I’m a planner, and I like to know what’s coming my way each morning. Routines are fairly essential for me to get the best out of my day. But when someone–family, friend, co-worker, or acquaintance–says, “can we change your plan and do this, instead?” I have a hard time saying, “no.”
It may come from being a people-pleaser. I get a feeling of satisfaction from helping others. It could be because I don’t like confrontation–I would rather spend an hour doing something I hate than argue over doing it. For whatever reason, I’ve often found myself in situations where I’m having a panic attack and virtually kicking myself because I couldn’t say no. It’s why I said yes to the rats the kids wanted. And a second cat. A bunny. How I ended up with bouncy house duty one year when my kids were in elementary school. Why I ended up in the classroom every time a teacher quit in the preschool I worked in. And definitely how I got overrun by so many Build-A-Bear creatures I can’t step through the living room without tripping on one.
This year it’s one of my goals to be more negative. I don’t, of course, mean the kind of negativity that puts myself or others down. But I plan to say no when I need to, and to refuse when I must, and to decline if it’s possible. I’m going to argue, probably a lot.
Here are five ways I’ve learned to stand up for myself this year.
- Don’t “go with the flow.” This week I booked a hotel room in Savannah, Georgia because it was cheaper to spend an extra three days there than to fly home on a weekend. After my second day, I got an email saying my booking.com hotel dates had changed. The hotel mistakenly charged for one day instead of three (even though they’d put three nights on my card when I checked in.) The manager attempted to cajole me into simply paying for the second two days again, even though the money from the first charge was not yet refunded into my account. Old me would have said “fine” and been upset the rest of the trip as they locked up my food money in unrefunded charges. But I wasn’t having it. I told them I wasn’t paying for the amount until the rest was in my bank account. I wasn’t planning to stiff them–I simply wasn’t going to be charged twice when it was their mistake.
- Say “no” when it’s going to overwhelm you. I wanted to take this bellydancing class with a friend. This friend is someone whose company I truly enjoy, and the last time I took the class with them, I loved it. But the class was a four part series, and I would have missed at least two. I desperately wanted to take the class, and hang out with my friend, and part of my brain tried to rationalize how I could make it to at least three of the classes if I packed my bags early and cleaned the house early and rented the car early (I was going on the aforementioned trip to Savannah.) Finally, I looked myself in the eye and said, “stop the madness. You will take the class another time. You cannot be in four places at once.”
- Ask. For. Help. My eldest daughter has to be picked up from work at about the same time I usually put dinner on. For weeks I was picking her up, trying to get back in time to cook, and stressing about having dinner late–as well as the fact that my daughter said, “Dad usually lets me stop at the store to pick up a snack and a drink.” Dad didn’t have to cook dinner. Or at least, in my head, he didn’t have to cook dinner. After a month of snappy responses as I cooked, he asked what was wrong. I went into the list of things I was mentally juggling, and he asked…”Why didn’t you tell me? I could have started dinner for you, or picked up eldest.” Simple answer to a frustrating problem.
- Take Offered Help. My initial response to someone offering help is, “No, no, I’ve got it.” It’s a knee-jerk answer, one I learned from my mom (who at this moment is rolling her wheelchair inch by inch into the hotel restroom and eschewing my own offer of help.) Being independent is great, and empowering. But it’s also a crutch. We get so used to being independent that we pile on tasks we could delegate to someone else who would happily do them. When my brother offered to cook dinner in Savannah, I suddenly had time to play with my youngest, write an article, and research another.
- Use Your Unique Voice. Everyone has a platform. For some it may be participating in the PTA, or volunteering at school, or even running for a local office. But whatever your platform is, use it. My platform is social media and The Good Men Project. When my child socially transitioned, I wanted to use my voice to make others see what I do: transgender children matter. They are real, and they deserve to be protected and cherished as much as any child. I feel the more people who know someone who has a trans family member, the more people will care about their well-being. Whatever your voice is, use it to stand up for yourself and your family in a way only you can.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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