But on the inside your heart is beating faster, your palms sweaty, your stomach churning and most noticeably your head is saying “NO, NO, NO”.
We’ve all done it haven’t we?
“Yes I’d love to come out” when we mean “I’d much rather slop on the sofa”
“Yes of course I have time to sell that on eBay for you” when we mean “It’s a quieter life for me if I do it myself”
“Yes, I’d love to take on that extra project” when we mean “Great that’s no lunch breaks and late evenings all week now…”
I confess these are all YESes I have said when I meant NO.
When was the last time you said Yes but meant NO?!
But I am pretty confident that I am not the only one.
So why do we do it?
Why do we commit to things that we don’t want to do?
Here are a few of the reasons that I have come up with:
- We want to PLEASE others
- We want to AVOID conflict
- We prefer CERTAINTY over uncertainty
- We believe we will DO IT, when others won’t
- We enjoy being BUSY and see doing nothing as a weakness
Underneath all of these reasons are FEARS.
- A fear of NOT BEING LIKED
- A fear of NOT BEING GOOD ENOUGH
- A fear of FAILURE
These fears are founded in our past, often our childhood. Our responses to these fears are our way of SURVIVING.
They may have served us when we were young and dependent on others. But as adults these fears no longer serve us.
But they are habits. Subconscious habits.
So when we say “Yes I’d love to come out” and we don’t really want to, we are responding to our fear of not being liked.
But honestly, if you said to a true friend that you just weren’t up to going out and you needed to look after yourself and just chill, do you think they would disown you? Of course not! Unless of course they are not a true friend.
If you said you would spend the time showing your friend how to sell something on eBay, instead of doing it for them, you would still be good enough!
And for the one that might feel like the hardest… if you didn’t have the capacity to take on the extra work, how might you address that with your boss? How about:
“Thank you for thinking of me. This sounds like an interesting piece of work. Please, could we spend a few minutes discussing what it involves and how that would impact my current workload?”
You wouldn’t be saying “Yes” from a fear of failure, but rather let’s discuss from a place of authenticity, collaboration and respect.
I hope that this gives you some food for thought. And next time you want to say YES but really mean NO, take a moment to think about what’s happening underneath it all.
And if you need someone to guide you through that – you know where I am!