a lot of sense. Alright, the second thing, the second reason why psychologically we may be, uh, Feeling okay to disappoint ourselves, but not so much disappointing other people. Is that, as humans, we like to be consistent, or at least appear to be consistent.

So if we say we’re going to do one thing, then are witnessed by other people. doing the opposite, or we say we really care about someone and then [00:14:00] drop the ball on doing something that was important for them. Obviously that sucks because we do care about that person. And so if I say like, you’re a close friend of mine and I said I would do this thing for you and I like totally blanked, I totally forgot, like that sucks and it doesn’t feel good because you do care about that person.

But it also, you are, inconsistent with who you are trying to be with that person and maybe who you’ve been in the past. Like that, there’s this mismatch of who you are, who you’re trying to be, and what you’re actually doing. And that is being witnessed by someone else. And that does not feel good. You, if you care to be a reliable, a loyal, person, friend, partner, then you care about consistency.

Like you care about showing up as a consistent person, like consistent with who you’ve been in the past, what you say you’re going to do. And obviously this happens within ourselves too. And this shows up in [00:15:00] the form of something called cognitive dissonance. And that is this discomfort that you feel when your behavior does not align with your values and your beliefs.

So it’s that like friction that of, I, I really value this thing. I really want to be this person. I really, I have this goal that I’m really, that’s really important to me. But the thing that I’m doing is not in alignment with those things. Like that’s, that’s cognitive dissonance. And it’s having this, like, two, like, two contradictory beliefs at the same time, like, I want this instant gratification now, but I also want this, like, long term goal, and the instant gratification is not going to serve that long term goal.

Cognitive dissonance at its finest. But again, this feels worse when someone else bears witness to it. And that could kind of be an aspect of painting this picture as to why we may feel worse when disappointing someone else than disappointing ourselves. [00:16:00] All right, number three. And this was actually the first one that I thought of.

I immediately was like, well, this is a social thing. This is a, like, tribe mentality thing and a fear of abandonment thing, and that was the first thing I thought of. Like, any time other people are involved, like, I come back to this idea, like, this, this biological wiring that we have that, Having a group of people means we’re more likely to survive.

So if we go back to like, caveman, cavewoman days, and the way that we survived was because we were part of a group of people. Being an individual, Out in the middle of nowhere, facing saber toothed tigers, poisonous berries, all of the things, that was not, like, your likelihood of survival was very, very small.

And also, like, how are you going to reproduce and, like, continue creating [00:17:00] this community and doing the thing that we, as, as the animals that we are, we so, we so desire to do is to reproduce and procreate and everything, like, you just, like, you would not survive. The end, right? And a lot of that stuff still exists in our wiring as humans, and we are social creatures by nature.

So if we are disappointing other people, we may essentially uh, Turn that into a, a feeling of like, oh, I’m going to get, I’m going to get exiled from the group, right? When we feel like we’re disappointing other people or letting them down, that translates to sort of a strike against us in some way. And then, like I said, we’re going to get exiled, we’re going to get left out in the cold, we’re going to be fed to the saber toothed tigers.

Like, I know that sounds ridiculous in the way that I’m putting it, but that’s literally how we’re wired. So. Things [00:18:00] like fear of failure, fear of success, these other massive psychological fears that we have as humans are pretty high on the list, but without other people, we’re dead. So, at least that’s how we’ve evolved, right?

To be dependent on others for survival, for procreation, all of these things. Again, my first thought was the reason we’re, we feel so much worse disappointing other people than we do disappointing ourselves is because we need other people in order to survive and like continue on the human race. I know that sounds like kind of crazy to like zoom out that far, but welcome to human psychology.

And on that note, I know, It’s really easy to get tripped up on just, like, what other people think. And we all do it, and we’re, we compare ourselves, and because we are social creatures and it’s important to us to have these relationships. And it’s important to us, not just, like, for psychological well [00:19:00] being, but to survive.

Like, it truly is. But keep in mind, who is the person that you are spending the most time with? And I know, I know that I’m so cliche by even saying this. But. Your forever partner is yourself. I started the episode saying this, and I need to end it here, too. I encourage you, of course, to be a good person, to follow through on your word, to have integrity and show up for the people that you care about.

But the approval of others indicates nothing about your worth. And only you, my friends, have the power to determine that. And I will leave you. I will leave you with that. I hope this episode was interesting for you. It was a little bit different, but it was fun for me. Honestly, please, send me more stuff like this.

It was amazing that I, like, basically had a podcast episode written just by having Haley send this [00:20:00] in. So, if anything comes up for you where you’re like, I’d love to, like, understand the psychology behind this thing. Or, I had a client say this to me, like, what could I potentially say to her? Or, how do I, how do I navigate this situation?

Shoot it over. I may not, like, I’m, maybe I’m getting over my head here because if I end up with like 100 DMs, I’m going to be like, oh my god, I’m so sorry. Now I can’t get to all of these, but I will do my best to kind of like sift through them. Um, but yeah, I appreciate you being here. As always, thank you for listening.

Thank you for giving me some of your time. Oh my gosh, the fact that you fit me into your day makes me so grateful. Thank you. Seriously. And I will see you next [00:21:00] [00:22:00] time.

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