We can't earn our way to Heaven, but we sure can please God:
Rom 12:1 : Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship.
Rom 14:17-18 : 17 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, 18 because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and approved by men.
1 Tim 5:4 : But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God.
Heb 13:20-21 : 20 May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, 21 equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Whatever the concept of "pleasing" really is to God, He wants us to think of it similarly.
Holy people do holy things because they are holy. Being holy is not a duty but a state.
It's both:
Lev 11:44-45 : 44 I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not make yourselves unclean by any creature that moves about on the ground. 45 I am the Lord who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.
1 Cor 1:2 : To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ — their Lord and ours:
Eph 1:4 : For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.
"Pleasing God" is an anthropomorphism. It is a figure of speech, perhaps even a wish. Just as we can't do enough to earn our way into heaven, there is nothing we can do that's sooooo great as to please God (if God were subject to pleasure).
Rather, we can choose to do according to His will. If we do according to His will then we are being Christ-like, for Christ in his humanity always chose to do according to His divine will.