People pleasing and guilt

[Twatalert]

I have reached a position in my company where I have to address my people pleasing and perfectionist tendencies. I simply have too much on my plate now and need to stop doing and responding to absolutely everything or I will get ill.

As a first step I will need to let emails/requests from other departments fall through the cracks unless they are important enough to me. I will stop helping these people do their jobs and literally ignore them most of the time.

I feel incredibly guilty. I irrationally worry they will confront me and demand I do stuff. Or that they will badmouth me to others. I sometimes already explain myself too much why I'm not doing something. I hate it.

I have already ignored some emails but I still can't forget about them. I know people will start chasing me. I will ignore. I might say 'I am not taking this on right now' when I have to as an escape, I.e. when I meet someone in the corridor. But I won't use this as a reply to every unreasonable request.

People are used to me taking on anything like a complete mug.

Any nice words and tips on how to navigate this while I try to overcome this uncomfortable period?

Sounds fair enough. If you’re busy you need to start pushing some things back.

I don’t think ignoring emails is the way to go though. I think they need short, prompt , assertive reply. Otherwise you’ll just stress about not having replied or people will have sent follow up emails. Something along the lines of “I have a large work load at the moment and as that task doesn’t fall within the remit of my role I will no longer be able to pick it up”.

oo just to add, as a recovering people pleaser, it does get easier the more you become assertive and challenge yourself to be ok with people being unhappy with you.

I silently praise myself when I’ve done a good job of being assertive or holding boundaries. I also silently remind myself that it doesn’t matter if someone is annoyed with me, like self talk- fake it until you make it.

Thank you. Fair point about stressing about receiving a follow up. That's exactly what I do.

Though people just ignore messages. I have never had someone reply that they can't take something on right now. I was hoping I'll get to a stage where I am like 'nope, not going to happen' and then delete and forget.

Its such a challenge for me.