The Guilt is Coming from Inside the House
Why you feel bad for setting boundaries, how to address it, and my favorite thing to say to people who can’t take no for an answer.
Happy Monday, my favorite fucklings! Last week I introduced you to the Yes-Men and shared my Why Yes/When No Method for determining which of those little Devils is perched on your shoulder on any given day, urging you to say yes to things you can’t, shouldn’t or frankly don’t want to do.
Are you a People-Pleaser? An Overachiever? A fan of the FOMO? Or just a Total Fucking Pushover? (Or a little from columns A, B, C, and D?)
Whatever the case, there is one giant obstacle to setting boundaries and saying no—a no-bstacle, if you will—that we all have in common, and I intend to help you hurdle it once and for all.
Ready? Right this way…
Guilt is a many splendored thing. And by “many splendored” I mean “powerful and shitty.”
In fact, I’d wager guilt is the most powerful and most shitty motivator for doing things we can’t, shouldn’t, or don’t want to do.
The key to banishing this unhelpful, unhealthy feeling—or at least to separating it from your decision-making/boundary-setting process—is to focus on two simple factors:
Is your guilt WARRANTED (because you’re doing something objectively morally/ethically/legally wrong)?
Or is it UNWARRANTED (because you’ve done nothing wrong)?
AND
Is it purely SELF-IMPOSED (i.e., nobody else has said anything or appears to be judging you)?
Or is it the result of OUTSIDE PRESSURE (i.e., other people are actively getting all up in your shit)?
Answering these questions will give you clarity and confidence to make whatever decision is causing you such angst, set that boundary, and then enforce the fuck out of it.
Let’s walk through an example or three, as is my wont…
Are you, perchance, contemplating stealing the last cupcake from your nephew’s 3rd birthday party, and which you know full well your sister was saving for her breakfast tomorrow?
If so, you should know it’s wrong and you should feel guilty about it. Congrats, your brain’s early warning system is functioning appropriately!
This guilt is WARRANTED. Don’t be a dick.
However, let’s say you’re contemplating not going to the party at all. You like cupcakes but you don’t like getting up at 10 a.m. to watch a cut-rate clown terrify a bunch of toddlers into forgetting their potty training. Your sister may be just as (or more) miffed by your absence as she would have been by the cupcake heist—and I see why that concerns you—but in this case, objectively speaking, RSVP’ing no is not an evil or unethical action.
It’s just you, not blowing your Fuck Budget on things that don’t make you happy. (BTW I love this for you.)
Furthermore, by not attending SnotFest 2024, you’re basically providing at least one extra cupcake for the group. Two, if you are then not present to contemplate stealing the last one!
You’re officially awesome, and that guilt is UNWARRANTED.
OK, I see what you’re saying, but I still feel it.
I’m not surprised. Feeling guilty even when you haven’t done anything wrong is a common conundrum. But take heart, for these are precisely the hang-ups we came here to knock down.
Assuming your guilt is unwarranted, the next thing to dig into is WHY you feel it anyway—and more specifically, WHO is behind it?
(Hint: it’s probably you.)
The guilt is coming from inside the house.
I’m guessing that about 75 percent of the time, you’re not giving anyone else a chance to make you feel guilty—you’re doing it to your own damn self. You’re letting what you think other people think (Or egad, what they might think!) dictate your feelings and subsequent acquiescence to things you can’t, shouldn’t, or don’t want to do.
Let me stop you right there.
Based on my years of professional experience as a badass boundary-enforcer, I can tell you this:
MOST PEOPLE DO NOT CARE NEARLY AS MUCH ABOUT HOW YOU LIVE YOUR LIFE AS YOU THINK THEY DO.
They really don’t. I say no all the time and experience literally zero negative repercussions.
I have RSVP’d no to the kinds of invitations (yes, even weddings) that my sense of guilt told me were mandatory, and no one has batted so much as a disapproving eyelash in my direction.
I have summoned the wherewithal to say, “Unfortunately, I’m not able to be of help” to requests for favors that I don’t have the time or energy to grant, and the person on the other end has responded “No worries!” (For more on that, check out my two-part series on saying reasonable No’s to unreasonable asks and fending off everyone’s favorite information zombies, the Brain-Pickers.)
I have backed away from tasks, commitments, and interactions that I once thought were OBLIGATORY and that turned out to have been OPTIONAL all along. Nobody said a peep. (←Obligation is the second most common no-bstacle in the bunch. We’ll get there, I promise.)
Understanding that most of the time it’s just my Yes-Men talking—and mindfully tuning them out—has been so liberating. I really hope you will take this NFG nugget to heart.
So, to review, these are your first steps toward banishing guilt and neutralizing its power over you:
Determine whether this feeling is warranted. If it is, don’t be a dick. If it isn’t—
Ignore the whispers in your own brain that are trying to convince you otherwise.
Boom. Seventy-five percent of your UNWARRANTED, SELF-IMPOSED guilt: wiped off the board. You gotta love it.
Then we have the times when you’ve understood and accepted that your guilt is unwarranted, but you’re still feeling the burn because: OUTSIDE PRESSURE.
It’s not you, it’s them.
You know you’re about to do/have done nothing wrong, yet other people feel the need to express their incredulity and/or disapproval. They say things like “Oh, you’re really not taking a shift on neighborhood watch?” or “Wow, you think it’s okay to skip the company holiday party?” or “What kind of psychopath doesn’t like picnics?”
I admit that such comments used to weaken my resolve, and I would let myself be shamed into saying yes after all, kicking myself all the way like some kind of masochistic donkey. But since I started writing the No F*cks Given® Guides, I’ve cultivated a perspective that’s helped me rise above the fray and refuse to take the blame bait.
Remember those whispers of self-imposed guilt I just told you to ignore?
The people who can’t understand or don’t respect your boundaries are still listening to the Devil on their shoulder. They’re projecting their own Yes-Men’s insecurities onto you—because they think they’re not allowed to bow out, sit out, and opt out.
Pity them, for they no not what they do. (Well, most of them, anyway. We’ll deal with the real jerks in a moment.)
If you can ignore the voices in your head, you can ignore the voices in other people’s heads too. That’s even easier! Let their comments roll off your back. Lower your hackles. Open your arms. Release that guilt into the air like a sack of motherfucking doves.
And while you’re at it, remember that setting boundaries does not make you a bad person. In fact, it makes you an extra-good person for doing your part to normalize the act itself.
Set the boundaries you want to see in the world!
The more you do it, and the happier and more guilt-free you are about it, the more people in your orbit will observe and internalize that happiness. I’ve experienced this phenomenon firsthand for years now. Consciously or subconsciously (and does it really matter which?) others envy your mojo and seek to replicate it for themselves. It’s a virtuous cycle.
Still, with all that said…
Some people just won’t quit.
You know the ones. They argue your decisions ad nauseam. They huff, they puff, and they insist that you are not allowed to think about and value things differently than they do—up to and including your own time, energy, money, and sanity.
You have three options to deal with such folks:
IGNORE them. (Bit of a theme today.)
ACKNOWLEDGE them. Respond with a simple “I’ve heard what you have to say, but it doesn’t change my mind about going to your boyfriend’s third open mic night this week. I don’t think this makes me a bad person. I hope you agree, but either way, that’s all I have to say about it.” Or, if you’re feeling feisty…
ENGAGE with them. Ask why it is that they are so intent on getting you to say yes to something they know you can’t, shouldn’t, or don’t want to do? Politely inform them that you refuse to feel guilty—or be made to feel guilty—about making decisions in service to your own happiness and well-being, such as not using your entire annual allotment of vacation days to sleep on a cot and do morning trust falls at the “adult summer camp” your mother so forcefully wishes for you to attend with all the cousins. And if they persist? Whip out my personal favorite boundary-enforcing retort: “You know, it seems to me like your refusal to take no for an answer says more about you than it does about me.”
The best part is, you can do all of the above with a smile on your face, imbued as you are with the peace and satisfaction of living your life in the way that works best for you.
That, my friends, is the Joy of No, and I am here to help you achieve it.
Any questions, post them in the comments—and stay tuned next week for the second stop on our Magical Hang-up Tour: OBLIGATION! It’ll be a hoot, I promise.
At work, my team has fully embraced the "No Theme of the Month". There was NO-vember, Deny-December, I can't remember January, Fuck No February (yeah it was a rough month), and this just reminded me that a March theme is needed.
See my team is made up of 2 people (me as the manager and my teammate). We can literally only do so much as a team of two people. So I've gotten really good at saying "No, we don't have capacity to take on that work" or "Sorry, we won't be able to handle this for you but we did create this guide that will help you through the process."
All done kindly and directly typically results in "ok" or "that stinks but I totally understand" type responses. Still we are people pleasers at heart so it's a constant internal battle we deal with.
As always, priceless advice.