Pocketful of Mojo
Pocketful of Mojo
I Tried To Please Everyone And All I Got Was Sciatica
Ever notice how “easygoing” can become a cloak that lets you disappear from your own life? That was my story. I said yes fast, kept the peace, and called it kindness—until my body threw a red flag I couldn’t ignore. From the outside, I looked like a success: constant promotions, city moves, a reputation for reliability. On the inside, I was exhausted, disconnected, and measuring my worth by a company’s scoreboard.
I take you into the high-gloss world of overwork where extra miles turn into unpaid highways, and into the quiet places where the bill arrives as pain, resentment, and a voice that barely whispers. You’ll hear about a six-month trial for a dream role that never became an offer, the morning emails that dictated my mood before sunrise, and the night I curled up in pain and finally asked the hard question: what am I doing this for? That moment didn’t ignite a dramatic fire; it sparked a detox. I kept my values—work hard, care deeply, do my best—and redirected them with boundaries and agency.
We talk through the messy middle: the awkward first quit, the identity wobble that follows, and the unexpected lightness of saying no. Then we map the new terrain. On a living room floor with a pen and a what-if game, I practiced decision-making that served my life. France became the choice, not for spectacle, but for alignment. Along the way, I discovered that courage doesn’t wait for confidence; it builds it. Approval isn’t safety. Safety is staying with yourself when it’s uncomfortable and trusting that you can adjust as you go.
If you’re tired of being tired, this story hands you practical anchors: where am I betraying myself to be liked, and what would change if I trusted myself 10% more? Expect reflections on people pleasing, boundaries, burnout, self-trust, and redefining success so it feeds you from the inside. Hit play, share it with someone who needs a nudge back into their own life, and if this resonated, subscribe, leave a review, and tell us the one boundary you’ll set this week.
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There was a time when I thought I was just easygoing. You know, low maintenance, adaptable, a calm one. But what I didn't realize was that I was saying yes to everyone else while quietly disappearing in my own life. And I didn't call it people pleasing back then. I called it being nice, being, you know, flexible and easy breezy. But there's the truth that nobody talks about. When you constantly choose everyone else, you really stop knowing who you are when nobody's asking. So in this episode, I'm taking you inside my People Pleaser detox. You know what it really looked like, what it cost me. And the moment I realized that self-abandonment had been dressed up as kindness for a really long time. And this isn't about burning your life down, despite the dumpster fire that my life was for a bit there. It's about stopping the slow fade out. Because if you've ever felt, you know, exhausted, resentful, or just really unsure who you are beneath all the roles that you play, this story's for you. Let's talk about what happens after you stop betraying yourself in order to be liked. Welcome to Storytime with Pocket Full of Mojo. I'm Steph of Your Mojo Maven, and this is the story of My People Please Their Detox. Today I'm gonna talk to you about how I went from self-abandonment to self-trust. Seems like a pretty straight line, right? Because there was a time when I genuinely believed that I was easygoing. Because on paper, my life looked fun. I was following all the rules, I was doing my best every day, the best way I knew how. But if you stopped and looked long enough, I was always kinda shaky. And I was never really strong enough to take up space. I was always in service of the space. And if anybody asked, I didn't really know what I liked or needed. And I was always so tired from trying so hard that to me, needing something that I didn't have meant taking on more, which seemed like an impossibility. I was too busy taking care of everybody else. And yeah, I didn't call myself a people pleaser back then. I called myself adaptable. But I'm here to normalize that part. Because that this wasn't us being weak, but me acting in service of the room or to please other people. This wasn't weakness, this was survival. Because my wiring said that my survival depended on other people liking me and approving of me. And I did whatever I could to be seen that way. I think of the little kid I was by the pool shouting like, watch me dive, watch me dive. Now picture that coming from a grown-ass human. And we just find more and more ways to cleverly disguise it. But but if I was really that low maintenance friend that I thought that I was, why would I be so exhausted? So if that resonates, stay with me. Because back when I was a full-blown card carrying member of the People Pleaser Club, I thought I was doing great. I had the career, I had a relationship, I was married to someone who was crazy about me. Maybe he was just crazy. I jury's still out. And that's about it. Like looking back, I had no hobbies. I had a small, tight circle of friends, but not a massive social life because I wasn't invited to anything. And I and I didn't know what I liked, so I didn't initiate anything myself, and I didn't even know how to figure out what I liked. And I pull that thread a little, and I find out that I was so wired to do things right and to do the right thing that I didn't have the confidence to try something unless I was sure that I was going to like it. And like, what did I think was going to happen if I did something I didn't like? Well, there'd be shame and disappointment and probably a note in my permanent record somewhere. And like, this is how my brain worked. So if I do nothing, I can't possibly do it wrong. So I stuck with what I knew and repeatable routines. And my wardrobe consisted of like dress coat and bathrobe. And I was so starved for a life outside of this rut that I would find myself saying yes to any and all invites without hesitation. Whatever works for you became like my go-to move. So I could be invited back and not be seen as a fuss and be the easy breezy one. Cause who doesn't want them around? And if you ever needed something, oh man, I'd be on my way before you even finished the sentence. And this happened at home and at work. I was like the go-to girl, go in early, stay late, and take calls after hours. You needed product, let me drive it to your store. You're struggling to read this month's PL statement. Let me carve out some time in my 11-hour day where I'm only paid for eight and show you everything I know. And I thought that this was building up my reputation as an expert, but I was creating this environment to be a doormat. I wasn't being selfless. I was operating completely disconnected from myself. A little bit of context. I had every role you could have at Starbucks. Uh, here we go. Barista, shift supervisor. Oh, on my application form, I wrote coffee jockey because I did not know what a barista was. Okay, give me a break. It was 2003. Okay, barista, shift supervisor, assistant manager, store manager, coffee master, classroom facilitator, senior training specialist. Oh man, I changed cities, I changed bosses, I tried to get a job at head office in Seattle because I'm in Winnipeg, right? There's like two district manager jobs and no regional head office. So I changed cities. I lived in Montreal, I moved to Calgary, 2009 hits, boom, lose my job. But they're looking for people out in Montreal who speak French. Ding ding ding. Pack up my cart, drive across the country, start a new life in a city where the only person I know is like my ex-boyfriend. And uh ended up meeting my husband there. Really loved it. Then I hated the city, so we moved back to Winnipeg and again just kept hitting that professional development ceiling. But then one day, two district managers got fired, and they needed a district manager out in Edmonton, and my hand could not have gone up fast enough. I was like, what time should I be at the airport? So they were doing a three-month trial period where I would live out in Edmonton for three months, and then my performance would be measured, and we would see if there's an off a role to be offered to me uh at the end of this three months. Well, three months goes by, I smash it. I could I could have a whole other podcast dedicated to those three months because professionally I crushed. All right. And then there was a shakeup at the VP level, and so they said, okay, we need three more months. I was like, hold my beer. I'm gonna keep crushing it. Boom. Six months, still no offer. But they hired someone externally. Cool. And I'm doing this with three other store managers who were also wanting one of these district manager positions. So now I'm on a game of Starbucks Survivor, but I'm away from my family. I do nothing but work. My alarm goes off in the morning. I put on my glasses at 5:30 in the morning. I've already got three emails from my boss, and I'm off to the races. I'm away from my family. My husband's back in Winnipeg, I'm eyes on the prize. This could be a really great promotion. Up early, working late, killing it. But what doesn't get Instagrammed is the cost. So let's pull up the receipts and look at what nobody talks about again. How much these big moves cost. Because emotionally, my goals were Starbucks goals. My worth was tied to their results, to my role, to my status in the company. It destroyed me physically. Like I remember at the end of this, I think it was like month five or six, and uh I was I was having to figure out if I was gonna sign on for another three-month trial. And my body was turning on me. Like I wasn't listening to my heart and my soul at all. And so my body just started yelling at me. My sciatica flared up, I gained a bunch of weight, I was constipated for the first time in my life. Like my body was screaming at me. I had I didn't know the city, I didn't know anybody socially, so my relationships were really kind of muffled in a city I didn't know, and a role that I was new in, and a community was nothing but competition. It was it was insane. And my body knew that, but I wasn't listening, I just kept pushing. So it just started yelling at me. Because people pleasing doesn't just drain energy, it does erode your self-trust. Because when you constantly choose everyone and everything else, you stop knowing who you are when nobody's asking. And that was the moment when my body had to be so loud and I was on the bed and I like I've got a Polaroid of it in my brain. Where I was on the bed and I was in the fetal position and I was in so much pain and I was so tired and I had nothing in my cup anymore, and I was like, What am I doing? Why did I have to wait for it to get to this place before I realized that this isn't where I'm supposed to be? And yours doesn't have to be explosive and chiropractor inducing, it can be subtle, right? The more you tune in, see, I was not tuned in at all, which is why my body had to start yelling at me because I wasn't paying attention, I wasn't meditating, I wasn't checking in with myself, I wasn't going on stupid mental health walks. Something was missing on the inside. So I mean, the detox was a a real soup, you know, like the awareness came that I had to change and the grace was there that I knew I didn't have to have it all figured out, but I I could start asking some questions. And it wasn't nearly as hard as I expected it to be to start behaving differently. Now, what magically didn't disappear, well, my values, right? I I always want to work hard, I always want to show up and get good grades and get five stars and do my best. That's I'm gonna take that with me wherever I go. But taking back control of how I use that energy was almost instantaneous because it was a choice. It was it was an awareness that turned into a reflection that turned into like a value check and a gut check, and it was like, no, this isn't for me. I don't have to suffer to be successful. And there was a surprising short supply of guilt. As a Didn't as a Catholic, I I really expected more. But I was amazed at how much courage I was able to tap into for the awkward conversations, you know, like quitting. Like I I can't remember the last time I quit something. And leaving that opportunity in Edmonton might be like the first time in forever that I actually said no and walked away and said no, thank you. Possibly the first ever boundary I set for myself. But there is a bit of a disorientation that comes when you start to step away from something outside of yourself that you've been identifying as for a really long time. Like, who am I if I'm not my job? There begin the questions. So it's okay to pull back from people for a bit. Be g and because if you keep putting yourself into situations that call on you to people please, there's gonna be an urge to revert. But this detox isn't about becoming colder. It's about becoming clearer, more tuned in. And when I think about what changed like the before and the after, there's a strong part of me that could have just said yes to another three months and spent nine, you know, another three months away and been underpaid and undervalued and overlooked um and unappreciated or underappreciated at the very least. You know, there's I could have tolerated that, sure, and just been in it to win it and whatever let whatever happens, happens. And maybe in a parallel universe, it's I'm still there. But what I do know is that I stepped a when I stepped away from something that I was so attached to, I noticed right away was the space. And what we want to do when there's spaces, we wanna fill it. And so having been in routine for so long, I wasn't practiced at decision making it for my own life this way. But what we did was we just sat down and played the what if game and I made a map of my options. And there may or may not have been wine involved, but there we were. Me and my husband sitting in the living room, uh crisscross applesauce with a piece of paper, and we just started writing out ideas and brainstorming what we could do, and you know, should we go back to Winnipeg? Do we want to do we like it here? No, no, we don't like it here. My mother-in-law at the time was becoming of a certain age, and so we were like, well, what if we move to France? And spoiler alert, that's the one we picked. Because what that what changed was that I got tired of being tired. And I was like, if I'm just gonna be tired anyway, I might as well be doing something that I actually like. And having seen that I could do something hard, like leave a job after 15 years, I realized that I could handle discomfort differently because I wasn't so tied up in the idea of rejection that may or may not be coming. And what I didn't know at the time was that that was the beginning of the self-trust that helped build all the mojo that I have today. Because I took the risks, I am more confident. I didn't have to wait to be confident to take the risks because now I know that it'll be okay if it doesn't work out. Whereas before I was peacekeeping all the time, now I'm building my own peace. And before I was putting all my value into my work and letting the results and the customers and my bosses feed me all my approval. Now I seek alignment where I'm feeding myself from the inside and I don't need it so much from the outside. And I didn't lose relationships, I lost roles that were never mine to carry forever and ever. And they got me here, but they weren't gonna take me where I was going, where I needed to be. And the shift wasn't a light switch, and I'll still people please to this day. However, like I remember when I told my friend Susie that we were moving to France, she was like and leaving Starbucks, she was like, You never signed a contract saying you'd work for them forever and ever. You do you. And I was like, Yeah, I am replaceable, which is hard for the ego to take sometimes, but you learn that lesson when you need to learn it. At least I did. But the lesson that changed everything was when I realized that people pleasing was never about kindness, it was about control and safety. And safety can be relearned. You can redefine what that is for you. It was the game changer for me, and the bravest thing I did wasn't saying no, it was learning how to stay with myself when it felt uncomfortable, and then proving to myself that I could get through to the other side. Like the questions that I ask myself, where am I betraying myself in order to be liked? And what would I change if I trusted myself just 10% more? And look, you don't have to burn your life down. You don't need to move across the world to find yourself. But if you do, let me know and give you some tips. But you just have to stop disappearing inside your life. And that, my friends, was story time. Same truth, new lens. Be sure to come back next week where we keep pulling this thread a little bit further as we take on the world. Until then, stay fabulous. This has been Steph, your mojo maven. Thanks for being here. You look great today. Talk to you soon. Love you. Bye.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, um, like and subscribe and leave a review and try the new friends, 55. Thank you, but it's a good one.
