People-Pleasing at Work: Breaking Free from the Performance Trap

When ‘being reliable’ becomes your only identity, you risk losing touch with who you truly are, beyond performance and productivity.

When Your Work Becomes Your Identity

You’re praised for being reliable, efficient, and always available. Your inbox is tidy, your deadlines are met, even when you’re sick or running on little sleep. Colleagues trust you to deliver. On the outside, you look like the picture of competence.

Inside, there’s another story. A quiet hollowness. A nagging question: Who am I when I’m not performing? And perhaps an even scarier one: Am I even allowed to stop?

This is the hidden cost of people-pleasing at work, a pattern that goes far beyond “being nice” and often stems from years of emotional survival strategies.

What People-Pleasing at Work Really Means

People-pleasing isn’t about being agreeable for the sake of kindness. It’s often a deeply ingrained way to feel safe. For many women, work offers the kind of predictability that early life relationships didn’t. Deadlines, performance reviews, and structured goals provide a clear set of rules.

If your self-worth has been tied to approval, those rules offer a sense of security. But they can also lock you into a cycle of over-performance.

Related Resource: Free Anxiety Quiz, uncover how your work patterns may be linked to stress or burnout.

Signs You’re Trapped in the Performance Cycle

In therapy, I often hear the same themes from high-achieving women who are stuck in this loop. You might notice:

• Saying “yes” even when your workload is overwhelming

• Apologising for asking questions or needing clarification

• Avoiding conflict at all costs to maintain harmony

• Feeling anxious or restless when work slows down

• Struggling to take full lunch breaks or proper holidays

• Equating your worth with productivity

Over time, your own needs fade. You become the reliable one, the fixer, the one who never drops the ball.

The Emotional Cost of Being “The Strong One”

On the outside, everything may look fine. On the inside, you may feel:

• Burned out yet unable to rest

• Disconnected from joy or hobbies outside of work

• Ashamed of needing help or support

• Anxious during downtime

• Unsure who you are beyond your job title

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) reports that in 2022/23, over 900,000 UK workers experienced work-related stress, depression, or anxiety. Many of these cases are linked to blurred boundaries, overwork, and people-pleasing behaviours.Read more on HSE statistics here.

Where the Pattern Begins: Early Life Lessons in Approval

Over-performance is rarely just about ambition. It often begins in childhood, when approval and affection were conditional on success or “being good”.

If you learned that:

• Love had to be earned through achievement

• Emotional needs were overlooked or dismissed

• Mistakes led to criticism rather than support

…then people-pleasing at work can feel almost automatic. It’s not just a choice, it’s an identity.

How Therapy Can Help You Step Out of the Role

Therapy is a safe place to examine these patterns without judgement. We explore questions like:

• Who did you have to become to be accepted or loved?

• Which parts of you were silenced in order to be “useful”?

• What does it mean to matter beyond productivity?

This process can involve grief for the years lost to over-functioning, but it also opens space for self-permission, to rest, to have boundaries, to be fully yourself.

Related Resource: Learn more about Therapy Services with Paula Miles and how one-to-one sessions can help you find balance.

Practical First Steps to Break the Cycle

While deeper change often happens in therapy, you can start shifting your relationship with work by:

1. Setting micro-boundaries — e.g., turning off email notifications after a certain hour.

2. Practising pause — delaying your “yes” until you’ve considered your own needs.

3. Taking guilt-free breaks — reclaiming your lunch hour as a time for rest, not catching up.

4. Noticing your self-talk — challenging the belief that you must “earn” your right to rest.

   
   

You Are More Than Your Output

If you’ve spent years tying your worth to your work, please know: this was a survival strategy, not a personal flaw. But it’s possible to change.

You are not your job title. You are not your productivity. You are a person, worthy of rest, connection, and care, even when you’re not “achieving” anything at all.

Take the next step: Book a free discovery call and start building a healthier relationship with work and with yourself.