Saying No At Work

I recently said yes to a request at work that was outside of my job description and required me to wake up at 5.30am and felt quite stressful because it involved me being a public spokesperson for something that got a lot of media coverage. I didn’t really want to do it because I knew I would find it quite stressful on top of an already busy week – and that the early start would be exhausting for me. Which is was – and I got quite sick the next day with exhaustion.

But I said yes and I did it – and afterwards I was reflecting on it because I don’t want to say yes to requests like that in the future, because I want to prioritize my health, my sleeping, keeping my stress levels down, and making myself and my own goals a priority.

I feel proud of the work that I did – I think I did it well, and I got praise for doing it. So that somehow makes it harder to consider not doing it again in the future. And it was for a cause that I do truly believe in and think is important. So I have the thought that by not doing it in the future or by saying no I would be not contributing to an important cause.

So my current thoughts for why I said yes to it were:

If I don’t do it, no one else will

If I don’t do it, it won’t be as good

I can’t say no

This is an important cause

I currently don’t have any intentional thoughts for when I get requests like this in the future to be able to say no. And that’s where I’d like some coaching please.

 

 

Answer:

Such good insights. I’m going to point out a bit of a sneaky belief underneath your question: That you need to make this decision now and forevermore your answer will be the same. How does it feel when you try to figure this out given that belief? Of course please do some exploring and see what you find that feels resonant to you. Put the belief in your own words.

Moving forward with some exploration questions: What helped you make this decision this time? What do you know about your ability to make choices about work requests in the future? What if you trusted yourself to know exactly what to do if/when requests or opportunities arise?

See what you find and come back with any questions or models that come up.