A book that helped me a lot in this regard:
- "The Power of a Positive No: Save The Deal, Save The Relationship and Still Say No" by William Ury, the Co-Founder of the Harvard Program on Negotiation
How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
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Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
#32Book recommendations in that respect: - "No more Mr. Nice Guy" Robert A. Glover: A great book on identification and elimination of nice guy behaviors with lots of exercises. - "When I say no I feel guilty" Manuel J. Smith: Techniques with lots of examples on how to stay assertive and deal with attempts to manipulate you into doing something. Relevant for dealing with colleagues, spouses, shop clerks, ... There are ot…
I've never heard of Robert A. Glover but the book sounds very interesting. Man, the GoodReads reviews are getting destroyed.
Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
#33I vaguely remember this being somewhat of a problem for me when I was much younger. But after getting married and having kids, saying No to requests became natural for me.
I’ve been divorced so long I don’t really even consider myself divorced. I realized my part in the dissolution of my marriage was basically never saying no. Something in that realization clued me in to all kinds of social concepts and consequences I’d been basically unaware of my entire life. The closest thing I can compare it to is the growing awareness of your expanding consciousness you experience as a teen. I was…
Out of curiosity, do you feel like it was the never saying no that was the biggest problem, or was it the things that stemmed from never saying no?
For me, there were a whole host of things that came with being uncomfortable saying no, such as: building resentment resulting from doing something I didn’t really want to, passive aggressiveness, avoidance of conflict, disappointment when people still weren’t pleased after doing what they asked/shifting goalposts, feelings of being and/or actually being taken advantage of, etc.
Pretty much all of the related issues above caused issues in relationships and anxiety, among other health issues.
Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
#34No means a lot more than “no” most of the time.
My mom was Jehovah’s Witness, so I was raised always to take care of “the appearances”, always being polite, even when you disagree.
When I moved to the US back in 2000, I “discovered” people have freedom to think and say whatever they want (kind of) and it was OK to dissent.
The pendulum went the other way, and I became a big fan of Bill Maher and the “it’s OK to be politically incorrect” openly atheist crowd. But being in tech, and the corporate world, it’s not that easy…
The biggest irony of all, is that now I live in what people consider to be “the country of freedom”, and yet, I’ve resorted back to my old ways, always using the “proper way to talk”, not to offend anyone, and always play the kind game. If you want to get anywhere in corporate America, you don’t have a choice anymore. You have to pretend, even if you agree 90%, you’re not pure enough.
In reality, I love dissent, and hearing different ideas, and arguing, convince and being convinced, and not having to care about “banned” words or sensitivities. Lay it all on the table and come back to the drawing board. Where can any of us still get that?
Many times, no is a polite way to say f-you.
Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
#35My life got a lot better after I stopped considering questions in terms of my own preferences and started considering them in terms of how they would connect me to others. I really don’t want to go out for drinks after work. But this preference is nothing compared to how much I value the friendships that come from doing it. Hiking a mountain is not in the top 100 things I want to do with my weekend. But a shared expe…
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Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
#36Watch out for saying no. People you work with learn what things you will say no to and rephrase the question to avoid a let down or start asking the wrong question and then misquoting themselves later. This becomes a cat and mouse game of trying to determine what people’s intent really is. Humans are built for deception. I tend to respond with “let me sit down and think about this” then send them an email with their…
Interesting. Could you give an example of rephrasing and being tricky/evasive?
Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
#37I am thinking about the bigger picture: what if functioning societies need people pleaser? For the individual it is not so good, but there should be an evolutionary reason why it exists (can also be a side effect of something else important of course).
Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
#38My life got a lot better after I stopped considering questions in terms of my own preferences and started considering them in terms of how they would connect me to others. I really don’t want to go out for drinks after work. But this preference is nothing compared to how much I value the friendships that come from doing it. Hiking a mountain is not in the top 100 things I want to do with my weekend. But a shared expe…
Very well put. I feel this is hard to convey to someone, even though it's plainly obvious when they are deep in it. You have to have those moments of really wondering what is important to get there.
Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
#39[deleted]
Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
#40Often it's closely related to miscommunication between High-Context culture people and Low-Context culture people.
A people pleaser usually is from the high context, and implicitly by accepting to help there is an expectation that the person asking is at least just not merely exploiting them for personal gain and at least aiming to increase the collective value.
Once you have identified what type of culture someone tend to follow. It becomes easier to say no to them because you know what to expect. It also allows you to know when to say yes even when the presented deal doesn't seem immediately rewarding because it opens some new interesting paths often leading to hard to anticipate long-term win-win situations.
As a bonus, identifying their culture will allow you to communicate more effectively.