For most of my life, I thought saying no came with enormous consequences.
What if they’re upset? What if they think I’m rude? What if they stop inviting me? What if they talk about me? What if someone thinks I should have tried harder, stayed longer, kept the friendship going, made the effort?
Then, somewhere along the way, I realised something that completely changed the way I think about people pleasing:
Nothing matters to me as much as what happens under my roof.
And I know this might sound privileged, having everything I want under one roof and not needing anything outside of it, but my life is full and busy — and sometimes stressful — enough without committing myself to things that don’t add anything to that life.
Mum, wife, writer, home educator, cleaner and cook, crop grower extraordinaire.
I don’t want to go to that social thing?
I won’t go.
And then what happens? I stay home. The people I live with are still here. My home is still my home. Tomorrow arrives exactly as it would have done anyway. Maybe somebody somewhere thinks I should have gone.
But does that actually affect my daily life?
No.
I don’t want to maintain a connection with someone anymore?
Then I don’t.
They might be disappointed. Other people might have opinions about it. There might even be someone who thinks I’m wrong. And I’m not talking about constantly letting people down or ghosting everyone. I don’t commit and then never turn up. I have just stopped feeling the pressure to force myself to commit to anything in the first place.
Of course, this isn’t about the things we have to do. We all have responsibilities that exist beyond our front doors, and not everyone has the luxury of simply opting out of everything that makes them unhappy.
I’m talking about the things we can choose. The invitation you’re only accepting because you feel guilty. The relationship you’re maintaining purely out of obligation. The opinion of someone who plays almost no part in your everyday life.
Those were the things I realised I could put down.
And when I close my front door at the end of the day, none of those people who might be judging me are living my life for me.
I am.
That sounds incredibly obvious written down. It took me years to actually understand it.
People pleasing had convinced me that other people’s feelings about my decisions were consequences of my decisions. They weren’t. Not always. Sometimes someone being disappointed is just someone being disappointed. Sometimes someone disagreeing with you is just someone disagreeing with you.
Sometimes somebody thinking your rude, distant, difficult or antisocial changes absolutely nothing about the life waiting for you when you get home. And once I realised that, so many things lost their power over me.
Has my circle become smaller?
Absolutely.
And that’s exactly how I want it. I’m no longer interested in collecting relationships simply because ending them might be awkward. I don’t want to fill my calendar because declining invitations makes me feel guilty. I don’t want to spend the limited amount of energy I have maintaining connections that exist primarily because I’m frightened of what will happen if I stop.
I know what will happen now.
Most of the time, nothing.
Life carries on.
Except now, when I close my front door, I’m increasingly surrounded by the people, things and relationships I actually chose.
And that matters far more to me than being liked by everyone outside it.
So next time you feel pressured to do something you’d love to decline, ask yourself: “Does it affect my everyday life?”. If the answer is no… you know what to do.
