As a recovering people pleaser, I have had to learn how to say no to certain things, oftentimes the hard way. Today, I will be sharing 5 of those things that I have learned to say no to, and still have to remind myself to say no to in my day to day life.
- Late nights out during the week. As I said last week, I have a Bible study once a week. Occasionally, I will go to boba afterwards with a friend to chat, but that is the only late night I allow myself to have out on work nights. Even then, I still try to be home within an hour of when I usually get home any other night I go out. It is very important for me to be well rested for work each day and the best way for me to ensure that will happen is to make sure that I am home at a decent time each night.
- Answering invasive questions for the sake of people pleasing. Do you ever get asked invasive questions by either strangers or acquaintances and not know how to respond? I certainly do. Because of my people pleasing gene and my inability to think of a good comeback in the moment, I often find myself answering the questions and then instantly regretting it. I have been learning to pause for a few seconds to think of a way to respond before just blurting out the answer that is none of their business. That has been such a game changer for me in terms of not worrying so much about making other people happy by giving them information about myself that they do not need to know.
- Letting someone else’s lack of planning become my emergency. I used to always jump into action or make my best effort to accommodate any request that came my way, even if it was last minute and/or something I did not want to do. One example of this is getting a text on a Saturday evening asking if I could volunteer in the nursery at church the next morning, not because the scheduled person was sick, but because no one had been scheduled. Just because the person in charge of planning put it off to the last minute did not mean that I had to be the one to jump in and save the day.
- Driving far out of my way to pick up friends. Along a similar line, always being the one to drive to where my friends are so they can have shorter drives. These ones took me way too long to learn. I used to always tell my friends “I can come out your way” and they would always take me up on it, while never suggesting somewhere closer to me or in the middle. I also would always say yes to any friend who asked to be picked up, no matter how far out of my way it took me. When I stopped doing that, it was such a relief and made my life much easier. One time, I had a friend ask me to pick her up for a hang out that I had purposely requested to be at a certain location that was closer to my house than hers. If I had picked her up (and dropped her off) at her house and we still went to that planned location, I would have driven 7 times as far as it would have been to just drive to that location and home again!
- Giving 100% in a friendship when the other person only gives 10%. I have had to learn this lesson too many times, but I think I finally have learned it for good (or at least for a while). I am the kind of person who gets excited to make new friends and start wanting to spend a lot of time with them, but it gets old always being the one to invite someone to hang out or asking if they want to come to an activity. It also shows how much value I put on the friendship compared to how much value the other person puts on it. This also relates to how much information, personal or general, each person shares. I know I have shared about this on here before, but it is something that I have had to learn over the past few years. I need to prioritize the friends who prioritize me and I need to trust the friends who trust me instead of trying to prioritize and trust new people who will not reciprocate.
What are some things that you have learned to say no to? Whether they are serious or silly, I would love to hear what you have been learning to not always allow in your life!
Abbi