Hello friends,

The comments on last week's edition - Addition vs Subtraction: The Hidden Bias Keeping Your Plate Too Full - illustrated what I see constantly in coaching: knowing that boundaries are needed and actually putting them in place are worlds apart.

One reader shared they had to work with the guilt of saying no with their therapist. Another said it's just so easy to keep adding, subtraction feels impossible.

Both responses point to the same truth: boundaries are hard, even when we know they're the right thing to do. They bring up discomfort, and that discomfort makes it harder to set them, sustain them, and hold them.

Today we'll explore why saying no feels so hard, and the narratives that make it emotionally uncomfortable.

Enjoy the read!
Siri

A Short Story (Possibly Autobiographical)

A young software engineer joins her first job at a product company. She's assigned to a project, but her manager keeps adding "quick tasks": reviewing documentation, joining client calls at odd hours, fixing bugs in legacy code that isn't her responsibility.

One Thursday evening, exhausted after a 12-hour day, her manager messages at 9 PM: "Can you prepare the deck for tomorrow's leadership review? Nothing fancy, just 10 slides."

She knows she should say no. She wants to go home and sleep. She's been working weekends.

The deck isn't her job - there's a designated person for this.

But her manager is 15 years her senior.

Saying no to someone senior seems like disrespect.

What if her manager thinks she's not committed? What if it affects her appraisal? What if she becomes known as "that person who doesn't help the team"? What if her upcoming promotion gets affected? What if he puts her on the "firing list"?

Maybe her manager trusts her more than anyone else to get this done?

She says, "Of course, I'll do it."

She cancels her plans. She makes the deck. At midnight, she sends it over.

Her manager replies four hours later: "Thanks. Please make the following changes."

She gets back to work.

So What's Happening Here?

Instead of saying no, she says what she thinks she's supposed to say: "Of course, I'll do it."

Why?

This is about hierarchy, culture, power, conditioning and the very real cost of saying no when you're junior, when your job security depends on approval, when saying no to someone senior violates everything you've been taught about humility, respect and hard work.

Why This Pattern Persists

There's a psychological reason why saying no feels so risky, and why the habit persists even decades later.

Research on loss aversion shows that our brains are wired to feel potential losses about twice as intensely as equivalent gains.

When that message comes at 9pm asking for the deck, her brain immediately calculates what she might lose by saying no: approval, reputation, opportunity, safety in the hierarchy.

What she might gain by saying no - rest, boundaries, time for herself - seems abstract, unnecessary and could be deferred for the weekend.

This is not capitulation.

This is how human brains work, especially in hierarchical structures. Studies on organisational silence show that people in lower-power positions stay silent and accommodate more because they fear negative consequences and believe that speaking up, or saying no, will not change anything anyway.

In some cultures, this intensifies. Saying no can disrupt social harmony, what the Japanese call wa. Individual needs come second to the group. The cost is not just personal disappointment, it is cultural transgression.

So the young engineer is not being irrational. The costs she is weighing are real.

The Yes Behind Her Refusal to Say No

There's a "yes" behind her inability to say no. She thinks she's saying yes to:

• Maintaining the relationship
• Preserving her reputation
• Keeping her place in the hierarchy
• Ensuring her relevance (job security and promotion prospects)
• Avoiding conflict and consequences
• Avoiding discomfort
• Staying safe

This yes is sometimes necessary.

It's important to be strategic about when to say yes.

But what happens is this: because of her perceived lack of power, she develops a habit of saying yes. Even when she becomes the manager. Even when she rises up the ladder. Even when she has more than a decade of experience behind her.

But What She's Actually Getting

What she thinks she's protecting through her yeses isn't what she's actually getting:

• Temporary reprieve (not safety) - until the next request from higher up
• Conditional acceptance (not belonging or respect) - until the next opportunity that could risk it
• Exhaustion (not security or consideration) - because this happens regularly and predictably
• Resentment (not harmony) - as she starts thinking she's being used while others don't work as hard

Eventually:

• She burns out (and instead of saying no, self-sabotages her health and sanity)
• She resents the people she keeps saying yes to (the relationship erodes anyway)
• She loses herself (her entire identity becomes tied to being the dependable person, the doer)

This Could Be You

Maybe you recognise yourself in that young engineer. Maybe this was you when you were starting out, and the habit of saying yes by default has carried over into midlife.

So the question for you is:

Breaking the Pattern

If you recognise yourself in this pattern, here are some questions to sit with:

The pattern of automatic yes does not break overnight. It has been reinforced for years, maybe decades. But it can shift with awareness and practice.

Work With Me

If you would like support in working through this pattern and learning to set boundaries without the crushing guilt, book a coaching session with me.

We can explore what is driving your yeses and create strategies that work for your specific situation.

The Yes Behind Your No

Here is the reframe that makes saying no easier.

Every no is actually a yes to something else.

When you say no to the 9 PM deck request, you are saying yes to:

• Rest that lets you do good work tomorrow
• Time with people you care about
• Protecting your capacity for what actually matters
• Teaching others that your time has boundaries
• Modelling sustainable work for your team

Siri’s Pick

This song has been playing on loop this past week while I've been working.

​

This is one of Michael Jackson's most iconic and defiant songs. I love it.

This song always makes me think: "They don't really care about us, but do I care about myself?"

Bye for now.

Siri 🌱🌀