Deep Dive Series: The Power of No and How to Say It
By Tana M. Mann Easton, Lead Efficiency Engineer
The March 17th episode of the podcast A Slight Change of Plans was about “How to Say No.” The guest was Psychologist Sunita Sah, and her passion is learning, writing about, and practicing defiance. According to Dr. Sah, to defy is “to act in accordance with your true values when there is pressure to do otherwise,” and she has devised a framework to help navigate saying no.
There are five stages of defiance:
1. Feel tension – you feel tension in your body when your true values are ramming against societal expectations. Different people feel this tension in different ways. The tension could be unease in the stomach, headache, dry mouth, elevated heart rate, and a bevy of other conditions. Get to know what that tension physically feels like for you in your unique body.
2. Acknowledge the tension – internally to yourself, notice that you’re feeling tension and acknowledge it.
3. Tell someone else you’re not comfortable – externalize your tension. Tell the person you’re interacting with how you feel.
4. Threat of noncompliance - tell the person you’re interacting with that you’re not going to comply.
5. The actual act of defiance - follow through on your no. It could be as small as telling a waiter that your food is too salty to enjoy when they ask how your meal is. Or it could be as big as pushing back on someone who says something purposefully derogatory to you.
Saying no and defying expectations seems so difficult to many of us, but Dr. Sah’s five stages are a simplifying framework that makes the difficult seem more do-able. Start practicing feeling and acknowledging the tension when you feel them in your own body and mind at first and progress through the latter stages as you feel more knowledgeable about yourself and your values.
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Sincerely Yours,
Focus to Evolve Team