On practicing saying no
A friend recently wrote, in a non-public post (copied and pasted with permission):
Let’s call this one: the rule-follower’s guide to intelligent disobedience. For no particular reason. Apropos of, surely, nothing at all.
A thing that happens a lot is that someone I know brings me something they’re uncomfortable with and asks me what they should do. The thing they’re uncomfortable with because they know it’s wrong (or just not quite right), but they feel (sometimes because someone with more power or authority said so) like they should? Or the thing they’re uncomfortable with because they know that it’s right(er) but it requires not going with some or another flow and that stresses them out?
This happens a lot for all sorts of reasons, which is kind of nice. It’s a thing I’ve been studying and wrestling with in some form for most of my life, being an honestly rather fearful sort of person at baseline but also a person who landed early and hard at two realization: 1) if I want someone to stand up for me, that someone is going to have to be me, and 2) if being good and being right doesn’t mean I can’t lose, then the most important thing over which I have influence is, am I making choices that let me look myself in the eye? And also it is very literally part of my job. So it’s nice to keep my hand in and my skills sharp.
Anyway. The secret is, this is not actually a difficult skill. It does not require special insight or a backbone of steel. Most people who bring me these somethings with which they’re uncomfortable already know what choice they ought to make and what they ought to do. And most of those who don’t, only don’t because they’re too spun up and stressed to notice that yes, they do. The barrier is the discomfort and the anxiety. And so the answer is, get comfortable with that. Here’s what you do.
1) Make your decision up front. If you don’t want to do it, then decide you’re not going to do it. Then go from there. This is backwards from how people, especially people with certain backgrounds and brain chemistries, tend to want to make decisions. And if you like gathering evidence and making pro/con lists and soliciting opinions or whatever, then you do you (and sometimes this is also me). But remember the type of decisions we’re talking about here: decisions where you already know the answer and most of the turmoil you’re feeling stems directly from that. So let yourself know. Accept your intuition, and carry on from there. You can and may and sometimes should change your mind as you go, and learn more, and your intuition changes. That’s okay. The goal is just to stop fighting yourself so you can think more clearly about the rest, and about what to do next.
There’s this funny thing that happens in many of these cases. The person bringing me the thing says, “Of course I want to [say yes/comply/insert whatever thing here,]” and I say, “Well, I don’t,” or, “I wouldn’t, if I were you,” and they immediately take a much deeper breath because they didn’t really want to, either. They just needed someone to give them permission to not. And like, I can be that someone if you need me to. But you can also be that someone for yourself. And for other people, too!
2) Practice causing a lil’ friction. Practice it every day. Just about every chance you get. We talk a lot about this relative to saying no, especially for those of us who tend to be socialized out of saying no, and this is important, too. But being able to say yes or no is only half the skill. The other half is being able to introduce friction: getting comfortable with making things weird or awkward or inconvenient in all sorts of low-stakes scenario, and making it a habit: making it feel safer and more familiar when you have to do it for real.
When I say “low-stakes,” I mean it. This is suggesting a different hiking trail than your buddy suggested, or saying you want Thai takeout instead of pizza tonight. This is me occasionally running a new TTRPG and asking everyone to find something to X-card during the set-up phase just to practice using that tool. This is all sorts of moderate-to-higher-stakes stuff, too, of course. But truly: you get better at it by practicing it in tiny ways all the time than by just white-knuckling your way through big occasional challenges. And the big occasional challenges will come even if you don’t chase them: might as well build some muscle memory. So split it fine. Make it easy. Practice it like a game.
And that’s what I’ve got. If it is of any interest, then may it serve you well.