“I’m just a gal who
can’t say no… “
That’s me.
I get a lot of requests to do stuff. And in the past, I used to say “yes”. I didn’t want to disappoint anyone and ever
the pleaser, it felt good to agree.
But you know what, there were times when I should have said
“no.” There were times when I just
didn’t have the time on my schedule to take on something extra, and there were
times when I wasn’t the right fit or I wasn’t that interested… and yet, my
response was the same – “sure yes.”
Why do we do this to ourselves? Part of it is ego, I am
sure, in that we’re flattered to be asked, but it is also because we don’t want
to disappoint anyone and we want people to like us.
None are good enough reasons, especially if we stretch
ourselves too thin and we end up too close to the edge. When we were interviewing women for our Good Enough book, Amy and I found they
talked a lot about being pleasers, about wanting to keep everyone happy but
they weren’t saying this with pride, more out of resentment, because they felt
depleted by all the demands placed on them.
One way to avoid over-committing yourself is to pause. When someone asks you to take on something
else, to do a favour or give a presentation, tell the person that you’ll get
back to them. Give yourself some time to
think it through so you don’t leap in with the automatic “of course, yes I
will.”
Then if, on reflection you really don’t want to do it, you
can get back to the person and say that you’ve checked your schedule, and right
now, it is just not feasible. You don’t have to go into lengthy reasons. Keep it simple. But say “no.”
When we say “yes” to something we don’t want to do, we are
denying ourselves the opportunity and time to say “yes” to an activity we
really want to do. Try not to box
yourself in. Keep yourself open to the
opportunities that make you excited.
While you may not want to disappoint anyone, you also don’t
want to disappoint the most important person in your life – YOU.
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