Have you ever felt guilty for saying no to someone else? Or been scared of missing out on an experience you've said no to? Join Joshua, Pooja, James and Dalal as they explore the importance of saying "no" in some situations and how we can become more comfortable in doing so!"
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Intro Music Credits: composed by Pooja Maniyeri and Joshua Thomas
Editing Credits: Amaan Shad
Speaker1: [00:00:03] Hey, everyone. You're listening to another episode of TeawithGenZ, the podcast where we discuss the candid student life. Today, we'll be talking about why it's so hard to say no. And giving guys practical tips to overcome this difficulty. My name is James, and today I'm joined by my lovely co-host, the All and Joshua, and joined with us a special guest, our very own creative director, Benny. Say, Hi guys. Hi. Hey, guys, what's up?
Speaker2: [00:00:32] Hi, everyone. I, Vinnie, welcome back. Thank you for having me on this episode. I'm really excited for it.
Speaker1: [00:00:41] Ok, well, I actually need your help because I'm not sure if it's just me, but I know this. I've been finding it incredibly difficult to say no to people like, for instance, this week I've had friends just messaged me asking for help with different types of work and like, Don't get me wrong, I would love to help out, but I'm swamped with work myself. But for whatever reason, I just can't say no. I'm wondering, is it just me, am I weird for feeling that?
Speaker3: [00:01:10] No, not at all, I can completely
Speaker2: [00:01:12] Relate, I know this is like the story of my life saying yes to others and just, you know, whenever I have to say no, feeling guilty about it.
Speaker1: [00:01:23] Ok, wait, that's actually super. I mean, I wouldn't say cold, but like it's good hearing that other people go through the same thing I'm going through.
Speaker3: [00:01:31] It's good to see that other people suffer, essentially.
Speaker1: [00:01:34] I'm curious, what do you guys think? It's like the number one reason why people find it hard to say no.
Speaker3: [00:01:41] I don't want to sound like so pretentious and full of myself, but I just feel really mean when I say no to someone when it's something that I can do, I just feel guilty and like I could have helped them, but I didn't. But there's obviously valid reasons why I would have said no. Like, I didn't just say no to be mean in a way, but I just feel like there's that pressure of, Yeah, you're so mean, wow, you don't want to help me.
Speaker4: [00:02:05] I just feel like when I say no, I'm missing out on something like, if I say no to hang out with my friends, I feel bad afterwards because I'll just be like, Oh, they had so much fun without me, or they did this without me. They made memories without me.
Speaker3: [00:02:21] You're missing out.
Speaker4: [00:02:22] Yeah. Formal. It's a big form of formal for me.
Speaker1: [00:02:26] Yeah, I feel like my answer is a mix of both of you guys. Like, for me, I feel bad when I say no, because saying yes to help people or going out with people is my way of showing kind of my love and concern. It sounds cheesy, but like it's true. No friends ask you to come out and I say, No, I feel bad. I'm like, No guys, I'm here for you. Or like, if someone asks for help, I'm like, Yeah, I want to help you. But like, sometimes you just can't do it and you have to say no. I think low keyed also because you've kind of been conditioned that saying, no, it's kind of bad.
Speaker2: [00:03:04] Yeah, I completely relate with all of your points and just building up on what you guys said. I think the core reason for me behind, you know, all this guilt and negative feelings that I have when I say no, it's because I feel like I owe myself to other people around me, the people that I really value and value me in my life. I feel like we've all been taught since we were little kids to not value ourselves, or at least we haven't been taught how to properly value ourselves. That's why growing up, we feel like we owe our decisions to our parents and then our friends, then our partners and our jobs. We have this constant pressure to do well all the time rather than do things that are comfortable and good for us. So, yeah,
Speaker1: [00:03:58] Oh, then he touched on something really
Speaker4: [00:04:00] Deep, so deep, so deep,
Speaker1: [00:04:03] But like, honestly, true, I feel like we've grown up kind of having to say yes to our parents or to teachers or to our bosses and internships and work. And so saying no just feels wrong.
Speaker3: [00:04:17] I mean, there's a lot of scenarios where you can say no, but there are also many scenarios where you cannot like it's not OK. It's not acceptable for you to say no. So if your parents were to ask you to do something. Chances are nine out of 10 times. If you say no, you're going to get in trouble by then, like growing up. Which is why, like many mentioned, there's this kind of not fear of saying no, but this unsettling feeling when you say no to something, especially when it's someone who has authority over you, but you need to realize that sometimes people take advantage of you, and sometimes people manipulate you to make you feel bad. So you don't say no and you automatically say yes and do whatever they need you to do because chances are the person is asking you to do that thing because they don't want to do them themselves.
Speaker1: [00:05:06] Right. And again, I mean, just to clarify to everybody listening, we're not telling you guys to like, just start saying no to everybody like your parents tell you like, oh, eat your veggies and like you just shout in their face like, no, like your professor tells you to do your homework and you just scream in their face like know
Speaker3: [00:05:23] How to get kicked out of uni in one way.
Speaker1: [00:05:25] I mean, definitely it's good to say yes sometimes. But there are instances when saying no, it's beneficial to us.
Speaker3: [00:05:33] That reminds me of a very recent story that happened to me, but honestly, I'm still not over it. It was last semester, I think, and it was one day before a submission of a huge project that we have been working on for about a month and a half. I'm not going to name the class, I'm not going to name the person. I don't want to get anyone in trouble or anything like that. But it was the day before the deadline and if anybody knows me, they know I hate procrastination. Usually I'm done my work way, way ahead of time. So I was done like within two weeks of when the project was assigned. So it was the day before the deadline and it was a group project, but each person was marked individually. So it didn't really affect me if none of my group members did their work, so I didn't really care. But a person from my group texted me a day before the deadline, like the day it was due at midnight, and they asked me to do their entire parts. The entire project, which is about 10 pages of research analyzing data, everything the day of the deadline, that's unreasonable.
Speaker3: [00:06:42] And the thing is, I have never met this person in my life. Can you just imagine, like, it's not like they were my friend or it's like someone I knew? No, it was a complete stranger who was fully trying to take advantage of me. But for some reason, I could not say no. But I didn't do the work, but the way I responded to the person, I was just making up excuses for myself and I didn't say the word No. I was just like, Yeah, I'll see if I can. I'm not sure you know what I mean. Like, I just couldn't stand up for myself and say no in that context of the situation. And looking back at it now, I really regret it because now this person, if I'm going to take another class with them, they might think that, oh, this person, like I could take advantage of them. I can ask them again. They didn't say no last time. What's stopping me from asking them again?
Speaker2: [00:07:31] Dalal I can totally relate to your story. This has happened to me so many times. I mean, my story is really similar in high school. There was this time before final examinations, everyone was preparing for it, and usually I agree to mentor my friends or help them out if they need anything. But then this one instance was there were, you know, something my friend asked for was just unacceptable. She asked me to help her out during the exam. Let me write her answers. A day before the exam, she was like, Can you actually do my paper for me? And I was just, I mean, that's against my own beliefs. It could get me in trouble. That's like a clear reason to say no, but it was still so hard to refuse. So again, like you, I had to make up excuses. I was like, I am busy. I have to focus on my own exam, and it's just ridiculous. Looking back at how obviously wrong those situations were and how uncomfortable we were, but we were still not able to stand up for ourselves.
Speaker3: [00:08:38] When that happened to me, I remember going back to my friends and asking them for advice, I was so shocked that someone could do something like this to me. But then everyone was just telling me to tell the person, no, like just to simply say, No, that's not cool. I can't do that. And it was so easy for them to say it. Why is it so hard for me to say? It just felt so guilty because the person like, I don't know if the person was telling the truth, but they came up with a lot of excuses as to why they couldn't do the work. But still, it didn't make sense to me that they left all the work to the day of the deadline and then expecting me to do it. So there was something fishy in that story, but I wish I just said no.
Speaker1: [00:09:16] And the thing is, in both of your stories, it's very obvious that saying no is the best thing to do because it's for your own sanity and it's for your own. It's for the greater good. I'm curious what are some other benefits to saying, though, that you guys can think of right now
Speaker3: [00:09:34] Not being stressed?
Speaker1: [00:09:36] I think that's that's a big one. That's a big one. Yeah.
Speaker3: [00:09:39] For a lot of people, when you say yes, there's so many things that can be so overwhelming and you can have a lot of things on your plate, but you do realize that a lot of these things you're not conditioned to do, you don't have to do these things and your life would be much simpler if you didn't do them. So it's way less stressful if you just say no.
Speaker4: [00:09:58] Yeah, I think when you say no to a lot of stuff, you're prioritizing yourself and your mental health, your physical health over everything else, and that's very important to do.
Speaker1: [00:10:09] Yeah. And when we prioritize our mental health, sometimes people call that selfish. Yep, which is part of what make saying no so difficult. But something that we should all realize is that when we are in a good headspace, when we're not stressed, when we have emotional capacity to give to others, that makes us more suited to help others, actually. So if we say no to a few things, in order to recharge, that allows us to like, go out into the world and be a better person, you know? So that's one benefit of saying no sometimes.
Speaker3: [00:10:44] I think one of the hardest things about saying, you know, is the fear of disappointing other people, but something that I always like to think about when. When you are put in a situation like this, you have to think if the roles were reversed with the person, do the same thing for you. You know, and I think that when you do that, it's easier for you to analyze the situation truthfully and understand if. Yes, I need to do this to help a friend out or no, there's no point of me doing this. It's not going to benefit myself, and it's just going to add more stress to my life.
Speaker2: [00:11:19] So I'll mention that one of the reasons why we say no is because we don't want to disappoint others. But I also, you know, from my personal experience, I've seen that when we say yes to a lot of things, just to please others, we end up not having time. We end up getting burnt out. And because of that, the quality of our work or whatever we're trying to achieve by saying yes to something, we're not able to achieve it anyways because we have too much on our plate. So we end up disappointing others and we end up exhausting ourselves. So it's always better to say yes to only how much we can handle, rather than say yes to everything.
Speaker3: [00:12:07] Another thing I feel like can come with saying no is a sense of empowerment. Honestly, when you say no and the person accepts it, they're like, Oh, I understand or whatever. There's a sense of fulfillment and empowerment where you feel like you're in control of your decision and in control of your life, and it feels amazing. Honestly, it's it's such a good feeling and that's true, makes you so confident and makes you so happy. And definitely, it's one of the good things about saying no.
Speaker4: [00:12:39] I also think that saying no to certain people does help strengthen your relationship with them. Sometimes if you keep saying yes to everything, they have a certain expectation from you. But when you start saying no, they do realize that you prioritize other stuff over always doing stuff with them or always committing to something, and it really helps gain respect, mutual respect from both sides.
Speaker3: [00:13:06] I think Joshua touched on something really important, which is setting boundaries and relationships when you have with friends, for example. I don't think that this applies to parents or professors and professional environment as much, but it's definitely something that's very relevant with your friends. It's important to set boundaries so people know what to expect from you and you know what to expect from others. If that boundary is very thin or easily permeable, then. I don't know. It could cause you problems because people could take advantage of you and people
Speaker1: [00:13:37] Who don't want to be a pushover.
Speaker3: [00:13:39] It's sad, but the human nature that we live in just allows for manipulation and allows for being taken advantage of. And I'm not saying all your friends out there are going to take advantage of you and everyone's out there to get you. No, that's not what I'm saying. But it's always best to keep your guard up, and it's always best to prioritize yourself first. I think that's something that we are continuously repeating throughout this podcast and throughout this episode, because that's something that our generation is really struggling with putting ourselves first.
Speaker4: [00:14:09] Yeah. And I feel like humans inherently have kindness. They have an ability to like, serve and do stuff for others, and we keep prioritizing other people over ourselves. And it just gets to a point where we keep stressing ourselves so much and we put so much of a burden on ourselves that it just it just breaks us at a point.
Speaker1: [00:14:33] Yeah, and one thing is that we all have a finite number of hours in the day, so when we say yes to other people, what we're really saying is no to the things that we value. So if we want to do, maybe read a book at their own pace for an hour, but we keep saying yes to everybody else. What we're really saying is that what I want to do is not as important. We're basically saying that your goals or other people's kind of targets are more important than anything that I have planned. And so it goes back to what the law and Joshua and Vinnie have been saying about, like sometimes setting boundaries and putting yourself first.
Speaker3: [00:15:10] Let's talk about the important steps that we can take to overcome this problem, there's a lot of things that we can do to help us feel better when saying no, and I know that some of these things really helped me out, so I want to share them with you guys. Go for it. One of the main things that I think is important is to reverse the roles when you're in a situation and really critically think if the person would do the same thing for you in that situation, if you feel like the person would, yes, do the same thing, and it's really important for them that you do it for them this favor, then yes, saying no is not the best decision in this situation. But if you feel like the person doesn't really. Reciprocate the same energy towards you, then you have to say, no, you need to prioritize yourself and you need to understand that the situation doesn't allow for you to say yes in that context.
Speaker2: [00:16:06] Yeah, I agree with a lot, but sometimes even when the person is important to you, we should, you know, keep in mind, the first person to take care of is ourselves. Sometimes we really want to help people, but we just don't have the capacity for it. So in those situations as well, it's a good idea to say no and put yourself first.
Speaker1: [00:16:33] Yeah. In those situations when you do want to say, no, I've read this book, I think it's for the art of saying no. It tackles three practical steps into saying no because like, we know that we want to say no, but how do you do it? Like, what would you actually do? So I read a couple of useful things. The first is by kind of, say, a categorical no. So maybe if someone invites you out, you can tell them, like, I don't really go out on the weekend. So by saying that like blanket statement, you're not saying no to them directly. And it's not personal as much. You're basically saying that's something that I don't normally do. And so that's when I say no to you. It's not personal. It's just because that's the way it is. A second way is. Yeah. The second way is by referencing a commitment. So when someone asks you to do work but you're swamped with your own work, tell them that you've already made commitments to work on this or someone else. And most people generally understand that you want to try and keep your commitment. So then they're not going to force you to like, break them or like, no abandon that and do mine instead. Most people would understand. And the third way is by offering a counter offer. So this is like if someone wants you to do a big project for them and you want to help, but you don't have the time. You can tell them, you know what? I'll help you with Part A. And like, you can do the rest. So just kind of restructuring what they're asking you to do. But you're you're still helping out, but not burdening yourself too much. Those are like some three practical tips to say No.
Speaker3: [00:18:14] I think we should all learn a lesson from the Queen herself. Meghan Trainor, when she said My name is no, my son is no. My number is no. I mean, she said it so easily. So many times in the song Why is this?
Speaker1: [00:18:29] I was waiting for the connection.
Speaker3: [00:18:32] Obviously, I feel like I'm putting a lot of pressure on myself through these episodes, always referencing pop music. But here I am. It just comes naturally.
Speaker4: [00:18:43] And guys, at the end of the day, whatever we say, you need to know that you need to put yourself first in every situation that's possible, right? Think of yourself first and always put your mental health, your physical health above everything else. Oh, and that brings us to the end of the episode, guys. Thank you so much for tuning in. We hope you learn something new. Remember to set boundaries and learn to value the most important person in your life. Who is you? But make sure to follow us on Instagram at with Gen-Z and tune in next week for a new episode by Besties By.