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.
How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
21–30 of 280 posts
Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
#22I 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…
Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
#23Book 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…
Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
#24Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
#25I'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
#26A 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.
Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
#27Book 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…
Re: How to say no, for the people pleaser who always says yes
#28I'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.
There are some good examples of that in this talk:
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
#29Human 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
#30I 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…