The Runaway Yes: Why Women Say Yes When We Want to Say No

How many times have you said “yes” before you even checked your calendar… your energy… or your actual desire to do the thing?

In this episode of Over This Should, Pamela dives into the hidden conditioning behind people-pleasing, overcommitting, and being “the reliable one.” From the nervous-system response that makes women automatically say yes, to the research showing most people already expect rejection when they ask for favors, this episode will completely change the way you think about boundaries.

You’ll learn:

•  Why saying yes has become an automatic survival response for so many women 
•  The psychological research behind requests, guilt, and obligation 
•  The real emotional and physical cost of chronic overcommitment 
•  Pamela’s “24-Hour Yes” framework to stop agreeing out of pressure and start choosing intentionally 
•  Simple scripts for saying no without guilt spirals or overexplaining 

If you’ve ever hung up the phone already regretting what you agreed to… this one is for you.

Because the goal isn’t becoming someone who says no to everything.

It’s becoming someone who says yes on purpose.

Love this conversation? Follow Over This Should and share the episode with a woman who is ready to get over the expectations keeping her stuck. Learn more about Pamela Meadows, coaching, speaking, and upcoming programs at https://www.pamelameadows.com/.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Okay, picture this. It's a Thursday, you're already running behind, you have an unanswered text from your kids, you have no idea what you're doing for dinner because you didn't pull anything out in the morning, and then your phone rings. And it's her. You know the her, the one who only calls when she needs something. And before your brain can even process what she's asking, your mouth, your traitorous, well-trained little mouth, has already said, Yeah, sure, I can do that. And the second that yes, I can do it, leaves your lips, you feel it. You feel that tug deep in your chest, that voice that says, Oh no, what did I just commit to? Why did I say yes to that? And then you start doing the mental math of how you're going to fit one more thing into your already overbooked day. You're probably going to ask yourself, what can I move to make this happen? And if I had to guess, knowing you the way that I know most of the listeners, you're going to move the thing that is for you. And you're putting yourself again towards the bottom of the list. And the resentment, the resentment's already building, and you haven't even done the thing that she asked you to do. If you've ever been there, and let's be honest, you've been there. I want you to hear me say this clearly. You're not broken, you're not weak, you're not bad at boundaries, you're just really well conditioned. There is a massive difference, and today we're going to talk about that difference, why it happens, and the research behind it, and it is wild. And then I'm gonna give you a four-step practice you can put into play immediately, like the next time your phone rings. So pour your coffee, pour your wine, whatever time of day it is or season of life you're in, settle in and let's get to it. Here's the thing that nobody told us. We're trained for this. Most of us, and I'm raising my hand right along with you, learned from a really early age that being agreeable equaled being loved and being accepted. Being helpful equaled being valuable. Being available equaled being a good woman, a good mom, a good employee, a good friend, a good daughter. So when somebody asks for something, our nervous system doesn't pause. It doesn't check the calendar, it doesn't check our energy, it doesn't even check what we actually want. It just reaches automatically for the answer that keeps everybody else comfortable. And here's the part that really gets me. You are someone else too. You are someone whose comfort matters. And every yes that you say that should have been a no makes you uncomfortable in your own life. Now, here's where it gets really interesting because you know I always want to bring the data when we're talking. There's research from Dr. Vanessa Bones. She's a social psychologist at Cornell, and she spent years studying what happens when people make requests of one another. And what she found is gonna mess you up in the best way. We, that the askers and the requesters, consistently underestimate how often people will say yes to our request. We think people are more likely to turn us down than they do. Now flip that around. What does that mean for you on the receiving end of the ask? It means the person who's emailing you, texting you, calling you, sliding into your DMs with the favor, they're already bracing for a no. They're expecting it. And in a lot of cases, they would be totally fine with it. But you say yes. And you think you say yes to keep the peace, to make it easier to be agreeable, to be the person that everybody can depend on. But you're really saying yes to keeping the resentment. The cost of the runaway yes is not just the thing you agreed to, it's the head space it takes between now and then. It's the sleep you lose. It's the snippy thing you say to your partner or your children because you're overextended. It's the gym class you skip because you are so freaking exhausted. You have mental fatigue, you're sleepy, you're snipping at the people that you love, all because you said yes to something you didn't even want to do. The yes is never just a simple yes. Every yes has a cumulative cost. And I probably don't have to tell you this because you might already be living it, but you know I always want to bring the data. There is research out there that links chronic people pleasing to increased instances of anxiety and burnout, and even physical symptoms like sleep challenges, digestive problems. Your body is keeping tabs even when your mouth keeps saying yes. Okay, so what do we do about it? Because you know I'm not going to just leave you with some research and a diagnosis. We are an action podcast, and I want to give you something you can do today. I call this a 24-hour yes, and it is exactly what it sounds like. For the next week, just one week, that's all I'm asking. Before you say yes to anything, that's not an emergency. I want you to run it through these four steps. Step one, pause before you answer. Even 10 seconds. I'm going to give you a phrase to use, and I want you to put it on a sticky note or your notes app, put it on your monitor, put it in your phone, wherever it needs to be. Here it is. Let me check and get back with you. That's a complete sentence, and it's not rude. It does not require any further explanation in that moment on your part. It is a full grown-up woman response. And it buys you one thing that runaway yes never has, and that's time. Step two, ask yourself this question, and it might not seem like it, but it is a little bit of magic. If this thing was happening tomorrow, not in three weeks, not in a month, would you be excited about it or annoyed? That question matters because when we think about saying yes to something that's three weeks away or one month away, we think that our future selves will have plenty of time and be ready for that, and we'll be excited about it in three weeks. But here's the deal future you is still you, and maybe she's a little bit more tired. So if it was happening tomorrow, would it be a full-bodied yes? I'm excited about this, or would it be an annoyance? Because chances are if it's an annoyance for you tomorrow, it will also be in three weeks. So run it through that filter. Step three, notice your body. Your body is going to tell you the answer before your brain catches up. Did your chest tighten? Did your jaw clench? Did your shoulder start creeping up to your ears? That's data. That is not drama. Your body is the smartest, most honest part of you. And we have spent decades telling ourselves and teaching ourselves to override how our body feels, our immediate response. And today we're gonna stop doing that. And step four is to practice the soft no. Because oftentimes what holds women back from saying no is this idea that we have to give a whole explanation as to why it's no so we can justify this. It's because if we say no, people won't like us, we won't be agreeable, we won't be the reliable ones anymore. We have told ourselves so many stories about what saying no might mean about us. But saying no doesn't have to be a whole speech. You can say something like, that doesn't work for me right now, but thank you so much for thinking of me. Period. Full stop. No further explanation needed. You don't need to overshare, you don't need to justify your no. You can just say, that doesn't work for me, but thank you for thinking of me. Practice it! Practice it in your car, practice it in the shower, practice the gentle soft no. Here's why practicing the soft no is so important for me. Because when I first started to try to gain control over my yeses and my no's and my life, and so I can lead from a place of genuinely more joy and less resentment. I couldn't just outright say no. Every no still felt like it was tinged with guilt for me. I felt bad. I felt like I was disappointing people, and oh my goodness, the idea of disappointing people was a thing that was just a knife to the chest for me. Saying outright no was really difficult. And I can tell you now, I know it's a two-letter word and the complete sentence and all of the things I've learned after many, many, many, many years of practicing it. But when I first started to set boundaries for myself and understand that my yes meant yes and my no meant no, and I needed to value that for myself, it wasn't easy. I went back on my no a lot just to keep the peace. But like I said before, I wasn't actually keeping peace, I was keeping resentment. And that resentment showed up in my marriage, it showed up in my workplace. None of that was healthy, and it was all self-inflicted because I thought I had to be, I should be some version of me that the world needed. But the truth is, I learned to say things like, Thank you for thinking of me. I'm actually overbooked right now, but keep me in mind for the future. It was a soft no. It was a gratitude for the opportunity, which is true. I don't actually have time for this, said gently, and keep me in mind for the future, which could also be true. Getting comfortable with how to say no in a way that doesn't make you feel terrible in the beginning is really important. If you don't get comfortable with the gentle and soft no, what's going to happen is you're gonna feel like you've upset somebody who matters to you. And so you're going to say yes. And if you say yes at that point, which I have and so many women that I coach have, what happens is you now begin to train people that your no doesn't actually mean no. It just means if you ask enough times, it will get to a yes. Who wants to live like that? I didn't want to anymore, and I bet you don't either. And here's one more thing that nobody told me. And I know it's going to sound silly, but track it. At the end of the week, track how many no's you said and how many yeses you reclaimed, how many times you paused, how many soft no's you let come out of your mouth. Don't beat yourself up if you wanted to say no, but you said yes to something. We're just starting this practice together. But those numbers, the times that you said no, even if it was gentle, the times that you felt your chest tighten and you're like, I don't know if this is for me. That number, that's a reminder to you. That becomes your own personal data and proof points that you can do this. It might feel hard, it might feel uncomfortable, but your capacity is coming back to you. The hours of your life that you would have spent doing something you didn't want to are coming back to you. You don't have to become the woman who says no to everything. You just have to become the woman who says yes on purpose. If this episode hit a nerve for you, and I'm guessing it did because I feel like it hit a nerve for me while I was recording it, I want you to do two quick things for me. Please hit subscribe on my podcast on whatever app you're using. That little button will be the difference between remembering this conversation and getting the next one that I publish next week, or having it just be lost in the scroll. It also makes a really big difference for my podcast. It'll help me reach more women who need to regain the power of their yes. The other thing you could do is come find me on social. I'm on Instagram and LinkedIn, and I would love to hear from you and connect. It is a great joy of my life when women come into the DMs and let me know that the podcast meant something for them. You can always find me at ThePamela Meadows. We just had an episode on saying no. So if those things don't sound good to you or your chest felt like it tightened when I made those two asks, don't do it. But if you want to, I'd really appreciate it. And here's what I want you to remember the next time somebody asks you for something and you feel that tight little tug in your chest, that is your body's way of talking. Listen to her. Alright. See you next week.