Saying No

Sometimes it's really hard to say "No".  So often it feels easier just to keep the peace and say "Yes"  But what does it cost us to say "Yes"?  Let's talk about saying "No" and how it can become a piece of our growth and healing

Transcript

Hello, my name is Tiffany, and welcome to the podcast Working on Amazing. This is a podcast where we talk about the work that it takes to rebuild an amazing life.

And I am using that word rebuild, specifically, because we are designed for women who feel like they're starting over in the middle of their life. For me, that was divorce after a 20-year marriage.

For my sister, it was a very unexpected death of her spouse, and for you, starting over may look totally different.

I think the commonality is when all your hopes, all your dreams, all your plans for the future have gone up in smoke, the rug has literally been pulled out from under your feet, and it does. It feels like you're starting over.

If that's you, first, let me just say from the bottom of my heart, I'm sorry. I know how overwhelming and itchy that feels, but I'm here to offer hope. It gets so much better.

I promise you, it really does. You are not alone. You're actually in the right place.

So welcome. I'm so glad you're here. Now, if you'll remember, I said there were five areas I focused on when I rebuilt my life.

I focused on my spiritual health, my mental health, my physical health, my financial health, and growth and goals. So today's episode is going to fall under mental health. And today, we're going to talk about learning how to say no.

And I feel like a lot of people have talked about this. You've probably heard that term, we need to learn to say no. But maybe we're going to talk about it in a little bit different perspective today.

And even if you've heard it before, it bears hearing again. I promise, there are some of us, myself, firmly included, who really need to hear this, okay? So I feel like there are two categories we need to maybe practice saying no in.

And not everybody is this way. But as I said, this podcast is for women. And I feel like women on the whole, not everybody, but a lot of women tend to be people-pleasers.

We tend to say yes. Hey, you want to come with us? Hey, you want to help me play in this baby shower?

Hey, will you pick up my shift at work? Or when our kids ask for something? Oh, my word.

Can I join this new club? It will mean me staying after school and you picking me up at odd hours. Hey, can I do this?

Can I do that? And we're just like, we want everybody to be happy, so we say yes.

And I think during this season specifically, when you're going through a season of transition and change, and everything's topsy-turvy, I think it can be real easy to say yes a lot, because we just want to keep everything copacetic.

We don't want any more bumps in the road. Okay, yes, you can do that. We're trying so hard just to keep it even-keeled, we don't want to say no.

But saying no can be a little bit empowering. It can lead to growth. I really promise it can be a piece of your healing.

But it's not a blanket, it's not every time I say no, let's talk about it. So, like I said, there are two categories to say no in and start thinking about.

So the first category that sometimes we need to learn to say no in is when other people ask us things. So, like the example I gave of maybe somebody asking a friend saying, hey, will you co-host this baby shower with me?

Or a coworker says, hey, can you cover my shift for me? Or when your child says, hey, I want to do this new after school activity, I'm already doing three, and I want to add this fourth one.

And yes, you are my chauffeur in life, so it's going to require you to come and pick me up. So we need to look at these things. Now, my best advice is when you get asked to do something, to the extent that you are able, take a pause.

You know, we heard the term, it was several years back that I heard people say, practice the pause, you know, practice the pause.

So when you're asked if somebody, you can do something for somebody before you say yes, I want you to practice the pause if you're able. And sometimes you've got to give an answer right away.

But to the extent that you are able, I want you to say, hey, can I think about that? Can I get back to you tomorrow? Give yourself time and truly evaluate.

If you say yes to one thing, understand that you're saying no to something else. So if I say yes, I will pick up the shift for you. I'm going to work this time.

You're saying no to whatever you were doing with your time that was available before then. Now that is the no because you said the yes over here. Okay?

So if you get to practice the pause, evaluate, if I say yes to what my kid is asking for, if I say yes to this person who's asking me to come go hang out or whatever it is, what am I saying no to? And understand, there are lots of different things.

Sometimes things can cost you money, okay? And we want to practice good financial health, that's one of our focus areas. So are, can you spend that money?

What financial thing is involved there? So if you say yes, is there a financial obligation? Okay, so that's one thing to think about.

But maybe you're just giving up your time, okay? And that is not something to just brush aside. What were you doing with that time before?

Maybe that time is your time to rejuvenate, and like, take a break, right? The other thing I want you to think about is some gatherings that you're invited to, hey, come hang out. Maybe what you're sacrificing is your peace.

Maybe that's the cost of going.

Maybe not always, but maybe there has been a history in the past of when you went to certain events, you hung out with certain people, that your peace then was compromised, that you got agitated and aggravated, you were around people that maybe just

rubbed you wrong, or they intentionally sought to spar with you in a way that just really broke your peace. For me, this is a big, big, big one.

Once I went through this really turbulent time in my life, once I found a little bit of peace, and it was like a grain, like a little bitty seed, I protected it at all costs.

So there were things I said no to sometimes, because I felt like my peace could get crushed. And I insulated it. I put it in the little greenhouse.

I wanted to protect it so much, because it was just this little seedling of peace I finally had cultivated. And I protected it fiercely. I didn't want to give it up.

So if somebody said, hey, do you want to come hang out? Sometimes I would say no, because I wasn't guaranteed that my peace would be broken, but there had been a history of that before, and I wasn't willing to risk it.

So when other people ask you to do something, if you're able to take a pause, just say, what would this cost me? If I say yes, if I say yes to this baby shower, is there a financial obligation? Is there a time obligation?

Is it going to ruin my peace? And sometimes that's okay. I don't think you should say no to everything, so please don't misunderstand me.

It's not a blanket, no, no, no, no, no. But if you're in the habit of saying yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, let's reevaluate that, let's step back, let's see. Kids can start to run the show sometimes when they know the answer is always yes.

And I did get to this place in my life, I was in the middle of rebuilding it, and I was trying to be really focused on certain things. But certain things still fell off. And I said, how did it get this way?

I'm up so late at night, now all the, what, how did this happen? And I had to be really brutally honest with myself. It was because I said yes to things I shouldn't have said yes to.

And I had to learn to say no. And that was not easy for me, because I really did want to keep the piece. So bad, I wanted to keep the piece.

I said, I put my piece in like a little green house, you know, I was protecting it. It was bubble wrap and all the things. And so saying no made me feel like, what if they get mad at me?

I will lose my piece. And I had to practice, I had to practice. It's so important.

Not everything is no. But before you say yes, think about it. What will it cost me?

If my kid takes on yet another activity, what's that gonna cost me? I had trouble saying no to my kids. I love my kids so much.

And, you know, going through a divorce, and them no longer being part of a two-parent household, I had a tremendous amount of guilt. So I didn't say no to them all the time. They were really good kids.

They did not, they were not troublemakers. They were not whatever. So we were pretty copacetic, but I realized, you know what?

I maybe should have said no more. There were a few areas, and it's all okay. They worked out, we worked out.

But there were a few areas that we got into, and I thought, what in the world? This has gotten out of hand. And when I traced back how we got to the area that felt out of hand, it was because I said yes to something I should have said no to.

Okay? And that can happen in all the areas of our life, not just parenting.

So if you're somebody who your de-jerk reaction is to say yes, when somebody asks you to do something, I just want to challenge you right now to practice the pause, and give yourself a minute to say, hey, can I get back to you on that?

And just give yourself time to think it through. And if you say yes after you think it through, then hey, you know what you're getting into, you're cognizant, you're aware of the cost, and good for you.

You've made a good, well-informed, thought-out decision. And if you have to say no, I just want to encourage you, that's okay. It's okay to say no.

It's hard, but it's okay. So I said there were two categories that we need to learn to say no in.

So the first one is people, when people ask you things, when your kids, your coworkers, your friends, your family ask you to do something, we need to learn to say no. So that's category number one.

Category number two, we need to learn to say no to ourself. Ooh, that's maybe one that we don't talk about as much, right? We talk about saying no to other people, and we need to learn to say no.

And that one we're familiar with, but do we say no to ourselves? When that really cute pair of shoes is on sale, oh, can you believe that handbag? That's Kate Spade.

Oh, my gosh, it is such a good deal. Do we tell ourself no? When we've had a really bad day, and you just want a bag of chips or that piece of cake, you want to stop by Crumble and get the cookie.

I get that. I felt those sayings. I know what they're like.

How often do we tell ourself no? How often do we say, you know what, I got to practice the pause here. Hold on, give me a minute.

Let's weigh, if I say yes to you, because it's yourself, I mean, I get it. But if I say yes to the piece of cake, the bag of potato chips, what's the cost? Well, are you paying for it with your financial, your not financial, with your physical goals?

I've set physical goals for myself. That's a piece of me getting my life back on track and rebuilding my life. I have certain goals physically.

I gained weight and I wanted to lose weight, but I really just want to get back in shape, just be toned and in shape and healthy. So, yeah, I can say yes to cake one day, but could I say yes to cake every day? Probably not, right?

So, let's weigh it out. Like, when's the last time I ate cake? Can I have cake today?

I don't, you know? And then weigh out, like, okay, the shoes, even going through the drive-thru because you don't want to cook, how's that going to affect your financial goals? Sometimes it's, I just want to sleep in.

And you got to say, no, you got to get up. You got to go to the gym. You got to do your exercise routine.

You got to work out. Sometimes it's, I just want to binge watch Netflix. I don't want to do anything.

I don't want to think about life. And you got to say, no. You got to get up.

You need some vitamin D. You need some sunshine. You got to get out.

You can't just do that. You got to tell yourself, no. Whether it's spending or eating or how we choose to use our time, what's the cost?

What's it costing you to say yes to yourself for every whim that you want emotionally? And this is why it's so important right now. Because when you're going through a season of change and transition, there's generally a lot of emotions involved.

So there's a good chance that your emotions are running on high right now. You're emotionally wrung out. You're emotionally spent.

And when we're in a state of heightened emotions, we're really sad, we're really angry, we're really upset, we don't make the best choice. So maybe think about it like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum.

They really want something so bad, and they just, their emotions are just all out, 90 to nothing, right? And as a parent, you can see things more clearly.

And you say, I know that you're really upset, and you're really mad, but you don't need more candy right now. We have to do that for ourselves. I know you're really upset, and you don't want, you know, whatever.

You want to just eat the cake, but that's not what's best for you. No. I know you really want that pair of shoes.

I know that handbag is on sale, and it's so cute. I know you really want that beauty product that's on sale at Ulta. I get it.

You want it. But you've set financial goals for yourself, and they're important. And the bigger picture is, you know, I've got to think beyond this moment.

In this moment, I know you really want it, but, you know, when we zoom out, that's not what we need. What we need is to be on strong financial footing. What we need is good physical health.

We need to be in shape, just in general. And when you learn to tell yourself no, especially when you're in an emotional state, this is really empowering. It helps create some distance between your emotions and you.

Your emotions are valid, they're real, they matter, but they're not the only thing. And your emotions don't need to run the show.

And when you take charge and you say, hey, I realize you're really sad right now, but you don't need to eat a bag of potato chips, you're creating distance between yourself and the emotion. You're giving a little gap there.

You're acknowledging that you have emotions, but they're not all of who you are and who you want to be. They're not the totality of you. And when you're in the middle of emotion, it can feel like the totality of who you are.

That emotion is so big, it's so overwhelming, it just washes over you, it floods you, right? But when you can say, hey, that's not what you need right now. You need a salad, not a slice of cake.

You need some vitamins and minerals in your body, not just sugar.

When you're able to like look at it objectively like that, what you're doing is you're putting a little bit of a gap there between the totality of who you are as a person and your emotions.

And you need that, especially when you're flooded with all the emotions and it's really big.

And when you could put some space there between what your emotions want and who you are, and tell yourself, no, you gain control, you gain power, you gain a little bit more autonomy over yourself, if that is even possible, and it is.

Learning to say no to yourself creates self-discipline, which is really good. But it also helps you keep your emotions in check. Your emotions are valid, I mean, 100%.

But they're not the only thing. And if we make all of our decisions based on our emotions, we're going to fall off the map. We're going to end up in the completely wrong place.

We're not going to get to where we're going. Because our emotions aren't concerned about the long-term outcome. They're concerned about the short-term outcome.

And when we have a map of how we want to rebuild our life and where we want to go, well, right now, we're at point A, and we want to get to point B, you know, and that's a journey, and that's going to take time.

Well, your emotions are only concerned about immediate, right now, make me feel better in this moment, today, this very second. And when we look at it objectively, and we kind of put the emotions more in their place, like I acknowledge you're angry.

I am angry. I acknowledge that I'm hurt. I acknowledge that I'm sad.

But that isn't the totality of who I am. The totality of who I am is so much more. And I want to get to point B.

And I can't get from point A to point B. If I say yes to myself every time an emotion comes along, I'm going to end up somewhere totally different.

It's not easy, because when we're going through a heightened emotional state, and when we've dealt with trauma, loss, pain, we just want to make it better. We want to tell other people yes, so they're happy with us.

We want to tell ourself yes, and self-soothe. But that isn't going to get us to where we need to be on the map. We need to look at the map.

I want this. This is where I am now. This is where I want to be with my physical health.

This is where I want to be with my financial health. This is where I want to be with my spiritual health. And when you look at that, well, you know what?

My emotions are going to ask me to do something that's in direct contradiction of those goals. When our emotions flare up, they want us to do things all the time.

The immediate need is something, oftentimes, that is in direct contradiction of your goal. Telling yourself no, telling other people no, is learning how to say no effectively, is a huge piece of building an amazing life.

You don't say no all the time. You don't always tell yourself no. Sometimes, you gotta say yes.

I haven't had a bag of chips in six months. You know what? I can have a bag of chips.

That's okay. But saying no to myself for six months meant that I could say yes to myself the next time. Saying no is what's getting me on the path to where I wanna be.

We don't say no all the time. We don't say no as a blanket. We don't always tell our kids no, and our family, and our coworkers, and then we're just this grumpy person that always says no.

But now when we say yes, it's so much more effective, because we know the cost, because we've taken the time to think about it.

We're cognizant and conscientious of the fact that when I say yes to this, I am inadvertently, by default, saying no to something else. And I have agreed to that term by saying yes to your thing.

When you take the time to realize what you're saying yes to, and stepping out and saying no when you need to, that's a big piece of growth and healing.

It's self-empowering, it's self-disciplined, and it's going to get you to where you need to be on the map.

When you say, I want to go from point A to point B, right now, my health, my weight, my everything is kind of this, and this is where I want to get. I want to lose a little bit of weight, or I want to lose a few inches. I want to tone up.

I want to be able to walk a mile without huffing and puffing, whatever it is. I'm going to keep that goal in mind, and not say yes to myself when I'm sad and eat junk food.

I'm going to keep the goal in mind of, I really, you know, my mental health and my peace is really important. I'm not going to sacrifice that. My time matters, and how I spend it matters.

And yes, I want to spend it with my children, but I want to spend it effectively, and I want to choose, and I don't want to live my life resentful of waiting in line all the time. I want to make that choice and be cognizant of it and not resentful.

Saying no is a big step in your healing process. Saying no to other people and saying no to yourself.

And understanding that even if people don't like your no, you still survive, you still live, you lived through it, that it's okay, you can still say no, you're looking out for yourself, and you're creating a trust within yourself that you know that

you can take care of yourself. When it comes to other people, you're going to say no to what you need to say no to, then you're going to start to trust yourself more. You're building that trust with yourself.

When you say no to yourself, you're building trust with yourself. Like you understand that you are lovingly caring for yourself by saying no to what you need to say no to.

Instead of putting other people's perceived wants and needs above your own, you're looking out for yourself, and you're saying no where you need to say no. And that is important. And I encourage you to do that today.

I encourage you to say no to yourself when you need to say no to yourself. Even in the middle of those heightened emotional states where your body is acting like a toddler and just pitching a temper tantrum. I know that's what you want, but no.

And even no to other people. Sometimes that's really hard. Especially when it's people we really love.

But we still need to look out for our best interest. We've still got to cultivate a space around ourself that we are looking out for ourself.

If you say yes to somebody and you're just resentful, if you say yes to somebody and it doesn't end up being good in the long run, if you really didn't need to say yes, if you're resentful, if you're angry, it can still end up hurting the

relationship. So a good no is better than a bad yes. Say no, instead of just that knee-jerk yes, and then regretting it and being resentful, all right?

So let me know what your nos are, what you're struggling to say no with, what you're willing to say yes to. You can find me online. I'm www.workingonamazing.com.

You can drop me a line there, or you can find me on social media. I'm on almost all the platforms, but I do hang out on Facebook the most, and it's just a page, Working on Amazing. Let me know what you're struggling to say no to.

Thank you for joining me today. I look forward to talking to you next time. Bye.