The Truth About Saying No at Work (And Still Succeeding)

Every man knows the pressure to overwork. We feel like if we don’t push harder, someone else will — and we’ll fall behind. But what if saying no to overwork could actually make you a better man?
In this episode of the Manhood Tribe Show, Don explores why men feel trapped in the cycle of overwork and how to break free — without tanking your career. You’ll learn how to:
 • Set boundaries that earn respect, not punishment
 • Develop the courage to say no at the right time
 • Trust God as your ultimate provider — not your paycheck

Follow & Connect
 💪 Take the “How Manly Are You?” Quiz → https://bit.ly/3Leh2L1
 🧭 Get the “Pathway to Freedom” guide for men → https://bit.ly/4olGz3S
 📘 Read How To Be A Man → https://bit.ly/43Fh30Q
 📘 Facebook: https://facebook.com/manhoodtribes
 📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/manhoodtribes
 🎙️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7HrM8c2cbFvwCSTjyWRlWo
 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/manhood-tribes/id1723837362

Question for You
 Where do you need to say “no” to overwork in your life right now? Comment below — your courage might help another man draw his own boundary.

⏰ TIMECODES
 00:00 The Pressure to Overwork
 01:08 Introduction to the Manhood Tribe Show
 02:51 The Impact of Overwork on Personal Life
 06:51 Setting Boundaries at Work
 10:50 Developing the Courage to Say No
 14:28 Trusting God as Your Provider
 18:57 Conclusion and Call to Action

HASHTAGS
 #ManhoodTribes #MenAndWork #FaithForMen #Overworking #CourageForMen #Masculinity

ABOUT MANHOOD TRIBES
 In our culture today, many men don’t feel like they know what it means to be a man, and they lack male friendships. Manhood Tribes guides you to becoming an extraordinary man by pursuing strong, healthy masculinity and building a life-changing group of men around you.
 Get started at https://manhoodtribes.com

💪 Want to know how you measure up as a man? Take our free quiz, called How Manly Are You? and learn how you can get better at being a man. Download for free at manhoodtribes.com/manly. 💪

Transcript

0:00

Men, do you ever feel so much pressure to overwork in your job that if you don't overwork somehow it's going to hurt your career? I think probably for almost all of us men, especially those of us living in America, that pressure is very real at times that the. Intimidation factor of needing to overwork and outwork everybody else around us just in order to be able to survive, let alone to get ahead. It's just sort of the norm in American work culture, especially for men. But I think the problem for all of us as men is that we can, at some point in time recognize that that's not actually good for us. We just don't know what to do about it. We feel like that's the accepted norm, and so if we don't do that, it's going to end up costing us in some way. The problem is we know that if we do it, it's also going to end up costing us in a whole bunch of other ways. So the question really isn't, do we ever experience that kind of pressure towards overwork? The question is. How do we develop the courage to be able to say no to that kind of overwork without it hurting our careers? Let's talk about that today here on the Manhood Tribe Show. My name is Don Ross. I'm your host here at Manhood Tribes, and guys, it's really good to be with you as we continue this series where we're talking about men and work and all of the ways that we as men have to relate to the whole world of work because honestly, work is our biggest world. As much as we might prioritize family or faith or our hobbies or anything else that's of importance to us just by the sheer number of hours we're going to spend working, that is actually the thing that probably is going to get most of our attention and our time throughout our adult lives. But I think all of us can, from time to time realize that like while we should be spending, you know, 40 plus hours on our work every week, uh, it can often end up feeling like a whole lot more than that. And maybe even when we're not a. Officially at work or on the clock can still feel like we need to be working. We've gotta be checking those emails late even, you know, once we've had dinner and put the kids to bed. And we've got to be mindful of that project that's coming up and how we're gonna get it done. And we've gotta be thinking about this sales trip that's come. It's like. It's just kind of never ending. All of the things that have to go into our work these days and we kind of feel like we can never shut off, and if we do shut off, it probably means that there's somebody else at the desk around the corner who is still working and working harder than we are, and they're gonna end up getting ahead and we're gonna end up getting left behind that. It's gonna cost us in some way. This is the culture that most of us swim in when it comes to our working lives and what they tend to require of us, and the pressures that we feel there. The problem is by the time most of us get into our thirties or our forties, we start to realize that all of that overwork, while it might have gained us some advantages in our career, it probably has cost us in some other ways. Maybe it's left you feeling distant from your family. Your marriage has started to deteriorate. You're not really all that close with your kids. You maybe show up for their events and things, but you don't really have the kind of relationship that you wish that you had with them. Maybe your faith has kind of fallen by the wayside as you have continued to prioritize your work and something that might have been important to you about your faith at one point in time in your life has kind of just become a back burner sort of thing for you. Maybe another all too common one for men is that your health has really just taken a nose dive. You've put on some extra weight. Maybe you've had to start taking some medications you really didn't want to have to take because you've developed high blood pressure or pre-diabetes or erectile dysfunction, or you name it. Like there's all kinds of things that we as men are dealing with health-wise because we prioritize our work, but we don't take care of ourselves. Maybe the stress levels are just getting to you and you are dealing with anxiety or depression or just the sheer overwhelm of life and you're fatigued and worn out and exhausted, and you just don't have energy or presence to be able to give to really much of anything else. You come home from work in the evenings, or you log off from your laptop in the evening. You have a couple beers, you eat dinner and you just crash because that's all that you have the energy to be able to do. And then tomorrow you gotta get back up and just do the same thing all over again. It is not really the kind of existence that I think any of us actually hoped to get out of life, but the pressure in our careers can feel so intense that it feels like we've got to sacrifice all of those things in order to be able to keep. Going and getting ahead with our career. And of course we want to do that as men. Most of us are wired to be achievers. We want to accomplish things in our career. Our work is very often the place where we get the most validation in life. It's the place where we can feel like a man and work can feel very rewarding. At times, we, we get promoted, we get a raise, we get a new level of leadership. We get all these kinds of like rewards for the things that we are actually doing. In some ways, it kind of feels like leveling up in those video games. That we love to play work can kind of feed our need as men to be able to achieve and to succeed and to move ahead in life. But to be able to do all of those things, it costs us in so many other ways. And I think if most of us will take a step back from what work is pressuring us to do, we would probably say, Ugh, I don't really know that it's worth it. Like for as much fun as it is and as much validation and reward that comes from being able to level up and advance in my career, it's actually costing me a lot in terms of my health, my family, my faith, or any of the other things that I really value. So I don't know that I wanna keep saying yes to that. But I'm just not sure how to say no. What does it actually look like to be able to say no in my job without risking getting fired, without risking, losing all the opportunities that I could have if I start saying no? Is anybody ever going to say yes to me again? Is one no going to amount to, I'm gonna miss out on this promotion. I'm gonna miss out on this. Opportunity for a raise or career advancement, or I'll never be able to get unstuck from the place that I'm in right now. That's what it can feel like for us as men, and so we've got to learn how to be able to say no at the right times and for the right reasons in order to really be able to be wise about how we handle our careers in those ways. The first thing that we need to do when it comes to saying no in our work is realize that saying no is really not about being lazy. It's not about just like, I'm not gonna work as hard as the next guy, and so that's gonna make me look lazy. Saying no is actually an act of courage, one of our five marks of manhood. It is one of the things that actually makes you more manly. Being able to say no and live by a set of values is something that is a really good thing for all men to be able to do. Pushing back on your work is healthy just as much as pushing back on anything that seeks to take control of you or to monopolize you and all of your resources in ways that you know isn't actually a good thing. So learning to say no needs to come from a place of courage, and in doing so, it will help you get better at being a man. One of the first things to be able to do to help you learn to say no from a place of courage is to start to set some boundaries. To just begin to say, what are the things that I don't want to negotiate on? Where are the places where I'm going to draw the line? And just be really clear that, nope, I'm not going to do that. So maybe it's as simple as starting with like, uh, I'm not going to work on Sundays. Because I want to be able to attend a church service, and I want to be able to spend time with my family. I want some dedicated time to my home life and my faith, and I'm going to have time for that every week. Okay, now you've drawn a boundary around the day of Sunday and just said, I'm not gonna be available for work at that point in time. Now that probably isn't a problem with most of your employers who would give you the weekend off anyway. But if they have been used to you working on Sundays, then you might need to start by communicating that boundary with them and just say, Hey, I really want to value my time with my family. I want to maintain my commitment to, uh, the place that I work. I want to maintain the excellence that I'm giving you in my job. But I want to do that by making sure that I'm also giving my best to my family and to my home life. And so to do that, I need to draw a boundary around. The day of Sunday, I really want that to be a day where I can focus not on work, but on everything that I value with my faith and with my family. And if you can communicate that well with your employer, then I think they would probably respect you. As long as you're doing a good job in your job and you're being clear of what the boundaries are, as long as it's not violating some kind of policy that they need from you, then that should be fine. And now you've set the standard, you've set the expectation, and they know. You're just not gonna be available on Sunday. You're not checking your email, you're not looking at your phone as it relates to work. You are unavailable. You're not gonna respond to phone calls or text messages. You know, you're, you're just offline. You're unavailable, and that's okay. You don't have to be available at every waking moment. In fact, you shouldn't be. If your company is expecting that of you and they are unforgiving about that, then you probably need to find another place to work. That just isn't gonna be a boundary that anyone can healthily maintain. And so you need to be able to be at a place where you can draw some boundaries and create some distance from your work. So start by setting those boundaries. Maybe for you, it's not Sundays. Maybe it's, I don't want to be available after 7:00 PM every day, or. I don't want to have to check emails or answer phone calls or texts in the evenings or when I'm on vacation or PTO. I really want to be on vacation. I don't want to have to be doing work things while I'm on PTO. I'm being paid to take time off, so I actually do want to take that time, that time off. Okay? So whatever those boundaries are for you. Set'em. Just communicate them well with your employer. Make sure that they know you still intend to maintain a standard of excellence in your job. And as long as you're doing that with respect, they're likely to honor your boundaries. All right. Another thing is that you're gonna need to develop the courage to leave some work unfinished. Now there's a lot of us, and I'm this type as well, that just has a hard time being able to close the laptop, turn off the phone, you know, leave some things undone at the end of the day when I could just spend another five minutes. 15 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever it might take to finish that task. And then it's not hanging over me in the evening because I know that if I, if I log off at the end of the day, but I still have incomplete tasks, I'm going to be thinking about those things. So that's where you've got to learn to develop the courage to be able to say no to those things so that you can log off and leave some things incomplete. Now, what is that gonna take for you? Well, you might have to learn to develop some new disciplines. You might have to log off, and then instead of just rushing straight to the next thing that you're doing, whether that's dinner with your family or hopping in the car to drive home for your commute, or you head straight to the gym after work or whatever, you might need to be able to learn how to take a five to 10 minute window break between your work and whatever thing is coming next so that you can allow your mind to wind down from work. And begin to kind of start fresh with the rest of your day. You're going to be able to enjoy some time with your family. Maybe you've got some time for a hobby or just something that you enjoy doing in the evening. Maybe you're just gonna have some time for rest. You might enjoy playing a game or a video game or watching a movie or something like that. All of that's okay, but you want to be able to be present to those things and not just present to your work. Maybe you need to really make it clear that you're not going to pick up your phone because you know that if you picked up your phone, you're gonna be tempted to do work stuff with your phone. So maybe for you, that's just an issue of the way I'm gonna keep myself from leaving some things incomplete is just by not picking up my phone for the rest of the evening. Now again, that kind of goes back to the boundaries conversation, and so you may have to do some of both in order to be able to maintain that, but working through that is the best way to give yourself some peace around leaving things incomplete and being able to shut down at the end of your workday. You need courage to prioritize your family, your friends, and the other important relationships in your life. You need to be able to turn off everything as it relates to work so that you can offer your presence fully to the important people in your world. They need to know that they are, at least for some of your day. They are your priority. They are more important to you than work is, at least during certain hours. Now, it might be true that during your work hours you've gotta prioritize work. And if it's not a family emergency or something that you're urgently needed for, then maybe it's okay that their call needs to wait. You may have to respond to them later because during the hours of, you know, whatever to whatever. Your priority has to be work, but in the evenings or whenever it is that you're off from work, your priority needs to be those relationships. You've got to have dedicated time that is really about those other people in your lives, and that they know that they're gonna be your priority. As long as you can have the courage to do that with them, then you're going to maintain those relationships well. You're gonna let those people feel loved and valued by you. And in doing that. It helps you to have the courage to actually say no to your work because you know now that the reason that you're saying no is for putting your priorities in the right place at the right time, and that's a really good thing for you to be doing. You also want to develop the courage to trust God. You just need to remember that in these moments, God is your provider. As much as it might feel like your workplace is your provider. God has actually set up your provision through this workplace and he could set up your provision in someplace else. He could provide for you through an entirely other means. And if you're saying yes to your work,'cause you're not trusting God to be your provider, then that's where you need to be able to develop some courage. It's just recognizing that. Ultimately, you can trust God to come through for you, and you don't have to depend on work like it's your primary source of provision. God is your primary source of provision, and if you're trusting him, it will give you the courage to be able to push back on your work and say, no, I don't need to do all of those things. I need to actually prioritize these other things in order to make my life look like the kind of life that I want it to be. Now as we talk about courage, some, you may have heard me reference that it's one of our five marks of manhood. If you've been around the Manhood Tribe Show for very long. You know that our five marks of manhood are the way that we measure. We measure what it means to be a man. And if you'd like to get a little bit more information about not only the mark. Of courage, but our other marks of manhood as well, I've put together a free quiz that can give you some information on all of those things. It's called How Manly are You, and it will help you measure how you're doing as a man, not only right now, but the things that you can do better to be able to continue to improve and grow as a man. So just go to manhood tribes.com/manly and you can download that quiz for free and get started figuring out how you can get better at being a man. Now as we have talked about courage in particular in this episode, I want to help you think a little bit more about what it could look like for you. If you really were the kind of man who was saying no for the right reasons to your work, you would be the kind of man who has peace with his work and feels like he's doing the right kind of work at the right kind of time. You will be able to resist overwork and all of the effects that it has on you. So all of the burnout that you're feeling, the fatigue, the exhaustion, maybe the depression, the loneliness. The pain, the frustration, all of those things, you begin to push back on those things and start filling your life with things that bring meaning and purpose and joy, like your family, your faith, your health, all of the things that really do matter to you, but have been taken over by overwork. You now get to reclaim some of those things in your life, and you start to look like the man who you actually want to be. You will give yourself some space for your soul to breathe again. You might be living right now for the next vacation, you might be feeling like What I just really need is a break. And look, no doubt, all of us need breaks at times, and so maybe that really is something that you need. But if you're living for every next break that comes along, then the problem isn't just that you're not getting the right kind of break, it's that the way that you're working in between those breaks is really crushing your soul. And if so, you can start to say no to your work for the right reasons and at the right times then you will create rhythms where your soul can breathe even when you're still working. You won't need those breaks in the same way. And that doesn't mean that you shouldn't take them. You absolutely should. Vacation and PTO is good for all of us, but you won't be desperately in need of it to restore you in the same ways that you had been when you were overworking. Lastly, you will really prove not only to yourself, but to everyone else around you, and especially your closest relationships, your family and your friends, that being a man is not defined by pressure and. Overwork and accomplishment. It's defined by courage and prioritizing the right people in the right ways at the right times. And if you can do that, you will feel validated in and of yourself in all of the ways that you are looking to your work for validation. You will start to be able to recognize in yourself, you actually are the man that you want to be, whether or not your work thinks that about you. It doesn't really have to matter anymore because you know you're becoming the kind of man who you are meant to be all along. All right guys. I hope this has been really helpful for you. I hope it's given you a grid to be able to think through about how to push back on the overwork in your life. And I would love for you to engage with us just by putting something down in the comments below. Put one place where you know you need to say no. To some overwork. What's the one thing that you need to draw a boundary line on or to create some distance with? Or where do you just need to have some courage when it comes to saying no to your work? Write that in the comment section below. It may help some other guys think about where they need to say no as well, and you can even interact with each other to be able to encourage one another. To take that first step of saying no to overwork in your life. Alright, thanks guys. I look forward to seeing you next time, right here on the Manhood Tribe Show. We'll see you then.