What the Pandemic has taught me about People-pleasing and Procrastination

What happens when you take a recovering people-pleaser and chronic approval addict and take away the majority of the people from her life?

She gets a wide open space, suitable for both flailing and dreaming with nobody watching. And it turns out, some things actually grow best when no one is looking.

Quarantine has reminded me just how much I still crave the validation of people in my life. Maybe you can relate to some of the lies I’ve believed:

• That what I do isn’t valuable if it isn’t seen or acknowledged by someone else.
• That my significance rests on someone else giving me a role or position.
• That my dreams can only be drawn inside someone else’s box.
• That I shouldn’t articulate what I want until I’m sure it is acceptable to others.
• That the worst thing that could possibly happen is for someone to not like me or to be in any way upset with me.

But as my outside routine has dwindled, and I’m rarely face-to-face with the people that once seemed to hold my worth in their hands, I’m realizing a long-ignored truth: those people never held my worth to begin with.

Quarantine has felt for me a little like an open runway, and I’m a plane just starting to roll forward. And now that it’s just me and this runway, I’m forced to confront what GOD is asking me to do, not what anyone else asks or requires.

I’ve discovered that procrastination and people-pleasing go hand in hand. Seriously, if I can just wait around for someone else to sign off on my dream before I speak it or do it, then I am off the hook. This puts the responsibility on someone else to open a door for me, make a path for me, and call me out into a gift.

But the problem is, I’m the one who has to live with my life. And waiting for validation has eaten up so much of my time.

Furthermore, the more I look to others to define my dreams and possibilities, the less clearly I understand what it is I even want. When we can’t name our desire or our vision, we give ourselves permission to sit and wait.

I recently listened to Jo Saxton, an incredible leader and author of “Ready to Rise” (which I HIGHLY recommend to any woman with a heart to chase fully after God.) She reminded me how important it is to reflect on the wounds and lies that are preventing me from rising and that reflection on our vision is so critical.

She shared this powerful quote from a preacher: “If the vision is unclear, the cost is always too high.”

When we can’t or won’t name our vision (or speak it out to let God shape it), then we won’t risk everything because we don’t have a powerful enough destination to risk everything on. If we let someone else define or water down God’s vision for us, we won’t own it or chase it.

Where have you stopped being honest with yourself and God about your desires? What is keeping you from being honest?

Certainly I’m not saying that we will get everything we want just because we ask God specifically. But then again- maybe being able to NAME our desire is part of what it means to boldly approach God’s throne of grace.

There’s this seemingly twisted moment in the Bible where Jesus encounters a blind man begging on the side of the road. (Luke 18:35-43) The man cries out to Jesus for mercy, and Jesus confronts the clearly blind man with a question that borders on insensitive: “What do you want me to do for you?”

Why would Jesus ask a blind man what he wants? (It doesn’t take a people-pleaser to know that the man would like to SEE.)

Even though he already knew, maybe Jesus wanted to force the man to name what he wants because to name it is to own all that it entails. To name it is to admit that he is ready for his life to change. To name it means to leave behind the blindness that in some ways is a “safe normal”. To name it meant that He actually had to INTERACT with God- and it meant that he might experience rejection or disappointment if God said “no”.

Do we not name our callings and desires because we might have to change our current life? Do we not name our beliefs because it will change the way others see us? (Maybe we have thrived on a victim mentality as the blind man might have done?) Maybe we’re afraid that if we don’t name our desires we can never be hurt if they aren’t fulfilled? Do we prefer the safety of the uncomfortable “here” over the work and uncertainty of our desire over “there”?

I talked with my sister today and she reminded me that nothing that I do should be driven be fear. Neither fear of people and their reactions, or circumstances and what-ifs; neither fear of failure or success; neither fear of letting go of something that is no longer working, nor fear of the gritty long-haul of staying to see change happen right where I am.

Maybe you are busier than ever during Covid. Maybe this pandemic requires you to be more things to more people. I don’t want to minimize that each of us is experiencing this in very different ways and maybe this season feels like anything but “space” to you.

But if there’s any stillness or halting of your normal routine in this time- if there’s any empty space for you to dream without people watching- what sort of dreams are cropping up in your mind? What God-whispers do you finally have the stillness to hear? What gifts or goals have you wanted to pursue but felt too silly to name let alone chase?

Maybe, like me, God is speaking truth to you in this unseen space:

• IF something is worth doing at ALL, it is just as valid whether it is seen or unseen.
• The very real risk of not living our lives is not worth the possible risk of making people unhappy.
• If we make a wrong step while seeking God’s heart, we can trust that He will course correct us. (We can’t live a mistake-free life- and God doesn’t expect that of us!)
• That God dreams don’t need to fit in someone else’s box and God opportunities don’t require someone else’s validation.
• That if God is for me- who can be against me?

I pray over each person that reads these words that God will ignite (or re-ignite) a passion in you. I pray that you will hear his whispers again, and choose to follow. I pray that God gives you such a VISION and a HEART for his people and his kingdom that cost doesn’t matter to you. I pray that God fills you with an unquenchable sense that his love and approval over you will never fade- no matter what the world around you says, ever. And I pray that no matter what the ever-changing world around us says- we would be a people who follow the voice of an unchanging God.

I hope you’ll join me in discovering his freedom.