Permission To Say No

How easy is it for you to say no?

How easy is it for you to clearly express your needs to others in general?

It has always been difficult for me to say no, and the idea of making my needs known to others was a foreign concept in my life until fairly recently.

During the summer of 2014 I was working on my internship – the final step before completing the requirements for my Bachelor’s degree in exercise science.

While performing observation hours required for another course in my degree program, I had found a privately owned fitness studio. I was drawn to the studio because it was owned by a woman who had earned various degrees in health and fitness fields and who took the same “no fads or gimmicks” approach to fitness and to health that I take whenever I work with clients.

Things had gone very well between us initially, to the extent that she was the one who had mentioned that she would like me to complete my internship there. It was about midway through my internship that things began to change in our relationship.

She had been open in discussions and had shared information and answered questions quite freely, but by mid summer she had become sarcastic and even combative during meetings. One day I asked for her thoughts on a particular training approach regarding running, since my “case study” client was a teenage cross-country runner. Her answer to my question was “I don’t listen to opinions from just any hack.”

She just assumed, even after all of our time together, that I did. It was an insulting approach to take on her part, and it was reflective of the decline in our relationship. She was once a member of the USA Track and Field National Team and should have known that Alberto Salazar is no “hack” when it comes to coaching runners. It was part of his theory of coaching that I had presented to her for discussion as it related to my young cross-country runner.

One night I was responding to her email that a client needed to change her session time for the next morning, and my husband, who would have had to change his schedule to get me to the re-scheduled session, told me that I had to stop letting her control my life. I argued that she was in control of my grade for my internship and thus my graduation – and my whole future!

Looking at the situation rationally though, I realized that he was right. The schedule change that was practically demanded of me had been made less than 12 hours before our originally scheduled session and was an unreasonable demand.

I was being controlled by fear. I had begun to dread every interaction with her. I had even begun to struggle with panic attacks by the end of the internship.

Even though I was temporarily tied to that person for a grade, I had given her power and control over me and my life to which she was not entitled.

I had clients that summer that I was able to work with when she wasn’t there, and I truly enjoyed working with them, but it was an incredibly difficult summer overall.

I think about that experience often as I make decisions, particularly in the area of potential employment “opportunities,” but also as it relates to personal attachments.

Throughout my life it has not been easy for me to say no to people, because I was raised in an “obey right away” culture; because I tend to be a people pleaser; because I am sometimes fearful of the consequences to a relationship, or of the potential conflict that may result.

In the last few years I’ve worked to change that, to be able to consider requests or situations and then to answer in the way that I need to, and at times to do so without giving reasons or making excuses (real or otherwise).

Like many things in life though, the concept of setting appropriate boundaries and saying no is the proverbial two-sided coin.

As important as it is to be able to set appropriate boundaries for ourselves, it is just as necessary to be willing to accept the boundaries set by others and to graciously receive their answers of no. 

A few years ago, my husband had to work the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving. My parents and younger sister had planned to stay at our house Wednesday and Thursday nights to celebrate the holiday with us. I had asked them to stay until Saturday so that I could hang out with them and do something fun since I’d be alone without anything interesting to do otherwise. They declined, and they gave their reason.

I was initially sad about getting the no thank you, but I was okay with their answer. While I don’t believe it was wrong for me to have felt sad that my family was leaving sooner than I would have liked, I know it would have been wrong for me to have expressed my sadness to the extent that I tried to manipulate them by making them feel bad enough about their choice to maybe change their minds and do what I wanted.

My affirmation of their answer was not at all required; my gracious acceptance was.

Just as we expect people to respect our boundaries without the need to affirm, evaluate, or question them, we have to be willing to give that same respect to others. It doesn’t mean we’ll never be disappointed or sad, but to push back at reasonable answers of no and appropriate boundaries is manipulative and can even deteriorate into being abusive.

Setting boundaries and saying no can be tough things to do. The more we value the relationship, the harder it seems at times. Still I believe that the more we value the relationship, the more effort we will put into making every attempt to be objective and clear. In the end, clarity should only help to protect the relationships we value most because it’s the lack of clarity and lack of boundaries that often do the most damage in the end.