This year has been my challenge to find my honest ‘no’. I am a self-admitted people pleaser, not to
the crazy extent of some, but it definitely gets me into
trouble. At the School, Katie does an entire section on
getting to an honest ‘No’. It goes
something like this:
Person who wants you to say yes: “I really need your help, I’m in a bit of a pickle with my finances – you know the recession has hit my business really badly and I’m struggling to make ends meet. The kids’ school fees are due this month and I just can’t find the cash – I really need a loan, not for too long, maybe 6 months, a year? I know you have the cash, its small change to you really – can you please loan it to me – it will mean the kids can stay in school and it would really help me out.”
You: “I really understand that you are in trouble, and no.”
Person who wants you to say yes: “What? You’re saying no? But my kids! Are you telling me to take them out of school? To leave their friends and their life? How am I going to tell them that you don’t care enough for them? How can you do this to me, I’m your brother/sister/parent/friend!”
You: “I love you, and no”
So, we practiced this in the School and it seemed easy enough, NOT! Can you imagine just saying ‘no’ to someone you love and getting all this guilt laid on you and still saying no, with no justification or defense? Well as a people pleaser I was desperate to try it out, but also scared stiff.
Of course the friendly universe has given me several opportunities to practice since coming home :)
The first opportunity was an old colleague who wanted me to talk at an event that I really didn’t want to do. She’s an old friend and she’s given me lots of work in the past, I was uncomfortable saying no because I didn’t want to let her down and I was mindful of repercussions in our future relationship. My first attempt at an honest ‘no’ was simply ignored along the lines of “I can’t take your no for an answer, you owe me and you have to say yes” in a very long winded and emotional email detailing lots of past history, justification etc etc. When I got her response I immediately went into defense and went to bed tossing and turning all the brilliant justifications I could give her for saying ‘no’. Then I remembered my honest ‘no’ and my stress just melted away. In response to her 2 page email I replied “I understand you feel strongly about this, and no.” I cannot tell you how good that felt! Clean, pure, authentic, honest – wow! Ok, now I get it, really, I am never doing differently. Amazing!
The rub is, even though I now felt clear and good about it, it still doesn’t mean she did, and by the way she didn’t – she came back a third time but with decidedly less heat in her tone and expectation. I think my honesty and brevity knocked a lot of wind out of her sail and maybe allowed her to open to the possibility that another option could also work. In the end we did come up with something else that was workable and kept us both in integrity.
My key learning was in seeing how damaging I was being to my own integrity, saying ‘yes’ just to please someone is always a ‘no’ to yourself. I learnt that giving an honest ‘no’ not only makes me feel brilliant with the force of a massive ‘YES’ to myself, but it also opens the other party to collaboration making it much easier to come to a win win.
it's good to give a honest 'no' at times, as i remember once i say a 'yes' and i ended up unable to get a loan-out returned to me. at the end of the day, friendship was strained and trust was lost! jane
Posted by: jane ong | October 21, 2009 at 06:26 PM