Can People Pleasing Ruin Your Life? Why Approval Addiction is a Challenge for us all

The Hidden Cost of Wanting Everyone to Like You

Most of us want to be liked. That's not a character flaw — it's human. But what happens when that desire to please people starts overriding your ability to do the right thing? Matt Edmundson explores this through one of the most dramatic courtroom scenes in history — the trial of Jesus before Pontius Pilate — and shows how people-pleasing, approval addiction, and crowd mentality led to the death of an innocent man.

Three Groups, One Problem

The trial of Jesus in Mark's Gospel involves three distinct groups, and Matt makes a compelling case that every single one of them is driven by the same thing: the need for approval.

The religious leaders were the stand-up men of the community. Respected. Admired. Men of God. Yet they're lying through their teeth to get Jesus condemned. Why? People-pleasing. They're telling people what they think they want to hear, protecting their position, making things sound a certain way so others will think well of them.

Pontius Pilate is the leader who knows Jesus is innocent. The text says plainly that Pilate realised the religious leaders had arrested Jesus out of envy. He even tries to give the crowd an out by offering to release a prisoner. But when the mob keeps shouting, he caves. He orders an innocent man to be flogged and crucified — not because he believes it's right, but because he's afraid of public opinion.

Matt doesn't mince words: "People-pleasing stops you leading. It causes you to act and do things that you know are wrong. We have a word for this — it's called cowardice."

The crowd might be the most uncomfortable mirror of all. Just days earlier, these same people were worshipping Jesus, witnessing his miracles, hanging on his teaching. Then in an instant, manipulated by a few influential voices, they're screaming for his execution. They didn't have all the information. They'd been stirred up. But they went along with it because that's what the crowd was doing.

Matt connects this directly to modern life: "Does this sound like some of the things that we see on social media? One day we think someone is great and wonderful. In the next instant we shout for their downfall. It's cancel culture in an instant."

The Approval Addiction Nobody Admits To

In the conversation afterwards, Sally is honest about her own experience: "I'm definitely a people-pleaser. I like people to like me, and I find it really difficult if I think I've offended someone. I think about it all the time."

She'd hoped it would get easier with age. In some areas it has. In others, not so much. It's the kind of admission that resonates because most people feel it but few say it out loud.

Matt shares his own version from business. Running a service-oriented company, he was constantly anxious about clients who didn't like him — because ultimately, they paid the bills. Learning that some clients simply won't like you, and that's not always your fault, was one of the biggest lessons of his career.

Nicola writes in the comments that she used to tie herself up trying to please everyone to the point of making herself ill. Matt, another viewer, draws a useful distinction: "People-pleasing is good if you do it to make them feel good. It's not good if you do it to get acceptance."

That distinction is worth sitting with. The difference between genuine service and approval-seeking looks similar from the outside but feels completely different on the inside.

The Serving Trap

The conversation takes an interesting turn when they discuss serving in a church context. Christians are taught that serving others is fundamental to faith. But what happens when serving becomes another form of people-pleasing?

Sally identifies the pattern: say yes to everything, take on more and more, then become resentful because nobody seems to notice or say thank you. "We can be doing it for the wrong reasons," she says. "That's going to cause us harm and not be helpful for other people."

The answer isn't to stop serving. It's to check your motives. Are you doing this because it genuinely helps someone, or because you're terrified of what happens if you say no?

Three Ways to Break the Pattern

Matt offers three practical principles drawn directly from the passage.

Make space to find knowledge. Proverbs 19:2 says: "Enthusiasm without knowledge is no good. Haste makes mistakes." The crowd at Jesus's trial had enthusiasm but no information. They were manipulated because they didn't stop to think. Matt's practical application: before you repost something on social media, before you send that email, before you agree to something — pause. Even a few seconds. Use that time to find out the actual facts.

He shares that this has genuinely changed his own behaviour online. "Sometimes even well-meaning Christians or well-meaning Christian websites will post stuff that's a bit click-baity. They've not really checked out the facts before posting."

Stop hanging out with toxic people. The apostle Paul wrote that "bad company corrupts good character." Not everyone in the group of religious leaders would have agreed with what they were doing. But they went along with the extremists to fit in. Matt's practical step: he started unfollowing people on social media who kept reposting unverified information. Not because he didn't like them, but because it removed the temptation to get drawn in.

Find approval in the right place. This is the big one. Paul went from orchestrating the death of Christians to changing the world. What shifted? He wrote: "We speak not to please man, but to please God." When you know you're approved by God, the desperate need for human approval starts to loosen its grip.

Matt acknowledges this sounds simple in theory but is harder in practice. Still, the principle holds: if Pilate had found his security in God's approval rather than the crowd's opinion, he would have led differently. If the crowd had known they were already accepted by God, they wouldn't have been so easily manipulated.

Things You Can Do This Week

1. Notice your people-pleasing moments. For the next few days, pay attention to when you say yes to something you don't want to do, or agree with something you're not sure about, just to keep someone happy. Don't judge it — just notice it.

2. Pause before you post. Before sharing, liking, or commenting on anything online, take ten seconds to ask: do I actually know this is true? That small habit can break the cycle of crowd-following.

3. Practise saying no once this week. Pick something small. A request you'd normally agree to out of guilt. Say no, and notice what happens. Often, nothing bad happens at all.

4. Remind yourself where your approval actually comes from. Whether you write it on a Post-it note or say it to yourself in the mirror: "God approves of me." It sounds cheesy. It also happens to be the antidote to approval addiction.

The Courage to Do the Right Thing

People-pleasing didn't just ruin lives in this story — it killed an innocent man. That's the extreme end, but the principle scales down to everyday life. Every time we go along with something we know is wrong because we're afraid of what people will think, something gets quashed inside us.

The good news is that there's a way out, and it starts with knowing you're already approved by the only one whose opinion ultimately matters. What would you do differently this week if you genuinely believed that?