People pleasing can be defined as altering your personality, or being of service to those around you to be more likable. Most of the time this is a survival skill developed from abuse or neglect as a way for us to have our basic needs met. It is a skill needed for survival that evolves into a habit, that we may consciously or subconsciously be aware of. The following are some of the detrimental effects it can have on your wellbeing;

• You sacrifice real connection. You aren't showing up as yourself but as a service to others, and  you will always wonder if you are loved for yourself or for what you do. Not being authentic in your relationships costs you the genuine connection you are looking for.
• It gets in the way of you finding true friends. You don't show up as yourself so all the quirky traits that make you, You, are pushed away for the benefit of others. Your true friends love that part of you the most, and when you hide those aspects you can't find the people that will fully accept you. These are also the friends that inspire growth in the right areas of life, since usually they think similarly to yourself. The friends you keep are essential for growth, just like plants, the better the environment we have the better we can grow.
• You sacrifice self-love in the pursuit of outside validation. Not allowing yourself to show up as your true self subconsciously enforces the idea that you aren't enough. This will only lead to more doubt within since you are neglecting to nurture all parts of yourself. Hiding the real you develops a shame about who you are and this only makes you question and change yourself more.
  
• You can create subconscious resentment towards others. When you use all of your energy to make everyone else happy, at the detriment of your own happiness, you create an invisible expectation. You are bound to burn out, and when you do you only feel like it is right that everyone you helped returns the favor. Unfortunately that isn't always possible and when they don't show up how you expected, you start to develop a hidden resentment towards them.
• It keeps you from being able to define yourself. If all your focus is going into ways to please others you can over look your natural skills and talents in the process. The only things you may see as valuable are going to be things that others find valuable and neglect to nurture your own gifts. Also in order to discover these gifts you need space and energy to invest in you, the two things that are usually first to be given to other people.
• You can lose yourself in the process. By constantly adapting and manipulating yourself to please others you tend to forget what version of you is the real you. The longer you do this, the longer it takes to get back to the real you.
• Having no boundaries or desire to say no can lead to being taken advantage of. Not everyone sees the world how you do, some people will see your need for validation or acceptance and use it to their advantage. They may manipulate you, emotionally abuse you, string you along and betray you just to get a step ahead. They know that you won't say no or if you do you can be easily convinced. This can cause you to lose self-trust and self-love and leave you with a mess to clean up.
• It will leave you feeling empty. Sometimes people pleasing is done in order to earn love and fill a void within ourselves; but you can never truly fill that void until you learn to love yourself enough to allow others to love the real you. 
• It can be the downfall of relationships. You want to prove to this person that you are worthy of their love so you do everything in your power to show up, to show them you love them. Not everyone sees love the same and can love in the same way. They may express their love to you but in a different way that you are blind to because you are attached to the idea that love is only about the acts of service. When you cannot see the way they may love you, you start to feel like all your efforts are for nothing and eventually the relationship ends.
• You lose out on experiencing unconditional love. Since the only way you feel worthy of love is by what you do for others, it can become the only way you view love, on a conditional ground. Not only does this effect the way you receive love but also the way you give love. In order to have that unconditional love you have to stop putting conditions on love to begin with.
• You're self-worth withers away, since you only see your worth through the lens of others. You only get to see a fraction of all the wonderful things within you because you only focus on a fraction of yourself. You are so much more that how others see you, but you have become obsessed with this one part and in the process neglected all the others.
• You are less likely to enjoy the time you spend with others. You are constantly looking for ways to help others and that keeps your mind distracted off the present moment. It also spikes your stress levels by having to be hyper vigilant on the needs of everyone else so gatherings become less fun for you. The worst part is sometimes you don't even realize why it's so draining.

People pleasing robs of of more than we may realize and can leave us feeling even more empty and abandoned. It is not your fault you developed this skill, but it is your responsibility to choose if you want to let it control you or if you want to fix it. You deserve to be loved, by yourself and others, just how you are!