You know that moment when someone asks you to do something and you feel the answer before you even say it?
No.
Maybe not a dramatic absolutely-not-in-a-million-years no.
Just that little hesitation.
You look at your calendar in your head. Think about everything you already have going on. Maybe you even feel that tiny drop in your stomach because you know you really don't have room for one more thing.
And then you hear yourself say:
“Sure!”
Of course you do.
Because technically, you can do it.
You can move something around. Stay up a little later. Squeeze it in between two other things. Figure out dinner on the fly. Push your thing to tomorrow. Ask everyone in your house to please just work with you here because this week is apparently trying to kill you.
You'll make it work.
You always do.
And I think that's exactly what makes this pattern so hard to catch.
For a long time, when someone asked something of me, the question I automatically answered was:
Can I do this?
Most of the time, the answer was yes.
I'm capable. I'm resourceful. I can rearrange things. I can work faster. I can carry a lot when I need to.
Maybe you can too.
So we say yes.
Then three days later we're annoyed that we have to do the thing we voluntarily agreed to do.
Which is always fun.
Now we're resentful toward someone who may have simply asked a question.
They didn't necessarily demand anything. They asked.
We answered.
Oof.
That realization wasn't particularly comfortable for me.
Because it's easy to blame the packed calendar, the person who needs something, the job, the kids, the endless list of responsibilities. And sometimes those things really are too much. There are seasons when life asks more of us than we would ever willingly choose.
But there were also plenty of times when I was exhausted from commitments I put on my own plate because I never stopped long enough to decide whether they belonged there.
I only asked whether I could handle them.
And can I? is a dangerous question for a capable woman.
Of course you can.
You've handled harder things.
You've figured things out with less time, less help and more pressure.
But your ability to carry something doesn't automatically make it yours to carry.
That distinction took me a while.
I used to think burnout happened because there was simply too much to do. If I could become more efficient, manage my time better, create a better system or get through this particularly busy season, I'd finally catch up.
Except there always seemed to be another busy season waiting behind it.
And eventually I started noticing that some of my exhaustion wasn't coming from the amount I was doing.
It was coming from the constant override.
I knew I needed an evening at home, but I said yes.
I knew I didn't have the bandwidth to take something else on, but I figured I could make it work.
I knew I wanted to say no, but then came the immediate second thought:
But what will they think?
Or:
What if they're disappointed?
Or the especially effective:
It would be selfish not to.
There it is.
Because sometimes saying yes isn't really about generosity.
Sometimes it's about avoiding what saying no might make us feel.
Guilt.
Discomfort.
The possibility that someone is disappointed in us.
The fear that we'll look difficult, unhelpful or less dependable than the version of ourselves we've worked pretty hard to become.
And if saying yes makes all of that discomfort disappear in the moment?
Well, yes is awfully tempting.
The problem is the discomfort doesn't disappear.
We just move it.
Instead of feeling uncomfortable while saying no, we feel overwhelmed later.
Instead of risking someone else's disappointment, we become frustrated with ourselves.
Instead of having one awkward conversation, we spend the next week trying to fit something into a life that already didn't have room for it.
That's a trade I made more times than I realized.
And I don't think the answer is to start saying no to everything.
There are things I don't particularly want to do that I absolutely should do.
There are people I love who need me.
There are commitments worth keeping, responsibilities that belong to me and seasons when showing up costs something.
This isn't about making comfort the deciding factor either.
It's about noticing that Can I make this work? may not be enough information to make the decision.
I'm trying to ask better questions now.
Do I actually have room for this?
Is this mine to do?
Am I saying yes because I want to, because I believe I should, or because I don't want to deal with what happens if I say no?
Those answers aren't always obvious.
But they're a lot more useful than automatically proving to myself, once again, that I can handle it.
Maybe that's worth noticing the next time someone asks you for something and you feel that little hesitation before the yes comes out.
You don't have to make the hesitation mean no.
Just don't skip over it.
Give yourself a second to hear what it's actually telling you.
Because maybe the question was never whether you could do one more thing.
You've proven that plenty of times.
Maybe it's whether this particular thing deserves one more piece of you.
Want to keep going with this conversation?
🎧 Listen to Episode 14: Anchoring Your Yes in Purpose Instead of Pressure→