A people pleaser who loves saying no

I’d struggle to narrow down my favourite quotes to a Top Ten but, if I had to, ‘No is a complete sentence’ would almost certainly be in the top three. The irony that I also have people pleasing tendencies - stamped through me like a stick of rock from a very early age - is not lost on me.

“No is a complete sentence.”
Anne Lamott, requoted by many equally fabulous women including Jane Fonda, Brene Brown and Shonda Rimes

Years ago, when I started my own wedding planning business, someone shared with me a piece from the Harvard Business Review entitled ‘The Strategic Power of Saying No’. I wish I could remember who took the time to print it out for me and put it in my hand because I’d like to shake theirs. It instantly hit home for me and became a focus for the strategic direction of Magic Dust throughout the five years I ran it. People would often ask - and sometimes still do if we’re reminiscing - who the worst ‘bridezilla’ I ever worked with was and I can honestly say that I never worked with any.

Understanding early on that saying ‘no’ to the wrong type of client for Magic Dust was a superpower, not a weakness, allowed me to work smarter for fewer couples getting married, safe in the knowledge that every single one of those couples valued the work I did and would tell other people about it. And because they felt supported and confident in the service that Magic Dust was delivering, they never turned into ‘bridezillas’ (I am not a fan of this word by the way).

Thinking about it nearly two decades on, this was likely the point at which my people pleasing days were numbered. Don’t get me wrong, that people pleasing core is decorated with a very thin, but sparkly, veneer of ‘no is a complete sentence’ but I am firmly in the camp of believing that if you say something often enough it will eventually become true.

I look back at my childhood, especially my teenage years, and most of my twenties and am struck by the number of things I did - and didn’t do - to keep other people happy. So many times I bit my tongue, kept the peace, walked on eggshells, didn’t say what I really wanted to say. So many relationships I should have extricated myself from - I don’t think ‘red flags’ were a thing in the 1990s but there were times when my life must have looked like a metaphorical United Nations Plaza.

Photo by Vladislav Klapin on Unsplash

And yet, I wouldn’t go back and change any of it. Not only because those experiences have made me the person I am today - someone who, more often than not, I quite like spending time with - but it also wouldn’t feel quite as sweet as it does now when I say ‘no’ to something I don’t want to do. When I think twice before overcommitting myself, or those closest to me, and instead savour the slow days when we please ourselves, stay close to home and allow ourselves to just be.

Are those no’s selfish? I don’t think so because I wouldn’t say no to someone who needed my help - one of my dearest friends said recently that I am one of the few people they know who they could ask to be in a certain place at a certain time - no questions asked - and I would 100% be there (probably with wine and an alibi if necessary!)

So, this ramble is over and I’m not sure there is any real conclusion other than that life is complicated, so are we, regrets are pointless and we have the power to break cycles, change our mindset and set boundaries no matter how old we are. And, because ending this piece with another quote makes me happy, and to paraphrase an American President, “you can’t please all of the people all of the time” but you should always try to please yourself.