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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

#21
Watch 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 question and my answer. That gives both parties an opportunity to defend a position later or be honest about what the intent was as it’s amazing who emails get forwarded to when there’s a disagreement.

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

#22
post #6

I 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.

Same here. While it’s tempting to chalk this up under “ball and chain”, I think it’s more a matter of realizing how precious little time you have and raising your bar of acceptance accordingly. I basically have two answers to requests - it’s either “sorry, gonna pass” or “HELL YES”. Edit: A trick I learned from Non-violent Communication is to reframe requests internally from “I have to do x” and “I should do x” as “I…

I understood CreepGin's comment to be about saying "no" to the wife and kids (and your comment to be about saying "no" to others). Maybe there was some intentional ambiguity or maybe I'm too cynic.

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

#23

Book 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 read "No more Mr. Nice Guy" a few years ago and it completely changed my perspective on personal relationships, made me realise my own behaviour was part of the reason for my failed relationships in the past. I highly recommend reading it if you are interested in self-improvement.

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

#24
I remember when it was “fashionable” for Marketing and Sales folks to never say no, and the rhetorical gymnastics they would go through to say no, while not actually saying “no,” would be amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J34UzHo4G5w

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

#25
I'd like to hear some comments from people who have experienced a situation where two people pleasers get into a feedback loop where they both start always saying yes to each other.

I've experienced this kind of situation before and I'm only recently realizing that this is the nature of that situation and am starting to unravel it.

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

#26

A brother of mine gave me an advice on this recently, goes like this: “just say no! After that find a reason why and give it, but first a no without thinking about it” I liked it

It doesn't seem constructive to always say "no" to things. "Yes" is how things get built. If you say "yes" to the right things, and then execute well, you'll go far in life. I'm not arguing against saying "no" to things, but a policy of blanket "no" will leave you pretty unfulfilled.

Yeah I have worked with people who are oppositional as a rule: i.e. no matter what is proposed, they will find a flaw or a reason it's a bad idea. These were some of the worst team environments I ever worked in.

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

#27

Book 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 just discovered "No more Mr. Nice Guy" a few weeks ago and it is completely blowing my mind!

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

#28
post #25

I'd like to hear some comments from people who have experienced a situation where two people pleasers get into a feedback loop where they both start always saying yes to each other. I've experienced this kind of situation before and I'm only recently realizing that this is the nature of that situation and am starting to unravel it.

I think this even happens to non-people-pleasers sometimes, when the context makes such a "yes loop" appropriate. For example in sales there are some junctures where it's appropriate to bring a big-picture win of a relationship into the "yes zone" so that the "no zone" issues can take a breather.

There are some good examples of that in this talk:

https://youtu.be/dXZO7mdoTBE

There's also the theory that some people "metabolize" social communication in specific patterns, and different matches of these patterns create different problems or opportunities. The match-up you mention quite often suggests outward actions, or co-decisions that are made after the co-narrowing of possibilities: "Here are five places we can go today. I like them all. Do me a favor and pick your top three?" Accompanied by logical explanations as needed, this can be a really powerful technique. But yeah, also tough stuff...

Quite often it's absolutely ok to make a subjective guess at a best outcome, move ahead, and trust that the other party will understand, based on your decision logic and your general willingness to be open.

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

#29
My 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 experience with a group of people is something I need deep in my soul.

Human connection is the preference that weighs many times more than all the others combined. Prioritizing my own inane sense of self rather than adopting behaviors that could enable relationships was just idiotic self-torture.

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

#30
post #6

I 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.

Same here. While it’s tempting to chalk this up under “ball and chain”, I think it’s more a matter of realizing how precious little time you have and raising your bar of acceptance accordingly. I basically have two answers to requests - it’s either “sorry, gonna pass” or “HELL YES”. Edit: A trick I learned from Non-violent Communication is to reframe requests internally from “I have to do x” and “I should do x” as “I…

Reminds me of this concept: https://sive.rs/hellyeah
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