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Susan White (00:00)
Hi there, JoyPowered® listeners. This is Susan White, one of your co-hosts. We’re trying something new today. We thought it might be fun in between our regular episodes that we sometimes pop into your feed a quick five-minute tip. We want to know what you think, so leave us a comment on social media, shoot us an email at joypowered at gmail.com, tell us if you think we should keep making these mini-episodes. Okay, on with the show.

Susan White (00:32)
I’m Susan White, co-host of The JoyPowered® Workspace Podcast. Thanks for joining me today. We’re going to talk about saying no at work. Sometimes when you say yes to everything, what you’re doing is saying no to what’s really important.

So do you ever find yourself taking on extra projects when you’re overloaded, covering for other projects for coworkers constantly because they’ve asked you to, or agreeing in meetings, but then later feeling resentful? Why does this really matter? If you are not saying no when you need to say no, you’re going to find yourself getting resentful, potentially lacking the respect of others, lacking your own self-respect, and end up performing worse.

So I’d like to talk about why do we struggle saying no at work. Well, I’m a people pleaser. I want to make people happy. I think it might be what drew me to the — my profession. But the fact is, we gotta think about what’s really driving that. Are we afraid to be unhelpful or to appear to be difficult? Is our people pleasing tendencies taking over when we really need sometimes to say no so that we have time to be intentional and to be strategic? Are we saying yes when we know we should be saying no because we have this fear of missing out if we don’t do something or get involved in something? Or do we feel like the culture that we’re in demands for us to say yes based on the role we’re in?

I’m gonna tell you that there’s real costs to that. And so some of those costs could be the quality of your work isn’t gonna be great if you oversubscribe to doing things. If you say yes to too many things, you’re not gonna do any one thing too well. You’re going to potentially suffer burnout or stress or that resentment that I mentioned about yourself and maybe for others for asking you to do things that you feel like you need to say yes to. It could hurt your reputation if you don’t deliver on everything you say you’re going to do. And by overcommitting to others, it just might degrade your ability to get the things done that you’ve promised to do.

So I’m gonna say to you, let’s reframe. What — instead of saying no to people or turning people down, maybe what you’re going to do is you’re going to help them understand that you don’t have the time for something or that you’ve got other priorities that are — is going to help the greater good. And that you’re saying no to them at the moment, not that it’s a for everything, but it’s for right now, I’m not able to do what you need for me to do.

What I’m gonna encourage you to do is not to apologize when you need to say no and don’t spend time giving long defensive explanations about why you’re having to say no. You don’t want to blame others or come across as a victim that there’s no way I can do that because of everything else I’ve got on my plate and you don’t want to try to ignore the request or ghost the person or hope they don’t come back and find you.

You want to take it on, I think, on face value when someone asks you to do something and you know you need to say no, whether this be a colleague, a staff member, your boss, I’m going to encourage you to stay calm, take a breath, be neutral. You’re not going to get defensive, not going to get hot, not going to get emotional, not get victim-like. Instead, with a very neutral face and strong tone, you’re going to say short, clear sentences, hopefully not giggle nervously or do any other type of emotional response. But instead, you’re gonna say, I’m sorry, I appreciate that you have that needs to be done, let me share with you, I’m not going to be able to do it, I’ve got a couple other priorities that are demanding that I get finished today, tomorrow, whatever; let me think, is there somebody else here who could do that for you or with you? Or I’d be happy to come back and revisit this with you next week after I get some of my other priorities finished.

I don’t want you to feel guilty when you do that, when you say the no, if you know that this discomfort you’re in saying no is short-term pain for long-term gain. You know that you need to get these other priorities done. You know this person and you have a good relationship, you’re not going to damage it by being straightforward. As long as you do circle back, make sure they got done what they needed to get done, or if you said you’re going to revisit it, that you really do it. People adjust faster than you think. I — and if you’ve just been a person that always says yes, there might take a little time for them to understand that you, that you’re now prioritizing other things and that you’re going to say no.

Every time you say yes to something that is not your priority, you are absolutely giving up something that is. So want you to be thoughtful about it. I want you to have courage to do it, and certainly hope that you take a listen to our JoyPowered® Workspace Podcast when you get a chance. Thanks so much.