The Joy of Saying No: A Simple Plan to Stop People Pleasing, Reclaim Boundaries, and Say Yes to the Life You Want

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Think about the anguish, stress, and resentment that saying yes has caused you. Wouldn’t it be so much easier and straightforward to just say no in the first place? As for #Jono and #Jomo – well, for me, saying no and missing out are not where I find my joy. I find it when I am not looking for it: when I am making my friend’s children laugh, or when I feel a spontaneous surge of love for my husband, or when I am cooking dinner for my friends. Cohen says: “If you read the great poets of joy, like Rilke, they think of joy as something fleeting. There is something sad about it, because one feels its passing as one experiences it – it is not some kind of permanent aspiration, a solid state.” It is a word that loses all meaning when it is part of a hashtagged acronym. Maurice Mcleod, a writer and local councillor, found that his inability to say “no” caused him serious problems when he went freelance about a decade ago. He took on so many projects and agreed to do so many favours that, he says, he was living with “a constant feeling of unease and panic. Every time the phone rang, I’d think: ‘Oh my God, who’s that, what haven’t I done?’ It was this constant feeling of letting people down.” He took on so much unpaid work that he had to refuse work that was paid, got into debt, and realised the only way out was to just say “no”.

What makes a person great is not their looks or achievements, but their willingness to love others, be humble, and grow as a person. I realized I was afraid of saying no because my biggest fear is rejection. I was afraid that every time I did this, I would disappoint someone, make them angry, hurt their feelings, or appear unkind or rude. My boss called me one day and was asked if I could work the following Saturday. As usual, I blurted out a polite “Yes, of course, that’s no problem at all.” I actually had plans with my boyfriend, which I was really looking forward to. There's a lot of wisdom in Natalie's writing, but what was a struggle for me at first was getting through the writing style. I felt earlier on that some of the points could be made with fewer comma'd lists. In the end, this book has taken me nearly 7 months to finish.

Gezonde grenzen stellen is iets wat ik erg moeilijk vind. Daarom lijkt dit boek me uitermate geschikt voor mij om bewuster te worden van mijn gedrag, de achtergrond daarvan én hoe ik dit gedrag kan veranderen. Ik ben enorm benieuwd of dit boek me hierbij kan en gaat helpen. Deze hele simpele en heldere cover spreekt me erg aan en vind ik perfect afgestemd op het onderwerp van het boek. All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone,” said the 17th-century French philosopher Blaise Pascal. But the solution cannot be to force ourselves to sit quietly in a room alone, because, contrary to our own omnipotent fantasies and risible delusions of self-control, we cannot choose what we feel or what we think. We have to ask, why is this such an impossible thing for us to do? Why do we persist in filling our lives, even when we do not want to? What is it that we are avoiding? Ultimately, why do we continue to do the very things that make us unhappy? Podcast Episodes You May Enjoy Chatter & Your Inner Voice – Ethan Kross Everyday Vitality – Dr. Samantha Boardman Plays Well with Others – Eric Barker The Emotional Side of Retiring – Kate Schroeder It seems it is more complicated to experience “#Jono” than Harding suggests in her book, which is full of sentences such as: “Ditch the guilt.” Reader, at this my laughter was bitter and hollow. Het verhaal kent een heldere opbouw die is opgedeeld in drie delen. In het eerste deel, stelt Natalie Lue de vraag of je een people pleaser bent en wat dat precies inhoudt. Het mooie aan dit deel is dat ze ook haar eigen persoonlijke verhaal deelt als enorme people pleaser waarbij ze zichzelf constant wegcijferde en te veel van zichzelf vroeg.

To make matters worse, much of the work I was struggling to do was unpaid. I was getting into debt because my to-do list was so full that I was turning down paid work. When patients struggle to say no to social arrangements, she says: “Sometimes that can come from a core belief of feeling, deep down, that they’re unlikable.” The roots of these beliefs are frequently buried in our past. “I often meet adults who had difficult experiences in childhood, where they felt on the outside of a social group or experienced a trauma, and they don’t want to say no due to a fear of being on the outside, that people will discover them as unlikable in some way. That can lead to this perpetual need to say yes or to keep others happy.” Don’t say, “I’ll think about it” if you don’t want to do it. This will just prolong the situation and make you feel even more stressed. Don’t lie. Lying will most likely lead to guilt—and remember, this is what you are trying to avoid feeling.If you provide a ‘because’, you have more chance of the person accepting. Even if it’s an utterly random reason, people are less likely to argue with it. But if you give a list of reasons, it undermines you. AND…REPEAT If you said no to your mom, dad, teacher, uncle, grandparents, and so on, you were most certainly considered to be being rude, and you would have probably been told off for it.

The aim of all this is to reduce the complexity of my life. Now, I try to work on no more than three projects in a day. Splitting attention between multiple tasks can leave you feeling out of control. So many of us struggle with feelings of abandonment, rejection, feeling not good enough, and people pleasing with emotionally unavailable and shady folks. We’ve been scared of boundaries, expressing our needs, being less than perfect, and becoming more of who we are, and so we settle for crumbs and abandon and hurt ourselves in the process. If, like me, you’re having trouble saying no, this may help. Saying No Doesn’t Mean You’re a Bad Person Dale Henderson recommends finding the line between being completely passive, and being aggressive and territorial – the former could lead to you being the office doormat, and the latter to you being perceived as unhelpful.

Why saying ‘yes’ to everything can be overwhelming

If you depend on other people’s approval, what you are basically saying is “Their opinion of me is more important than my opinion about myself.” Learning to say no has been one of the best things I have done for myself. Not only has it challenged me to overcome my fear of rejection, it has helped me feel in control. Saying no doesn’t mean that you are being rude, selfish, or unkind. These are all unhelpful beliefs that make it hard to say no. It’s okay to make mistakes—nobody is perfect, and everybody does things that they regret; this is what makes us human.

No is not a dirty word. Follow author Natalie Lue's six-step plan to find your no so you can create healthier boundaries and reconnect with your values and authentic self.Full Book Name: The Joy of Saying No: A Simple Plan to Stop People Pleasing, Reclaim Boundaries, and Say Yes to the Life You Want In het derde deel neemt ze je mee door de zes stappen om met plezier nee te leren zeggen. Ook hierin definieert ze weer per stap aan de hand van de type pleaser hoe deze stap het beste genomen kan worden. Ook dit was enorm verhelderend, motiverend en leerzaam. Door de voorbeelden die ze geeft zie ik ook echt de mogelijkheden hoe het gedrag doorbroken kan worden en kan worden veranderd. Wat ook sterk is aan haar verhaal is dat ze ook de kant belicht dat dingen niet ineens lukken en je ongetwijfeld meerdere malen de fout in zal gaan. Ook dit weet ze motiverend te belichten. No is not a dirty word. Follow author Natalie Lue’s six-step plan to find your no so you can create healthier boundaries and reconnect with your values and authentic self. The second step to learning to say no is realizing that you are valuable and choosing your own opinion about yourself over others. The Joy Of Saying No" sera un excelente libro para aquellas personas que tienden a complacer mucho a los demas, cada uno con sus diferentes razones. Aunque no soy la audiencia objetivo, elegi leer este libro por el hecho de que sentia curiosidad acerca de que piensan las personas complacientes a las que les cuesta decir que no.