The smallest but the heaviest word known to man…

In the past week, I read a book and was shocked to know that I was almost a chronic people pleaser, and that uttering a particular word is virtually impossible for me. That word is “NO”, hence the title.

Are you one of those who can’t seem to say no to people? Do you feel frustrated because people repeatedly ask you for help, and you say yes even when you have other commitments? Do you find yourself getting angry at yourself for saying yes? Stick around as I take you through my journey of realizing that I struggle with saying no, understanding the importance of saying no, and the steps I’m taking to build this necessary habit of setting boundaries.

A lot of reading on this topic has given me some insights into the following questions:

• Why can’t I say no ??
• How is it adversely affecting my life on the whole??
• Why should I say no??
• How can I say no??

Why can’t I say no??

Well, I don’t say I am like the Jim Carrey character from the movie Yes Man who says yes to everything, but I find myself hesitating to say no. Instead, I latch onto “maybe,” which is almost as good as a yes for the other person.

The basic reason I can’t say no is maybe due to the culture we have come from, where

• Helping others is considered Nobel. You also feel good about yourself when you help others and you get addicted to that.
• People may shower shallow praise on you because, or for your help and we just help them for the good name it brings us, even when we don’t want to actually help, we say yes even when saying no makes more sense. I hate to admit it but I was and I still sometimes do help people just for that although that tendency has gone down by a lot recently.
• Prioritizing others needs over mine is considered nobel as well.
• We just don’t want to get in an argument with the other person and eventually agree with their request. This has also happened to me a lot of times when initially I have said no, and then after some nagging, emotional drama and name calling by the other person I gave in and said yes. Also I could never say no to that same person again fearing the same situation may arise.
• People may feel sad or when we say no to any of their requests or demands and we somehow feel it is because of us that the other person is reacting the way they are reacting.

How is it adversely affecting my life on the whole??

• If we say yes to everyone all the time, for not getting into confrontation or maybe getting the shallow praise we are bound to lose time, time that was meant for us, for the assignment or the activity we have planned or time that was supposed to be spent with family or on something else.
• If that happens we eventually get grumpy, passive aggressive and angry, angry at others that they don’t understand our situation, angry at ourselves that we still say yes to people.
• This can adversely affect my health, my relationships, and a lot more.
• When I want to say no but I don’t I try to come up with fake excuses as to why I can’t do what they are asking me to.
• So basically I make excuses and I lie and then what if they catch me in that lie, I lose my respect in their eyes
• If not I anyways know that I lied and how will I be able to live with the fact that I lie for such little things.
• So more often than not I think about that and will I be able to do what I set out to do when half my concentration is on that fact that I lied and I don’t want to get caught.

 If you’re using half your concentration to look normal, then you’re only half paying attention to whatever else you’re doing

Erik Lehnsherr, X-men men first class (2011)

How can I say no?

Well it’s easy just utter the words it’s just a single syllable and it will set you free, free of various unnecessary burdens and responsibilities.

But how to do it without the consequences that follow the emotional drama the concentration the feeling that I am responsible for all that.

The first thing to understand is that if I said no with all the dignity possible, I should not care what the other person’s response is. If the other person is angry because I was rude, it is my fault. But when I said no with all the dignity possible and the other person is still sad, angry, or devastated, that is their emotion and has nothing to do with me. I have done nothing to provoke this, hence such a response is not my responsibility. When we understand this, saying no becomes much easier. I have come to this realization recently.

Saying no without actually saying no: I deal with students and patients on a regular basis, so one day when I was helping a student write a referral letter as an exercise, it struck me that saying no can be substituted with the same thing. I mean, when a student comes to me with a doubt in a subject or topic I am not so comfortable with, instead of telling them that I can’t help them, I refer them to a teacher who is better equipped with the knowledge about that particular topic. The same applies when dealing with our patients. If there is a specific problem that I may not be able to tackle, I am taught to refer them to someone who is better suited to help. We are taught that this will build trust between the two clinicians and also between us and the patient.

If that builds trust, then referring someone who is asking for your help to someone else who is better at that task than you serves both of you. I mean, he gets the help he is looking for from a person who may help him better than you. You get out of that situation without saying no. The relationship between you two remains the same or may even improve, without unnecessary drama, confrontation, and name-calling.

Be direct, don’t lie, tell them the truth: Lie and you’ll have to lie every time when the same request comes up, and after the first few times, your respect is bound to take a hit as the person may think that you are only avoiding their request. Be direct and truthful. If it is something you genuinely hate doing, tell them. If you have something lined up on your watch, tell them that. If now is not the right time, tell them to check with you later. Just don’t make excuses that are not there, don’t lie. The person asking for help might not like the truth, but they will eventually respect you for telling them the truth. Be assertive, not rude.

Start with baby steps. I was a chronic people pleaser, so I had to build a habit of saying no. And once again, Atomic Habits came to my rescue. It is always easier to say no to some people than to others. So, I started with strangers – the people in supermarkets trying to sell me credit cards. Then, I moved on to my students. Then my friends, extended family, and finally, my own family.

I had no problems saying no to strangers, students had moderate difficulty in saying no to friends and family and I still can’t say no to extended family and my wife. Well you shouldn’t say so to your wife anyways when you don’t know how to cook, but the extended family is a lot harder to say no to when compared to family.

In that regard I decided that I would only help my extended family on certain things and on certain times other than that my time belongs to me no matter what they think about it.

You have to accept this fact fully and then only you will find people accepting it. I used to help one of my cousins with writing his essays and any assignments and anything else that required creative writing, as we all believed I had good enough writing skills over the period of time I don’t know why I didn’t want to anymore and I told him that I’d only do one every 2 weeks just one and there was some emotional drama but eventually he came to terms with this.

With spouse and family it is essential that they know you, your likes and dislikes, it is your duty to build boundaries as to what you can help them with and what you won’t help them with, it is you who defines boundaries and reminds people of those boundaries, take it on you you don’t or you won’t instead of you can’t, can’t tells the other person that you are not able to help him because of something and they may come back with the same request, can’t or won’t, tells them it’s your decision, there should be a reason attached to it a true one even if it is that you don’t do it (the request) anymore.

A “no” is much better than a “yes” that drives a wedge between two people. For example, if I say yes to going out with my wife to a satsang, which I don’t like, I’ll be grumpy throughout it, ruining her experience as well. And maybe even after that, my behavior might change and I may start nagging her about something I agreed to. This could potentially create a rift between us.

Hence, boundaries are important. Some “no’s” are far better at building relationships than “yes’s”. It is important to develop, in somebody asking for your help repeatedly, realistic expectations that will help both of you in the journey of life. I am still figuring out the part where I say no to my spouse. We actually are marking boundaries for each other to follow, and that is a healthy start.

Saying “no” gives me time to focus on myself. When I have time for myself, I am happy. When I am happy, I am more productive, less irritable, and a better person altogether.

To conclude Sadguru in a video said something along the lines of  we should build an environment somewhere in which we can always say YES to everything.

This means finding a place where everybody who asks your help has realistic expectations of what you can do. This means they respect boundaries and don’t ask you to do anything outside of those boundaries. Because of this, the chances of you saying yes are almost certain.

It all begins when you accept the fact that you have to say “no” sometimes and it is okay because when you accept it others will as well.