Meet the Yes-Men

If your boundaries are in tatters, these little devils are probably to blame.

My frazzled fucklings,

When you say Yes to everything everywhere all at once, you get overwhelmed, overbooked, overdrawn, and burnt-the-fuck-out. I’m guessing you know this already, but maybe you don’t know what to do about it, so today we’re going to get a handle on your hang-ups.

Whatever they are, the first step toward RESISTING them is to RECOGNIZE their particular power over you.

Luckily, I have a two-step thought experiment to help you do just that!

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The Why Yes/When No Method for Getting a Handle on Your Hang-Ups

Eagle-eyed subscribers will spot a thematic link to my What/Why Method for Setting Goals. What can I say? I love an easy-peasy method almost as much as I hate doing shit I don’t want to do out of a sense of guilt and obligation or because I am compulsively wired to overachieve even if it kills me.

Ready? We’re going to do a little visualization exercise:

I want you to think about the last time you agreed to something that you really didn’t want to do. And then I want you to ask yourself (and be really honest with your answer), WHY THE FUCK DID YOU SAY YES WHEN YOU WANTED TO SAY NO?

That’s it. That’s the Why Yes/When No Method. For example:

• If you were asked to join a fundraising committee that you didn’t have time for, did you do it anyway because you felt guilty about saying no to a charitable cause? (Classic people-pleaser.) Or perhaps because you thought volunteer work would look good on your resume? (Hello, fellow overachiever!)

• If your friends invited you on a white-water rafting trip deeply unsuited to your temperament (you’re more of a golf/spa resort sort), did you say yes anyway because it made you feel weird to think about all of them hanging out without you? (Sounds like #FOMO to me—aka Fear of Missing Out.)

• If a client was hard-core angling for a discount that you didn’t want or couldn’t afford to give them, did you say yes anyway because negotiating makes you uncomfortable and/or you just wanted to get it over with? (Pushover.)

Once you’ve gotten a hang of the Why Yes/When No Method in the past tense, you can begin to use it prophylactically. The next time you find yourself about to say a knee-jerk Yee-haw!—even though in all honesty you’d rather straddle a cactus than join your in-laws on a trip to Buckaroo Bob’s Diggity-Dude Ranch—pause and ask yourself:

WHY am I about to say yes when I really WANT to say no?

Is it guilt? A sense of obligation? Unwillingness to have what might be a tough conversation? Perhaps a hint of “If I don’t go, they’re all going to talk shit about me at the rodeo”-FOMO?

Taking a moment to identify the hang-ups that get you into these yes-messes will help you a) see them for what they are, and b) narrow your focus for fighting back.

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Meet the Yes-Men

In my book Fuck No!, I identified the four little Devils on our collective shoulder who urge us to say yes to things we can’t, shouldn’t, or don’t want to do. I call them the Yes-Men:

• The People-Pleaser

• The Overachiever

• The FOMO’er

• The Pushover

I myself am primarily an Overachiever; I have a hard time saying no because my own ambition and ego get in the way. In the past I’ve flirted with People-Pleaser, but the older I get the less I give a flying you-know-what about whether anybody likes me, so there’s that.

As for FOMO, while I am quite fond of being alone on my couch and therefore content to let other people do fun stuff without me, I’ve definitely experienced the “fear of missing out” in a professional capacity, worrying that if I say no to a particular opportunity this time, I may be closing a potentially lucrative door forever. (I guess you’d call this Overachiever-with-Anxiety-Disorder, which totally tracks.)

And though I don’t consider myself a Pushover, the regularity with which I dispense treats to my ungrateful trash cats might suggest otherwise.

Now let’s do you! Any of the following sound familiar?