28/04/2026
You are entering perimenopause carrying a lifetime habit:
Putting everyone else first.
People pleasing often begins young. You learned to be helpful, agreeable, capable, easy to manage, needed.
It may have brought approval, safety, or belonging.
But now?
Your body may be saying no.
Fatigue, resentment, anxiety, poor sleep, overwhelm, and irritability are often signs that your system is tired of self-abandonment. Perimenopause can make it harder to tolerate what was never sustainable.
This is not selfishness. It is wisdom.
I’ve been there. The previous version of me was a big people pleaser. I was the one who helped everyone out all the time. Running around after everyone else and totally ignoring my own needs so much so that I was on an endless burnout cycle. It looked like this:
I’d start off full of energy and motivated by this deep need to be liked. It’s fine in the beginning but, as it goes on, I’d become more and more fatigued and irritable. Living in a bad mood with resentment for whoever it was that I was helping at the time. What starts as an enjoyable experience quickly turns into a burden that leaving you in a bad mood and really tired. It causes arguments and probably a fall out with the other person and then you feel bad and beat yourself up about it all thinking you’re at fault but you’re not. I’ve spent endless hours replaying situations in my mind. What I said, what they said over and over until I’m so mentally exhausted I can’t do anything the next day. Is it really worth it?
The answer is no.
All you’ve achieved is one less friend who you now really dislike, complete exhaustion, a lot of anxiety and a mind that’s stuck on repeat for hours mentally draining you. You feel down, really tired and completely shut down. You’ve gone beyond fight or flight. You’re now in freeze so helping other people leaves you unable to sustainably live daily life.
When you were a child you learned people pleasing to get attention, love and admiration. Your parents put it into you in the forms of being told to be quiet, sit nicely, serve others when they visited, bribing you to get good grades with the promise of a treat, asking you what’s wrong with you so forcing you to behave differently or behaving in ways that you knew were acceptable so you didn’t get in trouble.
The truth is that none of that helps you in perimenopause. Your body is changing, your energy is changing and you don’t want to do all that stuff anymore. I don’t want to do it either so I don’t.
I can honestly say that dropping my people pleasing patterns has helped me no end. My energy increased, I’m less mentally exhausted, my sleep is better, and I’m happy, not up and down like I’m on an emotional rollercoaster.
My advice: set strong boundaries and stick to them.
Look at it this way, if you had a pen of sheep and left the door open all the sheep would run away. The same is true for you. The pen is your boundary and the sheep your energy. If you are always breaking your boundary, you’re always leaking all your energy.
Yes, you may lose a few people along the way but you’ll quickly realise that is for the best because you are changing and with that change comes change.
This is a topic I always enjoy discussing because it’s something all women do and find hard to stop.
If you want to chat about it, book a free call with me here:
https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=37228111&appointmentType=84550168
It’s also a topic we will cover in my upcoming Rhythms of Her online coaching course coming on 14th May. During the course I will help you identify the areas of your life which are draining you and show you ways to build better boundaries so you feel less tired and have more balanced emotions.
There are a few places left which you can book here:
https://app.acuityscheduling.com/schedule.php?owner=37228111&appointmentType=88845742
Maybe you’re ready to take a step into a more boundaried you?
Ask yourself today:
✨ Where am I saying yes when I mean no?
✨ Where am I over-giving to earn love?
✨ What would honesty look like here?
Small boundaries create deep healing.
You do not need to earn your worth through exhaustion.