This Makes It Easier To Say No At Work
How an exposure therapy hack has helped me set professional boundaries.
Saying no at work feels a bit like cliff diving — something I hear can be rewarding, but wow it seems risky.
I think declining professional offers is particularly difficult for me because, to do it, I have to wade through a whole heap of anxiety. As a freelancer, I’m afraid that if I say no now, I won’t get more work later. I worry that colleagues won’t like me as much, and that I’ll alienate my network
And yet, saying no at work is something I need to do. After all, I have a life outside of work. And as my freelance writing career progresses, sometimes I have more work offers than I can reasonably take on. I’ve got to set aside people-pleasing and ambition and get real with my limits.
To support boundary setting, I’ve started tracking the big no’s: major projects I’ve declined to take on. After I screw my courage to the sticking place and dash off the email, I open a digital document and log my victory. It’s called “Work I’ve Declined,” and it gets longer all the time.
This list-making is a type of self-administered exposure therapy, a kind of targeted learning used in mental health therapy. In exposure therapy, you see through experience that you can feel and be safe in the face of what once provoked…
