A deadline is due and you notice that it’s you, more than your colleagues, who works late. Your boss drops by your desk at 5 with a ‘quick thing’, and moments later you’ve cancelled your dinner plans. You don’t need to ask what the office alarm code is, because you’re always the last to leave.
You probably know you need to say no to work. You probably know you need to set boundaries. It’s not that you need to say no that you’re unsure about. It’s that you can’t.
Work sometimes conflicts with your life. That happens. But I suspect that you can’t say no at work because, outside of it, you can’t say yes to yourself.
Why saying no at work is so hard
Work doesn’t just exist in the subjective world of feelings and emotions. It is a hard-nosed reality. You need it. So do I. Let’s name that.
But work has other meanings too. It shapes what people think of you and what you think of yourself. Because of your work, perhaps you see yourself as successful, even “good.”
And you relate to others at work too: colleagues, perhaps a boss, or at least those to whom you answer. Perhaps clients who pay the bills; perhaps the board. At work, you exist in a hierarchy, and you probably exist in a team too.
So “saying no at work” is not nearly as simple as it sounds. It potentially impacts your life financially, emotionally, and relationally. No wonder you struggle. How could you not?
Who you cannot say no to
All of this we will map out in therapy for burnout. We tend to begin with the day-to-day. You might have a difficult relationship with your boss. Maybe they are belligerent or a micromanager, and you cannot seem to do anything right, or do enough. Maybe they seem disinterested and aloof, and whatever you do, you cannot seem to get their attention. What is it like to work with that person? How does it feel?
Or perhaps you are part of a team, and it’s your colleagues whom you would struggle to let down. You feel that they work hard enough. You don’t question their work ethic or dedication to the project. But in your mind, you worry that they don’t think the same about you.
Perhaps you feel your commitment is always in question. Perhaps you feel that you’re not very good at your job, and it’s only a matter of time before someone finds out.
Imagine there’s a need to stay late. Perhaps there’s a deadline due, or perhaps there’s an important meeting the next day and you need to prepare. On the one hand, you need the money. Perhaps this takes the form of not wanting to get fired, or you’re in line for a promotion. These might not be imminent possibilities, but perhaps you are thinking about them. You have a financial, structural incentive. There’s an objective level too—you want to feel good at your job. It’s important. It matters to you. And there are the people you might let down if you don’t deliver. All of these forces intersect, and all of these forces pull in the same direction.
And all of them make it harder for another reality to emerge. What happens if you say no?
I imagine you have had some version of this thought: “If I don’t deliver X, then Y won’t happen. Then I’ll get fired / won’t get promoted / I’ll let people down / the bad people will win.”
If you’ve ever thought this, I get that. The problem with it is that, in our mind, there’s no argument. You can imagine that perhaps your colleagues might not care that much, but they will still be irritated. It will still inconvenience them. There’s no world in which it is not better just to do X.
Saying no at work starts with saying yes to yourself
And this is the crux. To say no means to disappoint people. And I imagine you are someone who doesn’t like to do that. You might even feel tension in your body at the mere thought of it. Perhaps you learned that you never could. Perhaps you were the good child and your sibling was naughty. Perhaps you had to be perfect to cover for something else—something you thought was wrong with you. But if you cannot disappoint people, it’s always you who ends up at the bottom of the pile. It’s always you who draws the short straw.
And so, in therapy, we will sit with this. When did you learn this? What function did it serve? And perhaps, one day, you will disappoint me. And that will be a sign of transformation.