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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

#241

Post by dredmorbius »

pessimizer wrote: post #231

If you're a people-pleaser, don't ever do what this article is calling a "soft no." It's proposing this as a compromise between a "hard no" and a yes, but there's no benefit in being compromised here. The more practice you get with your "hard no," the better you'll get at it. Eventually you'll have to pull back because you're finding it too easy to say no. That's when you know you're cured. A "soft no" given to an as…

I start with a soft no.

Assholes discover just how close to that the hard no lies.

When dealing with reasonable and perceptive people, a soft no is sufficient and provides social lubricant.

Oh: my lifetime supply of fucks to give ran out a decade back.

No, I'm not gratuitously rude (anything but). But I meet gratuitous rudeness with same.

In the long run it reduces need to do so.

Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes

#242

Post by taurath »

taurath wrote: post #66

Note that people pleasing is often a side effect of trauma and early relationship. Not that being nice is bad, but when you can’t put up and boundaries or are anxious about saying no that can often be a good indicator. Certainly not for everyone, but it would’ve been helpful for me to hear.

Early relationship trouble or attachment problems

Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes

#243

Post by jgwil2 »

pc86 wrote: post #224
jgwil2 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the parent means it is the norm for this to happen to most people, but rather that at-will employment[0] is the norm and this is a possibility, however remote, that most people have to reckon with. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At-will_employment

There is quite a bit of difference between " it is the norm to be fired on the spot and without recourse for something that has nothing to do with your job" (a direct quote, I don't believe missing any context but open to counterarguments) and "a legal framework exists in which a thing could conceivably happen, even though it doesn't happen in any statistically significant numbers"

Fair enough; the comment is a bit hyperbolic. The larger point that this lack of protection in some sense reduces freedom still stands.

Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes

#244

Post by ritchiea »

tristor wrote: post #228
ritchiea wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You clearly have a narrow view of the history of the United States because before the 1960's a black person could be murdered by a mob for saying the wrong thing to a white person. And those mob murderers would not be prosecuted. You call that a philosophical protection of free speech inshrined within the culture? Also, you ever hear of anyone in America being punished for saying they're a communist or homosexual? Or…

> To any degree free speech was a thing, it was most often selectively afforded to white men. This is true, and unsurprising given the historical context. In fact, the Constitution was written as such with the original intention of providing those freedoms primarily to the benefit of not just white men, but land-owning white men. Crofters, smallholders, and other types of land-owners wanted to be put on the same tier…

It’s not whataboutism because the fact that the value of free speech was only granted to a privileged few addresses your argument that the USA once valued free speech and things have changed. If free speech was only granted to a privileged few why should we ever think of it as some societal value that was lost? It appears to me that the privileged few that saw themselves in the demographic gifted free speech are the the people who are angry their speech is criticized. We all still have free speech by the definition of the constitution but now there are decentralized public means to criticize the powerful. And there is popular sentiment supporting that criticism.

Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes

#245

Post by el_dev_hell »

galfarragem wrote: post #59
el_dev_hell wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never heard of Robert A. Glover but the book sounds very interesting. Man, the GoodReads reviews are getting destroyed.

If you're unsure, he is sometimes a podcast guest. The book shares the same honest and vulnerable tone of his conversations.

Thanks for the tip!

Loading up this https://overcast.fm/+NS2z7mjsA for this morning's testing session.

Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes

#246

Post by tristor »

ritchiea wrote: post #244
tristor wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To any degree free speech was a thing, it was most often selectively afforded to white men. This is true, and unsurprising given the historical context. In fact, the Constitution was written as such with the original intention of providing those freedoms primarily to the benefit of not just white men, but land-owning white men. Crofters, smallholders, and other types of land-owners wanted to be put on the same tier…

It’s not whataboutism because the fact that the value of free speech was only granted to a privileged few addresses your argument that the USA once valued free speech and things have changed. If free speech was only granted to a privileged few why should we ever think of it as some societal value that was lost? It appears to me that the privileged few that saw themselves in the demographic gifted free speech are the…

> It appears to me that the privileged few that saw themselves in the demographic gifted free speech are the the people who are angry their speech is criticized.

Free speech is a civil right, as civil rights have grown in the US it has been extended to those that civil rights have grown to encompass. It's not just the privileged few (or even the privileged majority) that are angry about a loss of this social more.

> but now there are decentralized public means to criticize the powerful.

What you are calling "the powerful" seems to me to mostly be average normal people who just happen to not agree with the current sentiment in vogue. Most of the people who've found themselves on the wrong end of the consequences meted out for attempting to exercise freedom of speech would hardly qualify as "powerful" under any lay definition.

The public square is supposed to belong to everyone, and freedom of speech is the social more that ensures this is the case. We've lost or are beginning to lose this social more, and doing so has disastrous long-term and far-reaching consequences for our society.

Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes

#247

Post by cutemonster »

paxys wrote: post #212
cutemonster wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Software complexity -- has bitten me too.

e.g. it's amazing, I think, how things that seem like unimportant details sometimes can turn out to be 10 maybe 100 x more work than first thought

Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes

#248

Post by darkerside »

mistersquid wrote: post #167
darkerside wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it is true that you are responsible for the way that you feel, and you can choose not only how to externally react to what people to say, but even teach yourself to internally process those messages as constructively as you want to. The most powerful thing about words is the power the listener gives them. I hope I've successfully fallen between the cracks of the perspective you outlined.

> The most powerful thing about words is the power the listener gives them. Human beings are neurologically wired to biologically respond to communication from other beings. A classic example is nursing women who express milk when hearing a baby cry. There are many other examples of involuntary responses to environmental stimulus, much of which include human communication. Loud noises cause involuntarily muscular res…

I have much now control over my thoughts and feelings in response to words than I used to. Here, for example, almost ridiculously, I felt a moment of anger that someone who so clearly had missed my point would so confidently respond with examples that are not relevant to it. That lasted a microsecond. I've learned to tell myself a different story. You're not being properly obtuse, your actually have a different set of life experiences and intuitions than I do, and that leads you to interpret my words in a way that I didn't intend. There's nothing to be angry about there.

If you call me a racial slur, and I honestly don't give a shit, what power do you have over me?

Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes

#249

Post by darkerside »

watwut wrote: post #169
darkerside wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it is true that you are responsible for the way that you feel, and you can choose not only how to externally react to what people to say, but even teach yourself to internally process those messages as constructively as you want to. The most powerful thing about words is the power the listener gives them. I hope I've successfully fallen between the cracks of the perspective you outlined.

The said words affect everyone in the room. When someone is offending you and you don't respond, it pretty often affects how other respond to you too. > even teach yourself to internally process those messages as constructively No, you need to teach yourself to respond to them. And for that you need to stop pretending they do no harm. And stop blaming yourself for feeling bad after someone insulted you. Really, when…

I'm not saying bullying doesn't exist, or that it shouldn't be responded to appropriately. But I think people miss that there is a TON of speech that is not malicious on nature but gets treated as such. That's not bullying, and if you respond to it with defiance, you're escalating situations, not building trust with people different from you.

Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes

#250

Post by dang »

ritchiea wrote: post #74
Natales wrote: post #34

No 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 po…

What's wrong with being kind and speaking to people with respect while you disagree with them? One of the big problems with the "politically incorrect" or "radical free speech" crowd is that your words can hurt people's feeling. And your tone can hurt people's feelings. And there's no good reason to tell someone "fuck off" when you can politely say no other than maybe you have things you're angry about that you haven…

This comment and your other comments downthread are crossing into personal attack. Please don't do that here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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