Interpersonal relationships are a complex process. They are based on different factors: trust, sympathy, partnership, respect, love and even compassion.
Valery Gut, PhD in Psychology and developer of the theory of adaptive intelligence, explained why it is difficult to say no.
Every day we put a piece of ourselves into it when we help, show care, and keep agreements.
But sometimes you don’t really want to fulfill a request from a relative or colleague. And refusing seems wrong – suddenly the relationship will deteriorate, the person will be disappointed or offended.
It's awkward to refuse - why does this happen?
Lack of personal boundaries and fear of rejection
As children, we were taught that helping others is humane, and therefore refusing to help everyone who asks for it will be frowned upon. The fear of losing another person's goodwill sometimes comes before one's own desires.
We fulfill the request so that we continue to be loved, respected, we feel our importance - after all, our help is needed, and therefore, appreciated. This behavior is established in childhood, when we try to earn the love of our parents.
Guilt
Sometimes it is easier to overcome your own unwillingness to fulfill a request than to experience guilt for refusing.
Own painful attitude towards rejections
Often the reason for the inability to refuse a request is one's own painful attitude to situations when we are refused. Experience suggests that refusal brings negative emotions, makes one feel unimportant, humiliated. And in order not to be the cause of other people's experiences, a person agrees to do what he is asked to do.
The desire to conform to the ideas of others
The documentary film "Me and Others" shows social experiments. In one of them, several children participate and are given sweet porridge. Each of them confirms: "The porridge is sweet." And the last participant is given salty porridge.
But she answers the question the same way everyone else did: "The porridge is sweet." And she agrees to try again. This experiment shows that it is often important for us to conform to the opinion of society. And so that those around us do not think that we are different, it is easier to agree and fulfill the request against our will.
Inability to refuse in an environmentally friendly manner without hurting the feelings of the person asking for help
In such cases, the skill of saying "no" needs to be trained. For example, refuse everyone for one day. It is better to use "I-phrases" for this, talk about your feelings, so it will be easier for the interlocutor to accept the refusal.
The inability to say no is based on self-doubt, lack of internal support, devaluation of one's own feelings, and recognition of the imperfection of the inner "I". Therefore, we seek confirmation of our merits in the outside world.
In fact, confidence is in each of us. We just need to learn to feel it - to recognize our strengths, to allow ourselves not to be ideal for everyone.
The ability to say “no” is one of the components of a self-confident personality, along with the ability to independently build your life and set personal boundaries.
