I love it when I’m inspired by one of my readers.  Yesterday, Scot Herrick posted a comment on my post, Life Balance, and touched on a topic that I cover in my seminars and plan to spend quite a bit of time on in my up-coming retreat.  (More details on that coming – I promise!)  However, I’m not sure I’ve ever blogged about this process.

Here is Scot’s comment:

“I think one of the more interesting challenges that need addressing is how people know when they are being asked to make a choice (e.g., you just say “yes” to anything your manager wants that requires extra hours outside of the normal work hours) and how to frame that choice against, for example, your values.

How to know and make the choice in the moment. How to consistently implement that in the moment. Now, there’s a good challenge!”

Yes – exactly – that is the challenge!  And that’s one of the reasons I have my seminar audiences role-play this exact concept.  Here’s what we do.

First, we spend some time defining our values and prioritizing them.  If you’re new here at DebraMoorhead.com, here’s an article that will walk you through how to do this step.

Then I have my audience create a list of activities they feel “obligated” to that do not fit within their values.  It’s amazing how many items almost everyone can come up with.

Next, we discuss briefly how we got involved in that obligation, and make sure that we’ve identified things properly. Sometimes you think you don’t want to do something, but you really do – it really is within your value set – or you’re just choosing not to enjoy something when you could if you changed your frame of reference.  Let me give you an example.

Many parents complain about having to attend so many of their children’s’ school functions, when being involved in their child’s education is important to them.  And, if they were to be honest, they really enjoy having an excuse to leave work early or the camaraderie with the other parents, or just spending time with their child after the event at the Pizza Hut – or whatever.

Similarly, many people try to shift to doing more work within their church saying that it makes them feel good, when in fact it doesn’t – it just makes them feel more obligated and stressed.  They might get coerced into teaching a Sunday school class, and even though they know they are contributing and making a difference, not really enjoying the actual work required for the activity.

In other words, it’s important to be truly honest with yourself, about which activities you want to keep, eliminate, and possibly add.  I find that most of us just need more down time – time to relax, meditate, pray, read, and just be.  Once you make your decision, enjoy it; don’t get caught up in everyone else’s complaining habits.

Next comes the fun part – we role-play saying “No.”  First, I just have them turn to each other and say the word – several times.  We have fun with it.  Then, knowing that the real world doesn’t operate that way and that most of us like to soften disappointment, I have them practice saying this to each other:  “I’m sorry, but I’ll have to say no.  It just doesn’t fit within my value system at this time.  If something changes, I’ll let you know.”

What does that say?  It’s much better than feigning the excuse, “I don’t have the time,” because what will a lot of people come back and say?  “Sounds like a time management problem to me!”

Instead, the above statement gives the main point straight out – No.  It also says, “I know my values and I value myself enough to abide by them.”  Most importantly, it says, “Don’t call me, I’ll call you,” but in a gentler way.

Next, I have the audience actually visualize delivering this statement to someone in their life at the present time that they really want to say it to.  Everyone has someone!  We pretend that person is in front of us and we role-play again, having a lot of fun.  Then we discuss other possible scenarios and role-play anything we feel necessary.  For example, sometimes it’s not the same person who comes to you that you can’t say NO to, but a particular group.  So we use a “faceless person” and visualize the event.

The reason I like role-playing so much is because I have seen the effectiveness of practicing.  You can practice anything in your mind and be better prepared for the actual event.  When I was a music major in college I sometimes couldn’t get to the instrument I needed to practice.  Several of my professors told me it would work just the same to imagine the fingerings and techniques, imagine the instrument, imagine the feeling, etc.  I was amazed at how well it worked.  Sure it’s not 100% like the real thing, but it is amazingly close.

So what is “the real thing” in this scenario?  Actually saying No in a situation where you are being asked to do something outside your value system.  Getting back to Scot’s comment - the challenge of consistently implementing your choice in the moment -  practice makes perfect.  Plan it, visualize it, practice it, and do it.

I have been in the situation of having a supervisor ask me to work on projects that would require extra hours.  Once I was aware of the situation, I would simply say, “About the XYZ project you requested that I work on – you do realize that it will require overtime?”

I had only one of two responses:  One manager said, “Yes, is that okay?”  He knew I did not have children and given everyone’s work load assumed I had the least to do.  At that time in my life, I was okay with that.  The point here is I didn’t work for free.  I deserved to be paid for those hours – I was not in a salaried position and did not need to prove myself (I was not a new employee.)

Another manager responded with, “Okay, I’ll get someone else to do it,” which was also fine with me at that point in my career.  I sent the message that I would not be taken advantage of.  I would have been happy to have completed the work at my hourly rate, but he did not want to pay overtime and I knew that, which was why I addressed it.

If you are currently in a situation, or several of them, where you need to start bowing out and want to do so gracefully, another way that frequently works is to post your values at your workstation.  Trust me, people will notice.  If they don’t, here’s another great tip:  The next time someone comes to you and asks you to do something you feel uncertain about, pull out your list, right in front of them, and say, “Hmmmmm.  I’m not sure if that fits within my value system.  Can I get back to you on that?”

It’s good to let people know that you’re growing, developing, and changing.  Improvement is a good thing and if that means you have to let go of certain obligations, it will be worth it – to everyone - in the end.  After all, the best person for any position is the one who really wants to be there.

Until next time,

Live joyfully!

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