When there is something I don't want to do, I think of what Billy Butcher would say.
Sadly we can't be that direct in most of life, but the thought is normally there.
How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
211–220 of 280 posts
Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
#212I used to be exactly the person the article describes. Then I became an engineering manager. A year later, I cannot even recognize the old, people-pleasing me. Saying "no" by default, not jumping into commitments, pushing back on unreasonable demands (from both above and below) - all come so naturally to me now it's unbelievable.
> Then I became an engineering manager. A year later, I cannot even recognize the old, people-pleasing me How did that transition happen? How was the first time as an eng manager, did you get bitten by saying Yes sometimes in the very beginning
Yes, many times. Part of it was just my non-understanding of software complexity and organizational dynamics beyond just working on the end tasks.
Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
#213The whole make yourself happy first mentality is a bizarre side effect of therapy. Therapists have one client. Not the client’s family, friends, coworkers, and community. Because of that much of the advice therapist give benefits the client at the expense of everyone else. This creates a toxic environment when you have a large percentage of any group going to therapy and practicing me first techniques. I wonder if th…
I’d be curious to hear a specific example of the toxic or self-centered behavior you’re referring to, since this is not at all my experience.
Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
What led you to the racist angle?
Because GP was discussing a socially sensitive topic, but the other person asked for an explanation about an easily googleable concept. This is intentional noodle-braining, explanation on reddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/ixp19i/did...
But why racism specifically?
Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is one of the main reasons why I prefer living in big cities. Compared to other places I've stayed, it makes it a whole lot easier to build and maintain human connections with people whose preferences and interests overlap with mine. I also do plenty of activities I'm not really interested in for the sake of socializing. But always just adopting to whatever is most popular at a given time would be soulcrushing t…
> This is one of the main reasons why I prefer living in big cities. Big Cities also amplify loneliness and make it more crushing when you just keep getting lost in the crowd. Concrete jungles with more traffic than trees are also a depressing drain upon the soul. My ideal sweet spot is Small Towns near a Big City that you can dip into once every weekend or so.
This sounds great to me, but could you give an example of the sort of town you mean?
I am only really experienced with NYC, which due to geographic and traffic constraints, just seems difficult to dip into more than once a month.
Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
#216The whole make yourself happy first mentality is a bizarre side effect of therapy. Therapists have one client. Not the client’s family, friends, coworkers, and community. Because of that much of the advice therapist give benefits the client at the expense of everyone else. This creates a toxic environment when you have a large percentage of any group going to therapy and practicing me first techniques. I wonder if th…
Not all therapy works that way. For a lot of people seeking therapy, their issues do start with a personal sense of lacking. Starting with helping them to love themselves first makes sense. If someone goes to a therapist with narcissistic tendencies or anger issues, I would expect less of the "me first" approach.
I’d actually go so far as to say that I’m not familiar with any legitimate therapeutic approach that is not concerned with how the patient treats others. I’ve definitely read self-help books that seemed to be advocating for narcissistic behavior, but they weren’t written by mainstream psychologists or therapists.
Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
#217I'm curious about what people think of a "second-request" kind of strategy I have at work: Sometimes when I get asked to do something I feel is unreasonable, unwarranted, or unnecessary (and it's not something like, there's a fire in the conference room and I'm trapped, please help), I'll totally ignore it, but if they ask a second time, I'll just do it. Very often they either forget, or just do it themselves before…
That strategy worked well for me, although I wasn't actually trying to ignore the requests. I just got a lot of requests and wasn't organized about them, so some things fell through the cracks.
That said, I would push back on things that I was definitely not going to do. For some things, that's person A can do this; for others that's if you can find someone to do this, ok; for some it's I'm not going to do this unless my manager or the CEO personally asks me to; for others it's I won't do this, and I won't deploy it, and I'll unmerge it if it's done by someone else. And always try to give people an idea of when to remind me if I haven't done it.
Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
That isn't a good summary of the bill, and it didn't even mention preferred pronouns. What it actually did was add "gender identity or expression" to a list of protected characteristics to be considered when prosecuting hate speech and as a factor in criminal sentencing. (Peterson's interpretation was that it would have the effect of making misgendering or failure to use preferred pronouns into hate speech, thus that…
Is he a lawyer? I'd be curious to know if this is a valid legal opinion or fear-mongering.
His interpretation of the law is entirely nonsense, and he was told as much by actual lawyers many times.
Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
#219My 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…
What has your recent experience been as these opportunities arise in the face of COVID? How does the potential for danger in even mundane social gatherings affect your decision now? In the last 18 months I came to the same conclusion as you and started socializing more, but then COVID happened and then quarantine and while the rest of my office rushes back to doing team lunches and whatnot, I find myself hesitating.…
I've been getting together with friends and family more the last couple/few months. Outdoors and indoors. A couple/few larger gatherings. There have been no problems.
Most of us our in our 40s and 50s - some older, some younger. We don't sneeze or cough on each other. It is assumed that someone feeling sick would stay home. Our family is more careful around gram, she's 92.
I'm personally not of the belief that covid is the end of the world. A lot of people agree with me.
I know of one person that refuses to leave the house. I understand that this person is more afraid of the virus than most people. I wouldn't want to do unnecessarily do anything to make a person who feels that way uncomfortable. But I'm also not going to live in a bubble for their peace of mind.
The rest of us feel pretty strongly that respiratory pandemics are part of life and can't be stopped by lockdowns, despite all of the fear-mongering headlines and anecdotes. Let me know when covid-19 is worse per-capita than the 1968 or 1957 flu seasons.
Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
#220The whole make yourself happy first mentality is a bizarre side effect of therapy. Therapists have one client. Not the client’s family, friends, coworkers, and community. Because of that much of the advice therapist give benefits the client at the expense of everyone else. This creates a toxic environment when you have a large percentage of any group going to therapy and practicing me first techniques. I wonder if th…
I'm not so sure if it is a side effect of therapy? At least in the modern capitalist world, people seem to be pretty 'me first' whether they've done therapy or not. Take America, where we refuse to have significant social safety net. I don't think this is because everyone started doing therapy...