Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing
Overwhelmed Working Woman is a podcast for accomplished women who want to feel more calm, in control, and focused without adding more to their already full plate.
This top 2% podcast is hosted by Michelle Gauthier, who has over 7 years of experience coaching hundreds of overwhelmed working women.
Each episode offers simple, practical strategies to help you reduce overwhelm, improve productivity, and stop people pleasing. You’ll learn surprising time management hacks, how to do less without guilt, and why the path to calm begins with changing how you think.
If you're ready to reclaim your energy, focus, and peace of mind you’re in the right place. Start with listener favorite: “The Power of a To-Don’t List.”
Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing
#158| How to Say No Without Feeling Guilty — Even If You’ve Always Been a People Pleaser: Overwhelm, Productivity, Time Management & People Pleasing
Do you say “yes” when you really want to say “no” — just to avoid guilt or keep the peace?
In this episode, Michelle sits down with her former client Tasha, who reveals her journey from lifelong people pleaser to confident boundary-setter — a challenge many working moms face daily at home and in demanding careers.
In this episode, you will:
- Discover the power of pausing before responding to requests so you can answer honestly
- Learn simple mindset shifts to protect your time and speak up without fear
- Hear practical, real-life strategies that helped Tasha stop automatic people pleasing for good
Press play now to learn how to break free from people pleasing and start living life on your own terms.
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Life can be overwhelming, but on this podcast, you'll discover practical strategies to overcome overwhelm, imposter syndrome, and negative self-talk, manage time effectively, set boundaries, and stay productive in high-stress jobs—all while learning how to say no and prioritize self-care on the Overwhelmed Worki...
Because I was a people pleaser, I avoided having hard conversation.
Michelle Gauthier:You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less. I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach. On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's working woman experiences and in each episode you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease and relaxation to your life. Hi, friend, I have a great interview for you today, which is my former client, Tasha, and if you're a person who's ever struggled with people pleasing or setting boundaries or saying no without guilt, this episode is going to be a great one for you. When you listen, you'll learn how to build in a pause before responding, which Tasha will tell you is the one of the keys to learning to stop people pleasing. You'll learn how to stop saying yes out of habit or guilt and how to confidently set boundaries at both work and home.
Michelle Gauthier:Tasha was really generous in sharing all the details. She shares her journey from being a total people pleaser to a confident decision maker, and she explains the practical strategies that she used to learn how to stop people pleasing, and you can start using those today too. So by the end of this episode, I have a feeling you'll feel really empowered to protect your own time and speak up for yourself and make decisions that feel good to you. Let's dig in. I think you're going to really enjoy getting to know Tasha today. Thank you so much, tasha, for being with me today, of course.
Tasha:Thanks for having me.
Michelle Gauthier:Yeah, can you tell the audience just a little bit about yourself, like where you live and what you do, and then I will jump into some questions about coaching, like where you live and what you do, and then I will jump into some questions about coaching.
Tasha:Yeah, so I live here in Towson, maryland. I am a wife, a mom of two kids that are 14 and eight. So I have a son that's 18 and then a daughter that is 10 late. They keep us very busy.
Michelle Gauthier:Yeah, yeah. So you're working at a what I would call a high stress job and you also have your kids, are at that age where you're doing still a lot of driving for them and taking them places, and et cetera. I think it's very relatable.
Tasha:Okay.
Michelle Gauthier:So how did you feel before we started coaching, did you?
Tasha:feel, before we started coaching, before coaching, I was always a people pleaser. To be honest, I wanted to please everybody that came in contact with myself. So you know, because I was a people pleaser, I avoided having hard conversation. I hated them. And you know I was always in other coaching group. I should say Never did the one-to-one coaching but I did, you know, group coaching. But you know, one day my boss suggested you and I meet. So she was like you should do one-to-one coaching and I was like great. And then once you and I met, you know, I felt like we really kicked it off and was looking forward to our weekly meeting.
Michelle Gauthier:OK, good, I love that. So when you, when you were more of a people pleaser because spoiler alert we're going to talk about how you aren't anymore but when you, were a people pleaser, did you realize it?
Tasha:No, I didn't.
Michelle Gauthier:Okay, and that is so so common Me neither. When I was a major people pleaser, I always thought, well, I'm just nice and I want people to like me and you know those kinds of things. So if somebody is listening right now and they're like, oh, I might be a people pleaser, Just know you're not alone. If you haven't realized that you're a people pleaser yet and you're realizing it now, Just a reminder. It's a habit and it's a habit that can be broken, and we're going to talk about how.
Michelle Gauthier:So, how did if we're staying with the problem how did being a people pleaser impact your work life?
Tasha:I would say because I always wanted to make everybody happy. I would say because I always wanted to make everybody happy. So you know, what I did here before is my boss came to me and was like can you create this call center? Like we're getting a lot of phone calls like create this call center, and I'm like don't know how to, but sure you know I can figure this out.
Tasha:And with doing that, you know I had to have a lot of hard conversations with the team on, like how they take a phone call. You know we deal with death and disability here, which is not fun conversation, yeah. And you know when a loved one calls in, you know we want to have that empathy there and some of the team members on my team didn't always have that empathy and I have so much empathy to go around for everybody, yeah. So I had to have a lot of hard conversations, especially if someone calls in and goes, you know my mom just passed and the team members saying okay, instead of oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry you're going through this. So there are times that I had to like have those hard conversations with them and it was hard for me because I wanted to.
Tasha:I didn't want to hurt their feelings, yeah, yeah, but I know, at the end of the day I had to and it took a lot for me to have
Michelle Gauthier:those kind of conversations, especially when you have had, like, different positions where maybe you didn't have to have those hard conversations as much, but as you kept moving up in the working world which you have been doing for what? 15 years? Just getting promoted, promoted, promoted, you get more responsible positions and then you have to have more of those kinds of conversations. Yes, so when we started coaching, a lot of times when I'm first talking to people, they're like well, when am I going to feel better? Because I work with people for six months, as you very well know, and so they want to know when am I going to start feeling better? So what would you say to that question? When did you start feeling better? How did you know? Oh, this is working.
Tasha:I noticed it was working because I started saying no. Oh, this is working. I noticed it was working because I started saying no and I had to set boundaries, which was something new for me.
Michelle Gauthier:I never wanted to really do that before. You guys can't see Tasha's face right now but she said I'm saying no and had this look like what the heck?
Tasha:All of a sudden, the word no is coming out of your mouth for the first time ever out of your mouth for the first time ever, yeah, and then I also noticed whenever we do performance reviews here and I met with my boss, who I've been with her for almost 11 years within this company. Yeah, and it just started off being her and I, so she saw Tasha coming in, who could probably barely write an email when I first started.
Tasha:So she literally sat me down and she was like you are completely different. She was like you're way more confident and that really felt amazing to me, like wow, she sees it. So if you know other people are starting to see it, then okay, this is working.
Michelle Gauthier:Yes, exactly. And then, when you feel confident, you're so much more likely to have those tough conversations and be upfront and honest with people. Okay, great. So what do you think was one of, or some of the best things that you learned in coaching?
Tasha:I learned to pause before saying yes and I gained awareness around my automatic people pleasing skills. Yes, that was skilled, I don't even know, but it actually came down to the kids. You know, there are times that I would come home, walk in the door and they I got bombarded with a thousand different questions. And when you go from working in an office and dealing with people every day and managing people and then you have to go home and you're still technically working, you're a mom, like being a mom is a full-time job. So then it's like I need that decompression time to reset myself and with the kids, you know asking me a million questions and before I even put my curse down Now, after saying hold on, I just walked in the door and saying that for like a solid month the kids don't ask me anymore. I walk in and they're like hey mom, how was your day? And don't ask me a million questions as soon as I walked in.
Michelle Gauthier:Yes, that is such a win and I think that is also really common that when you get, I'm just picturing everyone like walking in their back door and their kids running up to them.
Michelle Gauthier:I feel like it's the same everywhere Mom, can you take me here, can you take me here? And when we're saying yes, in that moment it's really just our way to say, like give me a minute. I don't want to have the whole conversation with you about no or why this won't work right now. I just need to like set down my bag and go, change my clothes and get a drink of water and like pull myself together a little bit. So I think, by you not even being available to evaluate the question, like don't ask me questions right now, just give me a few minutes and then I will be able to say yes or no. And do you feel like you say yes when you want to say yes and no when you want to say no to your kids now? Because I remember at the beginning you said I feel like I say yes to them too much. I don't know what too much is, but I remember you telling me that.
Tasha:Yeah, no, there is definitely time, and the kids will joke. Now They'll ask me something and I'm like no, and they're like you just said no and I'm like, yeah, the answer is no. Yeah, and they're like, oh, can we do that? No, and they ask me like a bunch of random things and they just laugh now because they're like, wow, mom's saying no, yeah, look at this.
Michelle Gauthier:Mom's got it, yeah. And it's another reminder, too, that when we change in a way that's good for us, sometimes other people don't like it. So let's take your boss, for example. She liked it. She was like this is great. You're, you know, more confident. You're saying no to your employees, you're having these hard conversations and your kids are like wait, where's that mom who would always say yes, yeah.
Tasha:I don't know if it's just because my kids just adapted to it so quickly. My kids are very adaptable, which is, I think, a blessing more than amazing.
Michelle Gauthier:Yeah, that is especially. Two of them usually might get one who's easy going. But yeah, that's amazing. Yes, ok, great. And then you mentioned building the pause in to your people pleasing nature. So how did you do that? If you went from not realizing you were people-pleasing to trying to stop, how did you build in that pause?
Tasha:I just took a minute and like, would breathe, instead of just automatically just jumping right into like the yes or the no, like I just take a minute and like I breathe, that way I know, okay, like, what answer do I really need to give this person?
Michelle Gauthier:Yes, yes, I just saw this meme yesterday that was like you don't need to respond to everything in one second. You're not Amazon prime, exactly, we feel like we have to like the second.
Michelle Gauthier:You get a text, our body's like, ooh, this is an emergency, you have to respond to it, even if it's not important. And so, being able to pause when someone has asked you a question and even to say things like to your kids I don't want to answer this right now. Or don't ask me any questions right now, or to a boss or an employee thanks for asking me. I just need to think about that a little bit like buy yourself some time if you're not good at saying no yet. Once you get good, you can just quickly evaluate and be like no or yes, but at first you just need to build that pause in there.
Tasha:Yeah, and that's one thing that you actually taught me, because I would get like email, you know, like seven o'clock, eight o'clock at night, and I thought I had to respond to it right away. And with your coaching, you're like no, you don't.
Michelle Gauthier:Yeah, yeah. But what happens when you do that is people send you those at eight o'clock at night and expect you to respond so I can teach them how to treat you. And obviously you're a very reliable employee and get to the office in the morning and answer your emails. What?
Tasha:difference does it make Right?
Michelle Gauthier:Right Okay. What was your favorite thing about coaching?
Tasha:Getting to see you weekly. Honestly, there are so many times that I was like, well, like wow, michelle really gets it. You were so relatable and you understand, like the working slash, mom life, which was, you know, very helpful. And there's also times I remember I would join the call and I would be in tears like worst day of my life, you know, with work or even if it was home, I felt like I was able to express a lot of things to you and you would just help me get through it. And then there's times that I'm like well, michelle, I think I need to talk about budgets today because I just am a hot mess with budget. Yeah, you know, you gave me a lot of tip. My husband gave me a lot of tip and just, I think it was, I don't know, two weeks ago. I'm officially debt free, which felt amazing.
Michelle Gauthier:That is amazing. I know you were totally working on that.
Tasha:Oh yeah, what a great win, yeah.
Michelle Gauthier:So it's interesting when we're doing coaching for six months and we meet every week, because at the beginning of the session I always ask everyone for wins and then I say what do you want to work on this week? And so, let's say, you came to me for coaching about people pleasing, but that day you were feeling really stressed about your budget. I was like, let's talk about it, because the tools that we use for anything can be applied to anything. So, yeah, hey, before you spend, pause and ask yourself why am I buying this? Do I really want to? And tell yourself okay, I'm capable to manage my money, so I absolutely love that. Congratulations on being debt free. That was amazing, great feeling. Oh, that's the best Good. So, just in general, how would you say your life is different now compared to before we started?
Tasha:I feel like now I just get stuff done. You know, before I always thought about everything and I would just do well on the littlest things, but now I just get it done. My mind is clearer Sometimes. Yeah, my old patterns still want to come into play, but I know how to manage them better.
Michelle Gauthier:Yes, and I think that's the ultimate goal, because my old patterns still come into play and I'm doing this like every day for seven years, eight years now, of doing working on my mindset, but they just come up. But it's not a big deal, just to be like, oh, I noticed. I felt this is me, not you. I felt the urge to people, please someone, and I noticed it and I'm not gonna do it, but that's interesting that it still came up and then you just move on. It's not, it doesn't even have to be a big deal. Yes, yes, okay, great. Now I'm gonna ask you the two questions that I ask everybody when they're on the podcast. What is something that you do to make yourself feel less overwhelmed?
Tasha:Well, coming from a girl here who had the worst anxiety ever, I use all the breathing techniques. There are times that you've taught me breathing techniques. I went through therapy and, you know, learned a bunch of breathing techniques through that and I always use them. You know, before a bunch of breathing techniques through that and I always use them, you know, before having hard conversations or if it's something that's still outside my comfort zone, that I'm not really sure about yet. But I always remind myself that everything is okay, yeah, like everything's fine, and I just breathe.
Michelle Gauthier:Yes, yes. And that's such a good tip because breathing is always with us and you can do it without other people even noticing, like if you're doing square breathing or something like that, you can just be counting in your head, you know when you're in public or in a meeting or whatever it is. So that's a great tip. What's something you consistently do to save time or do less?
Tasha:I started ordering groceries online only because it saves me time, now that I don't have to go to the grocery store for an hour or so. I do, you know, online groceries I'll either pick them up, get them delivered but it also helps me avoid those impulse buys that I, you know I don't overspend now on groceries or even Target. We'll do Target online orders or anything online, instead of me actually physically going to the store. Because one, it saves time and then my budget. Yeah, the nightmare if I walk into a store.
Michelle Gauthier:Yes, it's saving you time and money. This is good for your budget and your time that's great. Ordering online from Target is a great idea because I just went in there last night real quick to pick up something for dinner that I was going to grill and I was like I better just run by the summer dresses.
Michelle Gauthier:Let's see if they have any cute tank tops and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, do I need some new self-tanning lotion? And pretty soon you're like $100 in on just going in there I was picking up like bratwurst to put on the grill and pretty soon you pick up all these things. So that is a great tip. Yeah, yes, okay. So what would you say to somebody who's thinking about doing one-on-one coaching?
Tasha:Take the chance. Like honestly take the chance. Like honestly take the chance and especially if they're like a mom that's in the business world, like definitely set up a call with you.
Michelle Gauthier:Like you totally get it like, yeah, so helpful yes, yes, I've been there and I'm also still there. You know, it's like being a working mom is always the same.
Michelle Gauthier:It's just different how you can handle it. Okay, great Well, thank you so much and congratulations on being debt-free and not people-pleasing and being so much more confident. That is just something that will keep on serving you throughout the rest of your life and we are just for the listeners. We did coaching together for six or nine months and we're finished now and we've been finished, gosh, since January. Maybe we've been finished for like six months and this stuff is still going and the skills are ongoing. So, great job and thank you for sharing your story. Of course, thank you.
Michelle Gauthier:Hope you enjoyed that interview today and that you were able to get some great tips about how to stop people pleasing and make more confident decisions. If this is an area where you struggle and you're interested in working with me one-on-one, like Tasha did, I will drop the link in the show notes. You could always just send me a message too if you're interested in doing that, but I'll drop the link where you can first of all read a little bit more about what one-on-one coaching is like and then you can schedule a free discovery session with me to find out if it's something that you really might want to do. All right, have a great week. See you soon. Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast. If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthier. com. See you next week.
