00:00:00: Introduction
00:01:07: Three ideas for action…
00:01:08: … 1: pause before saying yes
00:02:06: … 2: ‘I don’t’ vs ‘I can’t’
00:03:44: … 3: practise your no-cabulary
00:05:03: Final thoughts
Helen Tupper: Hi, it’s Helen from the Squiggly Careers podcast, and you’re listening to one of our new series of Squiggly Shortcuts. These episodes are designed to be really short, they are designed to be very useful and to solve a problem that you might be dealing with right now. So, we are going to talk through some ideas for action that you can use straightaway if this is a situation that you’re struggling with. So, today’s Squiggly Shortcut is on people-pleasing.
If you are someone who finds yourself saying yes when you really want to say no, or maybe you’re overwhelmed by all the other things that people want you to do, and it means that you’re not getting on with the things that are important to you, it’s likely that people-pleasing might have become a bit of a problem for you. And lots of people have this, so please don’t feel like you’re on your own with it. But the good news is there are some very simple, practical things that we can do that don’t feel too scary, don’t feel like you’re being too difficult a person. You can still be yourself and you can still be nice, but you can also stop people-pleasing getting in your own way.
So, three ideas. The first one is pause before you find yourself saying yes. So, very often, “Yes”, becomes the default, “Yes, I can do it. Yes, no problem. Yes, I can get it fixed by the end of the week”. Yes just becomes the immediate answer we say when someone asks us to do something. And what we need to do is to make yes more of a conscious decision. And the easiest way for that to happen is for you to create a pause. So, a statement like, “I appreciate the request. Let me come back to you once I’ve had a chance to think it through”. Find the sentence that feels like something that you would say, but it basically is going to just buy you a bit of time so that you’re not just saying yes by default, and it becomes a much more conscious decision where you have thought about the implications of it. So, find your pause statement that you can just say rather than just accepting whatever it is people throw your way. So, that’s the first action.
The second one is to start using the phrase, “I don’t”, rather than, “I can’t”. So, let’s imagine I asked you to do something and you’re thinking, “Well, that’s a bit hard”. And you say, “I’m really sorry, I can’t come to that meeting”. If you say, “I can’t”, I can probably think about three ways in which you can. I might say, “Well, don’t worry, you can just join remotely. Oh, don’t worry, you don’t need to be there for the whole thing. Just come for the first 20 minutes”. I can find ways to override your, “I can’t”. Whereas if you say, “I don’t”, that is much, much more definitive, like, “Oh, actually, I don’t go to meetings after 5.00”. And you don’t even really have to explain things. I would be wary of over-explaining the reason why you don’t do something. Or you might say, “Actually, I don’t take on more than three projects at the same time. It’s just not something that I do, it’s not how I work”. If you can own the ‘I don’t’, it is much harder for somebody else to try to convince you otherwise because it’s what they need you to do.
Now, sometimes I think that can take quite a lot of confidence, so I would really try and practise the ‘I don’ts’, like, what are your ‘I don’ts’? For example, I have a particular principle about being in more than I’m out and I don’t compromise that. So, that means that I’m at home for more of my children’s bedtimes than I’m not. And I would often say to people, “I don’t go out more than two nights a week because I have a principle about being at home more than I’m not for my kids”. And people can’t argue with that, they can’t convince me otherwise. So, just think about what your statements might be. I think it makes it a lot easier to say it and you’re not having to think about it in the moment.
That links to the third idea to stop being a people-pleaser, or at least to stop people-pleasing getting in your way, which is to practise your personal no-cabulary. So, if someone asks you to do something, just saying no will be too hard. That’s going to feel like you’re being a difficult person and then you’re never going to say that. So, you’re just going to keep saying yes. So, we need a different vocabulary. We need a no-cabulary. So, instead of saying no, that might sound like, “Not yet”, so, “I’d love to get involved, but I can’t do that yet”. That could be a way. You could say, “Not me”, that could be a different way of saying no, “Oh, I can see why that needs to be done, but I don’t think I’m actually the best person to do it”. So, not yet, not now, not me, “Not that way”, is another thing, “Okay, so I know you want me to do a presentation. I think a different, more achievable thing to do would be to write a quick email with five bullet points and see if that’s the way to move this forward”. So, not now, not me, not then, all those sorts of ways of doing things are ways that you can personalise saying no, that might feel more comfortable to you. And if saying the ‘I don’t’ feels difficult, then I think sometimes practising and personalising your no-cabulary can feel like an easier win.
So, let’s summarise those three actions. The first is pause before you say yes, by default we want that to be a decision, find that statement that helps you do that. Number two is just think about your ‘I don’ts’, those statements that I don’t do that, so you don’t rely on ‘I can’t’ as a way to stop doing things. And number three, work out your no-cabulary, what are the statements that feel most authentic to you and easy for you to say in those likely situations where people are going to ask you to get involved and it might not feel like the right thing for you to do.
So, I hope that has been helpful. If you’ve got feedback on this format, send it our way. We’re just helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com, and we’re back with our regular episodes on Tuesday, giving you a bit of borrowed brilliance and more Squiggly Shortcuts on Thursdays.