Advice from a former member of the people pleaser club

When I was little, I was fearless. I sang in a band, had a tight-knit group of friends, and wore homemade horse-print pants my mum sewed for me. I knew exactly who I was, and I wore that girl proudly. But then I went to high school, and my self esteem and confidence crumbled like a dry sand castle on a windy beach. Suddenly, I was at that brutal age where self-image felt like everything. Sandals weren’t cool, homemade clothes definitely weren’t cool, and standing out suddenly felt dangerous. Every day became a battle in my head, trying to reshape myself into someone “cool enough” to belong. 

Ever since then, even fifteen years later, I’ve been trying to find my way back to that confident little girl. I wrote this blog for the younger version of myself, and these are the things I wish someone had told her. 

1. People will judge you no matter what 

People will have opinions about you no matter what you do, so you may as well do what you want. 

When I decided to move to London, people had all sorts of opinions. Some said London was not a great place to go, and that the work would be too difficult. Others made subtle comments about why I would choose to spend my savings on moving abroad when I could buy a house instead. I moved anyway. When I started my blog, some said it was too much about being single, while others said I should write more about living abroad instead of advice or relationships. It started to feel like no matter what I wrote, it would never be quite right for everyone. I wrote it anyway. 

If I could tell my younger self anything, it would be this: don’t be afraid to start something new or put yourself out there. We are tiny specks of dust in an enormous universe, and life is far too short to shrink yourself because of other people’s opinions, especially when those opinions will exist anyway. And perhaps most importantly, I’ve learned that people’s negative opinions are often more of a reflection of them than they are of you.

2. Choose depth over popularity 

   
   

I was a crippling member of the people-pleasing club. Over the years, I’ve had to learn the hard way that the only person you can truly rely on is yourself, and if you rely on other people for validation, it rarely ends well. 

One of my favourite phrases is “a friend to all is a friend to none.” I’ve been to parties where I’ve met incredibly confident people. I remember one particular work party where I was chatting to a girl I’d only met a handful of times. The moment she saw me, she ran over and gave me a huge hug, telling me how happy she was to see me and how glad she was that I came. But a few minutes later, I noticed her eyes drifting around the room. Before I knew it, she had run over to another girl and was saying the exact same things to her. I didn’t see her again for the rest of the night.

Some of my closest friendships have come from the more reserved people in the room, the ones who stand at the edges of parties, taking a little longer to open up. I have found those are often the friendships that last the longest. I like to think of them as coconuts. Harder to crack open, but soft underneath. In my experience, these friends have turned out to be the most loyal and steady in my life. It is far better to have a small circle of genuine, devoted people than a large circle of lukewarm, surface-level connections. And if you happen to find both, you are very lucky indeed.

3. It’s a good thing if not everyone likes you

I would tell my younger self that you should almost strive for not everyone to like you. Everyone in the world is different. We all have different morals, interests, humour, passions, and ways of seeing life. And a lot of people who desperately want to fit in end up suppressing the very things that make them interesting. Their favourite colours might be orange and yellow, but they wear pastel blues because it’s what’s trending. They might secretly love thriller novels, but never mention it because smutty romantasy is what everyone else is reading right now. The older I get, the more I realise that the most magnetic people are usually the ones who let themselves be fully themselves without shame. 

I would tell my younger self this: when you stop trying to be liked by everyone, you finally start being seen for who you actually are.

4. The right person will love you without wanting you to change

My single girl era came to a dizzying halt about eight months ago. I was truly living my best life, and for the first time in a long time, I felt completely like myself. I was proud of the woman I had become on my own after years in a relationship where I slowly lost sight of who I was.

And then I met Liam.

From the moment I got to know him, there was something about him that felt different. He was reserved, yet intentional. Sweet in a quiet, unforced way, and incredibly caring in ways that are not immediately loud, but deeply felt. With him, I felt calm in a way I did not realise I had been missing. There was no need to perform or overthink, just an ease in being exactly as I was. 

If I could tell my younger self anything, it would be this: he will come along one day, and it will be worth the wait. The right person will not ask you to shrink, soften, or change a single part of who you are. They will simply make room for you.

5. It’s better to be lonely than have toxic friendships

Like they say, it’s better to be thirsty than drink poison. It sounds dramatic, but it’s true. When I was living back in Australia, I really struggled with friendships. I was living in a small town, and a lot of people had already formed their friendship groups, so it often felt difficult to find my way in. When I finally met a girl I clicked with, I was so relieved to have found someone. But after a few weeks, once we started spending more time together, she began making subtle comments about my personality that really hurt me. I remember driving home from her place feeling completely deflated. Deep down, though, a part of me kept thinking at least I have someone. Surely having someone was better than having no one at all?

But what I didn’t understand at the time was that being alone is far less lonely than being around people who slowly make you feel small. When I moved to London, I didn’t know a single person. It was the first time in my life that I was truly starting from scratch. But this time, I approached friendships differently. After social events, I would consciously ask myself did this person make me feel lighter or heavier? I think that’s part of the reason I’ve built such beautiful friendships here in London. I became intentional about the kinds of people I wanted around me. I know now that friendships should feel safe, energising, and easy to return to, not something you need to recover from afterwards. And maybe there’s truth to the saying that what you are is what you attract. 

6. Rejection feels like loss, but it isn’t

I remember getting a trial week teaching at this gorgeous school in Notting Hill when I first moved to London. It felt perfect. Notting Hill had always been my dream, so teaching there felt like a dream come true. Then, all of a sudden, the job went to someone else. I was devastated, tearing up on the phone to my mum, convinced the best opportunity had slipped through my fingers and that I should have tried harder.

Not long after, I was offered a position at a school on the complete opposite side of London, in the less glamorous north east. Two years later, I wouldn’t change it for the world. The teachers there are so welcoming and feel like a work family. I have some of the most lovely students, and a work-life balance I absolutely love. 

At the time of that rejection, my mind was full of “what if” scenarios and I was romanticising the idea of teaching in Notting Hill. Looking back, an even better opportunity came along, one with a shorter commute, warmer staff, and so many experiences I will always be grateful for.

Something I have learned is that when we get rejected, especially from something we haven’t fully experienced, (like a situationship that never became a relationship or an opportunity that was dangled in front of us and then taken away), it often hurts more because we romanticise what could have been rather than what it actually was. And most of the time, we make it far more glamorous in our heads than it would have been in reality.

I would tell my younger self this: if you are feeling the sting of rejection, it might just be the universe making space for something even better to come along.

7. It’s all about the little things 

One of the most unexpected changes in my life has been how little I now feel the need to keep up with things. I used to think happiness would look like a certain version of success. A certain home, a certain lifestyle, a certain image of having everything together. But the older I get, the less interested I am in any of that.

There is something strangely freeing about not needing your life to impress anyone. I live in a furnished apartment with supermarket pillows, I rarely buy new clothes, and my phone hasn’t been upgraded in 6 years. None of it feels like lack. It just feels like enough. I used to think I needed more to feel secure or successful. Now I realise I was just trying to meet an invisible standard that no one else was actually holding me to.

One of my first flats in London didn’t have hot water. My landlord limited the temperature, and in the middle of winter I would stand there shivering, wondering how I had ended up there. When I moved into my next place and had a properly hot shower again, I remember feeling disproportionately happy about something so small. Not because it was luxury, but because it was enough.

I would tell my younger self this: when you stop trying to prove yourself, you stop needing life to look a certain way. Suddenly, the small things stop feeling small at all.

8. “It could be worse”

This is one of my favourite mottos. It sounds a bit depressing at first, but for me it’s a way of reframing my mindset. It can be applied to so many situations, and it reminds me to feel grateful for what I do have rather than focusing on what I am lacking. Because there are so many people in the world who don’t have the same privileges.

It’s Monday morning and you don’t feel like going to work? It could be worse. At least you have a job to go to. Your flight to a destination is delayed three hours? It could be worse. You still get to fly to a new country tonight. You sprained your leg before a big marathon? It could be worse. There are people in the world who wish they could walk.

It’s about putting things back into perspective. In a world of social media and materialism, it’s so easy to get caught up in everything that goes wrong, or everything we don’t have. It’s about stepping away from that victim mentality of “why do these things always happen to me” or “of course this happened to me” and reframing it to: I am actually so privileged and lucky to even be alive right now.

9. The way we see ourselves is not the way others see us 

I remember vividly a moment in year 11, in the school bathroom. I was washing my hands next to a girl I thought was so beautiful. She looked at herself in the mirror, pouted slightly, and said, “I can’t wait until I’m old enough to have these bones removed,” pointing to the ones above her collarbone.

I remember thinking, holy shit. People think those bones are ugly? And get them removed?

That moment has stayed with me ever since, because it made me realise how differently we see ourselves compared to how others see us. And how easily insecurities can be learned, even when we never had them to begin with. Advertising is a killer in that way. They don’t just want you to buy things. They want you to believe you need them. So it targets insecurities, often ones you didn’t even realise you had until they were placed in front of you. But people don’t see your insecurities the way you see them. We tend to project our own onto others. People insecure about their weight often notice weight in others. People insecure about their confidence often notice confidence in others. 

It goes back to the idea that we tend to notice what we lack rather than what we already have. And most of the time, we are not really seeing other people clearly at all. We are seeing them through the lens of our own insecurities.

I would tell my younger self this: the things you are most insecure about are often the things nobody else is paying nearly as much attention to as you think they are.

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Thank you so much for reading my blog post. This one has taken me a few weeks to write, and I hold it very close to my heart. I hope it resonated with you.

A x