Balance & Beyond Podcast

Have you ever thought that doing everything yourself is a sign of strength, only to find it leads to burnout and resentment?

That's exactly what happened to me. I used to believe my hyper-independence was my greatest asset until I realised it was a form of people-pleasing that left me feeling unappreciated and exhausted. Join me as I share the surprising ways people-pleasing can manifest in our lives, often without us knowing, and how it might be holding you back from true success and fulfilment.

Throughout this episode, we'll explore how patterns like resentment, the struggle for acceptance, and the tendency to prioritise "we" over "I" can deeply affect both personal and professional realms. These behaviours often mask deeper people-pleasing tendencies that can sabotage your career and relationships. I'll share insights from my journey and discuss how recognising and addressing these patterns has allowed me to reclaim my power and begin to feel truly seen in the workplace. Together, we'll uncover how childhood experiences shape these tendencies and how learning to delegate and trust others can open doors to unexpected opportunities and growth.

Finally, for leaders and entrepreneurs, the journey doesn’t end with recognition. It’s about fostering self-trust and intuition in environments where external feedback is scarce. We’ll discuss actionable strategies to break free from the cycle of seeking validation and tap into your true potential. Plus, I’ll introduce you to the Self-Sabotage Solution program—a chance to gain awareness and practical tools for transformation. Get ready to leave behind the cycle of procrastination and people-pleasing and step into a future where you lead with confidence and clarity.

If this resonates and you’re ready to get out of your own way, come and join us for the Self Sabotage Solution, a brand-new 4 week program starting 3rd February at www.balanceinstitute.com/selfsabotagesolution

Episode Transcript

INTRO: Welcome to Balance and Beyond, the podcast for ambitious women who refuse to accept burnout as the price of success. Here, we’re committed to empowering you with the tools and strategies you need to achieve true balance, where your career, relationships and health all thrive, and where you have the power to define success on your own terms. I honour the space you’ve created for yourself today, so take a breath, and let's dive right in…

If you are someone who has never resonated with the term “People Pleaser”, I want you to listen up. This episode is for you. At the moment, I'm very heavily focused on the self-sabotage traits that are holding women back. I've just run a two-part workshop on what you need for success in 2025. And what I have just launched is a brand new program called ‘The Self-Sabotage Solution’. I'll give you some more about that at the end of the show. 

But if you want to thrive and not just survive in 2025, we have to nip these programs in the bud. And the reason I wanted to do this episode is. I wasn't someone who ever really resonated with the term “People Pleaser”. I can hold boundaries, I could say no. And so, I used to dismiss anything about “people-pleasing” and go, “Oh, that doesn't apply to me”. And I see women in my programs do this all the time. 

However, as I went on my journey and learned more about what people pleasing actually is, oh my God! It smacked me in the face. And it gave me so many answers, because I didn't have awareness of what was really going on. I could never fix it. I could never get the right tool. Or, no strategy would ever work, beyond a bit of a band-aid, because I didn't know what the real problem was. 

Anybody in construction would say, “You need to get to the source of the leak”. You can't just, you know, put some duct tape on it and hope it goes away. So, I'm going to share with you today the three ways that my people pleaser was playing out that completely floored me. I've shared this with a few other clients and I've had, “Oh my God!” reactions. Many of them in my world know this, but I've never really called these out, this explicitly. 

So, let me share with you these three traits, how they played out in my life, and the most important piece is: “What was the impact this was having on me?” And usually, most of these impacts I'm going to share with you were subconscious. Because, on the surface, I was like, “Oh, I'm fine, I'm fine!” “This is a good thing!” And this is where a lack of self-awareness or, I guess you would say, almost “incorrect self-awareness” can be really dangerous. Because, I thought all of these traits were strengths. 

And to some extent, yes, they could be. And I was highly triggered by people who were the opposite. And yet, they were holding me back. Particularly at work. So I'm going to give you some real life examples. It's my turn to continue the vulnerability series of what has held me back. And, with the aim of you gleaning your own insights from this. So, a word that I have been very proud of for most of my life, has been the word “independent”. 

I think one of, probably, my earlier sentences was “I can do it myself.” “I can do it faster, better, more perfectly, so why give it to someone else, if I can do it?” I thought this was a really big strength of mine, because anything that you don't do yourself, I felt like that was an admission of failure. That I'm not superwoman. Truth is, this is just all fear, and hyper-independence is a very strong trait of people-pleasers, because people-pleasers can't ask for help. 

You have to do it all yourself, because you live in this mistaken reality, where asking somebody for help is going to mean they disapprove of you. That's the link. So, if they disapprove of you, then they're not going to like you, and therefore, you don't think you're safe. So, you'd rather take it all on yourself, do it all yourself. This can become, even, toxic independence, and then you can convince yourself that this is a strength. “I'm superwoman.” “I can do it all.” “It's fine.” As you know, it's not. 

And my pattern was my hyper independence, when I pushed it too far. And let's face it, as a recovering perfectionist and somewhat “all or nothing person” and “high achiever”, I would often push the hyper-independence too far, which is why I burnt out in the first place. It can very, very easily tip over into martyrdom. 

By this I mean “I'll do it all.” “It's fine!” “I'll get the dancing stuff.” “I'll take the kids.” “I'll do the cleaning.” “I'll do this thing, it's all on me!” This is a resentment-fueled tirade that erodes my joy, damages relationships and exhausts me. So, any time that you feel resentment, that's a sign that a boundary has been crossed. Which means, if you ever feel resentment, then I hate to break it to you, but there's some people-pleasing behavior at play. 

I know that can be really confronting, because we like to think of ourselves as strong, independent women who don't need a man, or don't need anyone to help us. But, the reality is, in robbing somebody else of the ability to help us, or to contribute, we're, in effect, saying “There's no room in our life for you.” That hurts, doesn't it? “There's no room in my life for you.” “I'm going to live on an island, completely self-sufficient, doing it all myself!” 

And, the reality is, we know that's not true. We know that's what burns us out. And I used to get incredibly resentful, because of this hyper independence. When other people asked me for help, I would judge them. “Slackers.” “Lazy.” “Why can't they do it all themselves?” “They're not doing it all themselves.” “They're not doing it to the same standard.” “They're putting themselves first.” “They're being selfish.” Yeah, massive triggers for me. 

And I used to walk around with a lot of this … “pent up rage” is probably a word I would use for it, and throwing this judgment on other people. Simply because I wasn't able to do that myself. What I had to learn to do was, I had to learn to actually delegate, to stop being a martyr, to recognize when I was falling into martyrdom and to go, “Whoa, okay, why am I doing this?” “What do I actually need right now?” “How can I ask for help?” “How can I be vulnerable and reframe all of this?” “Not as a weakness, but about me opening up my life for other people in it?” 

And I remember when I went through, my company was going through a hostile takeover. It was one of the acquisitions of 2013, which I also happened to be heavily pregnant in. So it was at that point in time, where I'm waking up with messages from my chairman, about another hostile bid coming before market-open. Meanwhile, having my head down the toilet, because I had severe morning sickness. I was like, “Oh god, I can't write that press release, I can't write that staff comms, I'm gonna have to delegate this, I'm gonna have to outsource this”. 

And it was at that moment that I learned there's huge opportunities for learning for me, and how to delegate better, and letting other people step up to the plate. Ironically, as someone who wanted to do it all, I used to get really cheesed off when I had managers who wouldn't delegate to me. So that's just a mirror, right? Making me cheesed off at myself. And so, if there's any part of you that likes to do it yourself, that is hyper independent. Then, this is having a really, really big impact on you at work, on your career success. 

The next trend, you could say, or symptom, or way of operating that I didn't realise was doing me a huge disservice, this one was particularly true at work was, I would always put “we” before “I”. I was always talking about the team. “This is what we accomplished, this is what the team did!” It was, ironically, what sits behind this was a continual quest for acceptance, to be liked, to fit in. 

Because, if I put myself above the team, what did that mean about me, then? If I assumed I was their leader, even if hierarchically I was, if I took credit for the team, then they would kick me out of the tribe. And if I was kicked out of the tribe, then they wouldn't like me. And then my reptilian brain goes, “Oh, you can't survive, if you leave the tribe”. And so, I would lower myself, I would minimize myself. 

I really struggled to talk about my own achievements, and what I did. And, interestingly, I was also highly triggered by these alpha males who would walk in, typically, who would walk into a meeting. “I did this”, “I did that”, “I did this.” and I knew full well that they hadn't done any of it, and they were taking credit, in my mind, where credit wasn't due. And, to me, that was a disservice to everybody. It was dishonest. To me, it was unethical! 

But, the reality was, those individuals were just mirrors of the thing that I knew I needed to do more of and, of course, they may have been at one extreme end of the spectrum. But I never felt like I could do that. This was heavily rooted in my childhood, as all these traits are, where I spent a lot of my childhood feeling rejected by my half siblings, who never really showed any interest in me. And so, I thought, “If I talk about us, if I talk about my siblings and I, if I talk about the family, well then, maybe they'll accept me”. “Maybe they will see me”. 

I remember I had a particularly difficult performance review with one of my … he was on the executive team at the time, and I'd sat down for my performance review. I'd done lots of preparation with this huge list of all these things that I'd accomplished. I remember, he looked at me and he said, “Oh”, he said, “Well, the rating I gave you …” I was used to getting five out of five. “I've given you a four.” Which was like, exceeds, but not exceptional. Whatever those numbers are. He said, “Because you never shared this before, you never told me that you did that.” “You told me it was the team, and I know you manage the team, but I assumed that that was happening around you.” 

He had no idea the role I was playing in instigating things, or the role I was playing in managing stakeholders, because I never shared it! I never, ever took credit. So I was passed over for promotion. I felt overlooked. I felt unappreciated. Somebody who did all the claiming, who massively triggered me, got a big bonus, and I didn't. And I wanted to strangle him. I was like, “This is so not fair!” “I've deserved this!”

And I would rant, and I would rave, and I drove my husband nuts, because I would talk about it. And at one point, he turned to me. He said, “Well, you're just gonna have to start talking about yourself more.” And that was so foreign to me, it was so uncomfortable. Because, in my family “You don't blow your trumpet, you might get a big head.” And, even though, well, I've got an English father, so that can be the English thing. Where, you know, “You don't boast, you don't brag.” But, the good old ‘Australian tall poppy syndrome’ where you don't poke your head above the parapet. 

And, for some reason, alpha men seem to do okay at it, and they got rewarded for it. And yet so many women talk about the “we”, never about the “I”. It was really, really challenging for me. I had to do a lot of work on this, and I remember I had a brilliant mentor, one of my chairman, who sat me down. I was on the exec team at this point in time. He said “Jo, if you're not spending 20% of your time promoting yourself, or your team, you're not going to go anywhere.” 

I was like “What?” “I don't have time to do that!” “Do you see my list?” “Do you know how much is on my plate?” And he said, “You need to reprioritise.” He was right. No surprise, the moment I started doing that, it was incredibly uncomfortable. I had to do so much work on myself. This was where I built a lot of the tools that I teach to my clients now. I got my first chief APAC role about four months after that, because I became more comfortable taking credit, and not where credit wasn't due, but just speaking to what I had done, speaking to my accomplishments, and not from a boastful place. 

What really triggered me about those alpha men, was it was implied that they were sharing the thing, they'd done the thing alone, to the exclusion of everyone else. I was very happy to give credit to the team, or for a team effort, but what I found is, I had to say, “I guided the team”, “I managed the team”. “This was my idea.” “This was going sideways, and I brought it back on.” So, I could still give the team credit, but I wasn't giving myself enough. 

As part of that, and this is one of the major things that I see holds women back, and it's a core trait of being a people-pleaser. Your desire for acceptance is sabotaging your career. So, if you are currently feeling overlooked, unappreciated, underpaid, feel like people are going around you, feeling like you don't get any credit, take a look at your language, and I guarantee, you are sabotaging yourself in this way. The beauty of this is really, I wouldn't say, easy to fix. It's relatively simple to fix, once you understand the root cause of it. 

Lastly, one of the final pieces that is a really, really interesting trait of a people pleaser, that I never really linked together, was I used to have quite a constant need for external validation. And not even necessarily validation, but feedback. By this I mean, “Good job, well done!” “Yes, that's on the right track!” And I used to, almost, like a puppy, go up to some bosses early on in my career and do something, and almost be waiting for a “Good job, Jo!” Which is good girl syndrome completely at play. 

We are taught to do something, and then our parents say, “Good girl, good girl!” Just like a dog. You know, she sits, and you say, “Good girl, here!” “Have a treat!” This is essentially how we're raised! We're raised to perform! I remember being complimented, being at a gala dinner as an only child who mostly grew up as an only child. You know, going to work conferences and things with my dad overseas, and being an, I don't know, seven, eight year old, sitting through a gala dinner in my fancy dress. 

No devices, no iPad, just a colouring book, and some dodgy crayons, and being praised for being so quiet, and being praised for being well behaved. Is it any wonder that that becomes like a dopamine hit, and that almost becomes addictive for us. Like, “Okay, tell me more, tell me more.” “That felt good!” “My parents are beaming at me.” So, it starts off with parental approval. 

This is also what makes us perfectionistic, by the way. but the other side effect of this is not only did I have this need for feedback, I would ask for feedback, and if I ever got anything that was remotely critical, especially if it impacted other people, or impacted the team, I would stew on that for days, sometimes weeks, and it would sting. Oh, it would hurt so bad. 

That feeling, that drop in your stomach, when you realise that you've made a mistake. Or when someone says to you, you know, “That wasn't your best work”, or when someone says to you “That's not good enough.” Or “I expected better from you.” Oh, it just feels like this horrific stab to the heart. 

What happens, though, is as you move up the ranks, you get less and less feedback, so you have no one. When you're on the executive team, no one tells you you're doing a good job. You get told, sometimes, if you've made a mistake. You get told if, you know, your team's not performing, or you get told if, okay, here you go, now slash, you know, slash your budget by 20%. But you don't get praise. 

And so, when that equation flips and all you're ever given is—I wouldn't even say it's not even negative feedback; it's just neutral. It's the absence of any of it. You go hunting for it, and you have all these really interesting sabotage programs that you use. I was going out and collaborating, ceasing the world, getting buy-in, simply because I didn't back myself. And, once again, I used to be really triggered by people who just did stuff and didn't get buy-in. 

Now, every culture is different. You have to be careful with that. But there is a difference between excessive collaboration and collaboration where you're collaborating simply to validate your decision or to validate that you're on the right path. That's people-pleasing, my friends. That's people-pleasing at its core. It makes you sound a lot less confident and can really damage your standing because people start to question your judgment. If everything you do involves getting buy-in and feedback, sometimes you just need to make a decision and apologize later.

What I realized is part of the reason for my excessive collaboration was because I was completely disconnected from my intuition. I had no idea what I thought. I was data, numbers, and facts-driven, and there was a part of me that had lost track of this internal guidance system. So I had to go on this journey to deliberately cultivate this muscle. Those of you who have been in our world, particularly those of you who are in the Alliance, which is our backend program, know that I've done a lot of work on this over time. By the way, it's coming to you in 2025. But it's been something that has opened up everything.

I started to learn this when I was still in corporate, but it's something that I've had to really turn up as an entrepreneur because I don't have a boss. It's me. I've got no one telling me, "Good decision," "Great decision," or "That was crap." I have to completely fly blind. And so, as somebody who really leaned into all of that, this entrepreneurial path has really tested that side of me and, frankly, ripped a lot of those weeds out from the roots because there was just no one else to go to.

So these are some of the really fascinating ways that your people pleaser—whether you recognize it or not—shows up. You could call it your hyper-independence. You could call it your excessive collaboration, your team-first attitude. You could call it your need for feedback or the tendency to take things personally. This is how it is sabotaging you.

The best part is, yes, I know this can hurt. Yes, this can be confronting, but you're doing this to yourself. No one is making you do it. No one is rewriting your language. No one is forcing you to excessively collaborate, except you. Can you imagine what could be possible when you stop a lot of these behaviors, which are much easier to stop when you understand them better—when you understand the neuroscience of how we attach, where this comes from, and how your brain is actually designed? 

Now we can put tools in place to stop the excessive collaboration and allow you to blow your own trumpet with a script that makes you feel comfortable doing it, rather than feeling completely out of alignment and like an alpha wanker who completely triggers you. I want you to ensure that you can progress and reach your potential without these programs running. It’s like you’ve got one hand tied behind your back, leaning into working harder, pushing more, and yet nothing ever changes, because you’re the one with your other hand on the handbrake tied behind your back. This is sucking energy. It’s sucking joy. This is why we call it sabotage—because you are in your own way.

If any of this resonates, we have just opened up the doors to the Self-Sabotage Solution. This is the first time I'm actually taking modules specifically from the normal 12-week Balance and Beyond program and delivering them in a different way. So, this is at a different price point. I've never offered anything at this level before. This is your opportunity to come in for four weeks as a cohort. We've got live calls every week, and this is your chance to go deep on these three parts—on your perfectionist, your procrastinator, and your people-pleaser.

Whether you think you have one or not, chances are I would say 97% that this is impacting you in more ways than you know. So this is the solution to get out of it. If you want to find out more, we'll put details in the show notes, but we start on the 3rd of February. This is your opportunity I mentioned. I've never done this before. I don't know if I'll ever do it again. This is your chance to get access to modules. You're going to have a live call with me every week where I'm teaching you live. 

I'm teaching not only the neuroscience behind all of these patterns but, most importantly, the exact strategies that you're going to need to stop the people-pleasing. So I'm not just about awareness—yes, awareness is everything—but I know that one of my zones of genius is giving you practical tools that will allow you to actually make change. I want you to reach your potential. I want you to get out of your own way because you are brilliant. You have so much potential. I've just got to get you moving, my friend.

So come and join us. Check the link in the show notes. If you've never done anything with us before, this is perhaps your first—and maybe only—opportunity to access a portion of what we do at this price point, which is more accessible to more people at the start of the year. Have a magical rest of your day. Here's to changing all your people-pleasing tendencies—or whatever you want to call it.

OUTRO: Thank you for joining us today on the Balance and Beyond Podcast. We're so glad you carved out this time for yourself. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend who might need to hear this today. And if you're feeling extra generous, leaving us a review on your podcast platform of choice would mean the world. If you’re keen to dive deeper into our world, visit us at www.balanceinstitute.com to discover more about the toolkit that has helped thousands of women avoid burnout and create a life of balance, and beyond. Thanks again for tuning in, and we'll see you next time on the Balance & Beyond Podcast.