Recently, I did a poll on Instagram asking if saying no was easy for my friends and followers. Coming from someone who has recently begun saying no more, I knew the results were going to be negative. Actually, 74% of those who voted said that saying no is hard for them. But why is saying no so hard? It’s just a tiny word that our kids don’t seem to have much trouble with. Let’s have a look why saying no is so hard …
Have you ever found yourself agreeing to doing something or going somewhere just to please someone else but in the back of your mind you’re dreading what you’ve just agreed to?
Mouth: “Yes, of course I’ll make the Crème Brulee.”
Mind: “What in the shit did I just say yes to? *does a quick Google search on Crème Brulee*. Omg!!! I cannot do this?!”
I’m gonna go ahead and guess that this is a reality for a lot of people. I know that I have personally regretted A LOT of things I’ve agreed to simply because I didn’t want to offend anyone. That’s just it, we are conditioned to be people pleasers. From a young age we’re taught to obey our parents, our teachers, and anyone else in authority. We want to obey them. We love them and want them to love us back so therefore we must please them. Isn’t that how most of our childhoods have gone? No? Just mine? Ok then.
Maturing doesn’t get much better. We hit our teens and suddenly there’s this peer pressure and the need to “fit in”. But “everyone else” is doing it becomes a daily mantra. Of course, if everyone else is doing something, you must too. What if you don’t do it? You probably won’t have any friends anymore, right? You have to be liked so saying no just isn’t an option.
Feeling the need to fit in continues on through our lives as we remain “yes people” for the fear of conflict or being criticized by anyone at all. We don’t want anyone to be angry with us. Heavens forbid we say no and someone gets pissed and lashes out at us. Just say yes … avoid, avoid, avoid. Who cares about how we feel ourselves?!
Guilt. We just plain and simple feel bad for saying no. For putting ourselves first. Guilt has to be the single most irritating emotion known to humankind. I swear if guilt had a smell it would smell worse than rotten fish.
We are constantly ensuring that we don’t hurt anyone’s feelings. We don’t want to disappoint anyone. It’s just not the right thing to do. Imagine upsetting someone? That would be terrible. No, no, never disappoint anyone.
BUT WHAT ABOUT YOURSELF?!?!?
What if I told you that every time you say yes, when you really want to say no, a puppy dies? Well, it doesn’t but a little bit of you does. Think about it, when you agree to something you really don’t want to do, how do you feel? Like shit, right? You are prioritizing someone else’s feelings over your own. You’re actually disappointing yourself. Then you go ahead, let’s say go to an event you didn’t want to go to, and you hate it. You hate it before you even go. You don’t even have a good time. And guess what, that shows. You’re not there wholeheartedly. The same goes if you’ve agreed to do something you didn’t want to do. When it comes down to doing it, you aren’t enthusiastic about it. You don’t put your heart into it. You don’t give it your best effort. Hence the result is far from your actual capabilities. You didn’t even enjoy doing it. It was a task, rather than something fun. Declining would have been far easier than having to do this.
Being a yes person is not healthy. You are not prioritizing yourself, your own feelings, your own beliefs or your energy. You are only doing things or going places because you feel you “should” or you “have to” – obligation. You begin to feel frustrated with yourself and eventually start resenting yourself and others around you. Everything starts to feel like a task and maybe you even start to forget what YOU actually enjoy doing yourself. You have forgotten what’s actually important to you. You’ve lost your power.
Learning to say no is important. When you do it, it’s somewhat liberating. You feel empowered. It helps our mental well-being and gives us the power to take back our own emotions, our own beliefs and our own time. Yes, you can have time to do things that YOU want to do but it does involve saying that tiny, two-lettered word. You need to re-prioritize want you want. It’s that simple!
Ok, I take that back. We already know that saying no doesn’t come easily to most. So how can we start saying no? How can we take back our power? Here are some tips …
• Start off small – say no to something small. That person on the street giving you a flyer. Just say no. Politely, of course. You really don’t need that flyer, do you?
• Don’t give in to guilt – “Everyone else” is doing it. So fuckin’ what! You don’t need to fit in with “everyone else”. You are you.
•Release that feeling of missing out. There will be more opportunities. If you change your mind later, you will get another shot.
• Buy yourself some time. Just ask for more time to think about it before you give your answer. Time is golden.
• Pause before immediately saying yes. Just pause! Again time is golden even if you only have a little bit. Rather than saying yes right away, you’re giving your mind a chance to catch up and think about what you actually want.
• This can be applied to all areas of your life – work, leisure, pregnancy, your birth (yes! You can say no to a doctor!!!), your kids. The secret is in that first time you say it. It’s not about making up excuses or inventing a plot around why you are saying no. Scrap that. Be honest. Be straight up. People appreciate that more and in the long run, you really aren’t disappointing anyone, including yourself, when you’re honest. Lies and excuses have a way of backfiring and biting you in the ass sometimes. Just recently some friends asked me to hang out. I was in a bad mood. I was exhausted and I knew I needed to conserve my energy. My mind quickly raced through what excuses I could come up with on the spot. As the excuses made their way from my brain to my mouth, I stopped myself. I was honest and said exactly what I needed to do. Guess what? There were no questions, no hard feelings. Nothing but acceptance. Wow! That was pretty easy!
Look, Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither will your ability to say no. Don’t think it’ll just happen over night. You will need to build up that confidence and self esteem before it just rolls off the tongue. You will need to unravel and break apart some of your conditioned beliefs and thought processes. But you will reap the benefits when you do start. Can you almost taste the pleasure in not feeling like you have to say yes all the time?
It’s almost the New Year, maybe you can work saying no into your new year’s resolutions? It might even work out better than that diet and / or get fit resolution that’s not gone to plan in the past few years. Who knows? (Insert shoulder shrug emoji here)