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Saying No Is Hard For People Pleasers

people pleasers and saying no

Saying No Is Hard For People Pleasers

Anyone involved in the leadership realm knows the importance of saying ‘NO’. There are so many requests coming our way these days. Being able to know what is important enough to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to is a skill that many of us struggle with. It is one we must master if we are aiming at life and business mastery.

In this piece, I want to highlight some important ideas to think about if you have found it hard to say no to people in your work and personal life. Hopefully, I can share some ideas that can free up your time to get you back to what is important for you and relieve the burden of spinning too many plates at the same time.

Can You Do Me A Favour?

We are inundated through our professional lives with emails, requests from our boss and colleagues alike, customer queries, and stakeholders across the board. The desire to perform well in our roles and not let anyone down is real. The problem is that this desire can be thorny and come with many potential pitfalls if we are not careful. Add to this, our home and personal lives where all kinds of requests are coming at us thick and fast.

It’s so easy to say ‘yes’ to many of these requests but saying ‘no’ is what we know would be a smarter response. But all of a sudden we find a ‘YES’ automatically coming out of our mouths, and have now agreed to add another five hours of work to our schedule. Suddenly, we are overwhelmed, and find ourselves working through the weekend on things we may resent doing. How did this happen?

Is Your Yes Credit Card Maxed Out?

You cannot keep saying ‘yes’ and expect to get everything done to a decent standard. We have to consider our yes-responses as a scarce resource to be budgeted wisely. Like our bank accounts, if we buy every single thing we see while shopping, we will quickly run out of money. Your ‘yes’ account may only have a few ‘yeses’ left in it depending on the type of life you live.

Perhaps you already have a lot of obligations and cannot really afford to make any new commitments. In this case, your ‘yes’ response should be withheld to limit the potential disappointment experienced by you and others. Some people believe they have an unlimited budget of ‘yeses’, and soon find out they have overspent on their ‘yes’ account. Perhaps they may have been wiser to draw from their ‘no’ account more often?

The result of this is that for many of us, we end up feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, and feeling like we’ve let ourselves and others down by promising things we were never able to deliver.

Are You Saying No To Yourself?

The reality is when you say ‘yes’ to someone, making some obligation you are not excited about, you are ultimately saying ‘no’ to something more important in your own life. Many people have never consciously given themselves the permission to say ‘no’. Perhaps we have inherited a paradigm through our family or friend network whereby saying ‘no’ is not the done thing. You can consciously change your mind about this and decide that from today, you will give greater consideration to what you say ‘yes’ to in your life. A good way to remind yourself to break your habit of saying ‘yes’ is with alerts and notifications throughout your day.

You might be thinking, ‘but I want to help people, and saying ‘no’ more often will make me less likeable!’. There is a way for you to say ‘no’ that doesn’t totally close the door to saying ‘yes’. You can use the ‘conditional no’ by adding a ‘but’ after it. If asked to do some extra work, say, ‘no, but I can if it still needs doing after finishing my own tasks on Friday?’. In this way, we’re not closing the door on the request but letting them know that there are conditions to achieve a ‘yes’ from us.

The advantage of using a ‘conditional no’ like this is that the asker is being helped find a solution, even though we have not taken on the obligation. We remain open to help if they cannot find an alternate solution. 

People-Pleasing?

So, why do we feel obligated to say yes so often? Most likely it is a learned habit. The good news, we unlearn. We want to be liked. Helping people out where we can. We want to stay on their good side. Our self-image wants to view us as good people. However, this does not mean that we have to become slaves to their preferences. ‘What will they think of me if I say no?’; ‘I want them to be happy with me’. These are common thoughts that can come into our minds in a split second. We find the words ‘yes’ flying out of our mouths to appease a person’s desires. 

Having been someone who, in my earlier years, had a tendency towards people pleasing and recovered, the world has a much different feel now. Not worrying about what others think of me if I don’t say ‘yes’ to their requests doesn’t matter as much because I value my preferences and what is important to me a lot more. That’s what I learned. I wasn’t paying attention to what was important to me, to who I was, and to what my preferences were when I was a younger man.

That change began when a friend pointed out to me that I had this tendency. Upon hearing this, I had to stop and ask myself why I was continually doing things for others without much consideration for myself. I had to be honest that my preference to be liked caused me to repress other preferences. I noticed that, in the first instance, I wasn’t sure of what my preferences were. After realising this, it led to a new level of personal curiosity and growth.

How Can I Overcome The Habit of Saying ‘Yes’?

If you also find yourself having this tendency, there are a few things you can do to change the habit. The primary key ingredient is to become more aware of how your map of people-pleasing works. In relationships, people make requests of one another. Your job is to look at all your relationships, over the course of the next month. Look at all the requests you receive. Take note of how you respond to the requests. Do not attempt to change your behaviour. Instead, you must become aware of how you relate to certain types of people.

Perhaps you’ll notice that in the work context you react differently to the way you are in your family dynamic. You might find that you say ‘no’ more often to people you are familiar with because you feel comfortable being able to say ‘no’ to them. Notice any feelings experienced when requests are made. Does anxiety increase when a boss makes requests? Do you automatically say ‘yes’ to relieve yourself of that intense feeling?

Awareness is Key!

Try to notice any patterns related to your own personal history which make it more likely for you to say ‘yes’ to requests. It’s always a good idea to understand if any previous traumas might be a factor in our behaviours. You could consider the idea of having a ‘yes’ budget for yourself. You’ll become more aware of your tendency to accept too many requests. Perhaps only saying yes to two or three requests per day and challenging yourself to be very specific about the type of requests you take on.

Saying ‘no’ is a muscle you have to build up. Like all things that are new, it feels a bit harder and awkward at the beginning. You are trying to incorporate new behaviours into your life. Be patient. Be realistic too. You might have a lot of work to do and it’s good to note how busy you are. Use a journal and track your progress. Be scientific about it. Capture as much personal data about what you are thinking and feeling at the moment you become aware of it.

Over time, you’ll overcome this tendency and free up that precious time to focus on what you want in life. Being more assertive to your own needs doesn’t mean you’ll become less likeable. It might make people like you more because they’ll admire how you are able to assert your preferences with confidence! 

 

I am a Freedom Coach and Mentor – I help freedom-loving people in early/mid-career create a Successful Mindset. If you would like to explore some of these themes and move towards achieving more freedom this year, let’s connect and set up a call.


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