How to Say ‘NO’! Pt. 1
At the water fountain ~ “Do you mind if I skip you?”
In the cafeteria ~ “Can I have those chocolate chip cookies?”
Over the phone ~ “Could I have $20?”
As a kid I would often get asked these questions by my classmates. My answer was always the same: ‘Yes.’ ‘Sure.’ ‘Okay.’
If you ever do this once or twice, you’ll be okay; but if you do this over and over and over again, then you would probably start to feel more like an object than a person.
By the time I was a teenager, I got tired of feeling like I was the one always doing the giving and others were always doing the taking. Even then, although I wanted to say ‘no,’ I found myself giving in again, and again, and again. I eventually had to ask myself a hard question. Namely, ‘Why is it so hard for you to just say NO?’
Maybe you’ve thought about this before or maybe you’re still trying to answer this question about yourself. Maybe deep down inside you despise yourself for your inability to say ‘no.’
First things first, do NOT judge or insult yourself if you struggle in this area.
QUESTION: How does you being down on yourself motivate you to change?
ANSWER: It doesn’t!
Change comes when you understand the why so you can break your negative patterns. The good news is there’s hope and you CAN change…even if you’ve felt like you couldn’t for some time.
There are several reasons why you struggle to say ‘no.’ But I’m going to focus on the 4 main reasons I often see come up.
Reason 1: People pleasing/Core beliefs
You hesitate to say ‘no’ because you a) don’t want to be negatively labeled (e.g., “mean”) or b) want to be liked by everybody. In order to get to the bottom of your people pleasing, you’ve got to answer two questions. Are you ready? I want you to ask yourself:
Why do I really care if people negatively label me?
Why is it important to me that people like me?
Before you read on, I want you to really sit with these two questions. Write down your thoughts in a journal/notebook or in your Notes/Memo app. I know the tendency is to dive right in but part of bridging the gap between who you were and who you want to be is learning to know and accept yourself ⎼ the good, the bad, and the downright ugly.
Why do you care if people label you as “mean”?
Growing up in a Caribbean, religious household led me to develop some very black-and-white thinking.
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There was right and there was wrong.
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There was good and there was bad.
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There was mean and there was nice.
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There was success and there was failure.
There was never any grey area. So for me, when I said ‘no’ to a person’s request and I was labeled “mean,” or “rude,” or any other not-so-nice word, I started to assume that I was actually a bad person.
Chances are you may have a tendency to tie your identity to the labels people place on you. In line with what I mentioned earlier, any negative label/insult I received was an indication that I was being “bad” ⎼ and I definitely didn’t want to be bad.
Why not?
I really wanted to be ‘good.’ Now where in the heck did that come from?! (Note: Your family dynamics may be different but let’s see if some of my experiences won’t resonate with you.)
As the firstborn, I often wanted to please my parents (#oldestsiblingproblems 😂). In my mind, pleasing my parents meant receiving love, affirmation, validation, and reinforcement that I was doing good (which I falsely equated with being good and being worthy of love*).
So I grew up with a very conditional idea of what love looked like. If I did what my parents, friends, classmates or others wanted then I would be worthy of receiving love, validation, affirmation etc. I hadn’t yet grasped the idea that love should never, EVER be conditional.
Maybe this is YOU. Maybe you were raised in an environment that taught you that you only deserved love IF you did what others expected you to do (even if deep down inside it wasn’t what you wanted).
Conditional love = I love you if you do x… or I love you when you act like x…
Unconditional love = I love you period. or I love you no matter what.
My distorted thinking bled over into other aspects of my life. I was constantly performing and going against what I really wanted. Is this you? Can you see how this type of thinking could become problematic?
One reason you struggle to say ‘no’ to other people is because you’ve tied their negative labels to your identity as a person; and receiving their “love”, validation, and approval is so important to you that you are willing to say ‘no’ to yourself, your thoughts, wants, needs, feelings.
So, my real issue was not being negatively labeled; my real issue was how I tied their judgment to my identity as a person/human being and my ability to earn their love/approval.
This brings me to my next question.
Why is it important to you that people like you?
Now while you may assume that the “why” varies from person to person, I’ve often found that the answer is frequently the same. The reason that it was important that people liked me was because their liking me represented something fundamental to me about my worth and value as a person. This is where core beliefs come in.
Core Beliefs
If you’re unfamiliar with this term, core beliefs are just the longstanding thoughts/beliefs that you have developed about yourself over time. You have them, I have them, everybody has them! This graphic by AsToldbyBex includes quite a few of the more common ones:
Your experiences in life, either with your parents, siblings, teachers, or even classmates has affected the way you view yourself.
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Receive enough negative criticism about your looks and you may start to operate under the assumption ‘I am unattractive.’
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Receive enough rejection when you ask people out on a date and you may start to operate under the assumption that ‘I am unworthy.’
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Receive neglect from your parents who are supposed to take care of you and you may start to operate under the assumption that ‘I am unlovable.’
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Receive criticism every single time you bring up an idea and you may start to operate under the assumption that ‘I am inferior.’
The problem with core beliefs is that they become the “lens through which every situation and life experience is seen.” One of the negative core beliefs that I struggled with over the years was “I am not good enough.” So the reason it was important to me to be liked was because every single time I learned that someone disliked me (or thought I was “mean” or “rude” or “stuck up”) it would trigger my negative core belief.
“If they don’t like me then I must not be good enough. I must be doing something wrong! I can fix this if they just give me the chance. What do they want me to do? I can do it!”
How we look when we try to perform to disprove our core beliefs…
This distorted thinking pattern led to me saying ‘yes’ when I should have said ‘no’ simply because I didn’t want my core belief to be true. In order for me to curb my people pleasing I had to first dismantle the negative core beliefs that I had about myself.
Now I wish that there was an easy way to do this but the reality is it takes work ⎼ a lot of work. Even I have days where my negative core beliefs try to come crawling back and I’m a therapist for goodness sake! 😩 If you recognized yourself while reading this blog then getting a therapist will go a long way towards helping you to identify and change your negative core beliefs. To get you started check out my post here.
*(Sidenote: Without generalizing, I have noticed that conditional love is something that shows up in quite a few cultures; and it often gets passed down from generation to generation. Ask yourself if this is true of your culture and decide to make different decisions in your own family.)
Is people pleasing a part of the reason you struggle to say no? Which core beliefs do you struggle with? Let me know in the comments! & Check out Part 2 of this series here.