­­How to Say ‘No’ with Confidence

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Listen, before we start this article, would you mind getting up and grabbing me a sandwich? Liverwurst and onion on rye, with a little bit of that fancy mustard…?

If you even thought about saying “yes” to that request—or if you find yourself often saying “yes” to things you later wish you hadn’t—then you need to keep reading, because we’re going to talk about how to say “no” when you need to…without the guilt.

 

How to Know When to Say No

Most of us don’t like telling people “no” when they ask for our help. We humans are wired to cooperate with one another, after all. In general, we want to be helpful!

But the reality is, it’s not always good to say “yes.” For one thing, if we said “yes” to everything that was asked of us, we wouldn’t have time to fulfill our primary responsibilities in life. And sometimes, saying “yes” to someone causes more harm than good. Consider these examples:

  • After taking her kindergartener to his classroom, Sandy gets stopped in the hallway by the president of the PTA, who begs her to help coordinate the fall fundraiser. Sandy feels pressured to agree, despite already having a full plate. As she drives away, she finds herself fuming with resentment and frustration.
  • Jenny doesn’t want to alienate her adult son, so she frequently agrees to his requests for help, even though he has a serious drug addiction. When she refuses his requests, he accuses her of “rejecting” him, so she keeps helping—even though his situation keeps getting worse.

The hard truth is that sometimes it’s more generous and loving to say “no” to someone, even when it makes us feel uncomfortable or makes the other person feel let down.

And that’s the key to knowing when to say “no,” says Dr. Greg Popcak, founder and executive director of the Pastoral Solutions Institute. Instead of basing your response on how we feel (guilty, empathetic, pressured), focus instead on the more objective question of what kind of response will lead to the best outcome for both you and the other person.

“When somebody’s asking something of us, especially when they’re pressuring us, the question to ask ourselves isn’t, ‘Do I feel like doing this or not?’ Or even, ‘Would they be upset with me or not?’” Dr. Popcak said recently on the More2Life radio show. “The question to ask ourselves is, ‘Is there a way to say “yes” to this request that is good both for me and the other person?”

By basing your answer on an objective assessment of what is going to be good for both you and the other person—rather than on the shifting sands of emotion—you set yourself up to resist pressure and shed feelings of guilt.

Even better, your answer is grounded in genuine love for the other person. Prior to becoming Pope John Paul II, Karol Wojtyła wrote a book titled Love and Responsibility. In that book, he argues that Christians are not only called to love, but to love in a way that actually achieves the good of the other person.

Rachael Isaac, a pastoral counselor at the Pastoral Solutions Institute, encourages clients to evaluate decisions by checking three key indicators of well-being: “I always ask my clients, ‘What is going to lead towards greater meaningfulness, intimacy, and virtue in your life?’” she says.

If saying “yes” creates resentment and burnout, it’s not the most generous response: “It doesn’t allow us to work for their good or ours if saying yes breeds resentment or frustration.”

 

Another Option: The Qualified Yes

It’s good to remember that there’s often a third option besides “yes” and “no,” says Lisa Popcak, vice president of the Pastoral Solutions Institute and a certified family life coach. She calls it the “qualified yes.”

A qualified yes involves saying “yes” to the what of the request, but placing conditions on the how and when.

In the example above, Sandy might tell the PTA president, “I’d love to help out, but the only time I have available in my schedule right now is Monday afternoons from 2 to 3:30. Is there another job I could do that would fit in that time slot?”

In the second example, Jenny might say to her son, “I love you and I want to help you, but I can’t help you harm yourself. When you’re ready to enter a treatment program, I’d be happy to pay for it.”

“You’re attempting to meet their need,” Lisa Popcak says, “but it’s within the boundaries of what will work for you without demeaning you, diminishing you, leaving you exhausted, or distracting you from all the other responsibilities that God has given to you.”

 

Let Your Yes Mean Yes…

Christians should remember that even Jesus said “no” sometimes, said Andy Proctor, another pastoral counselor at the Pastoral Solutions Institute.

“Jesus certainly said ‘no,’ sometimes forcibly, sometimes even to those closest to him,” he said. Delivered with prudence and humility, “no” might be what the other person really needs to hear, he added.

And if you need any more encouragement, just remember that Jesus himself calls us to clarity and integrity of heart in the commitments we make to others: “Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one,” he says (Matthew 5:37).

For more advice from Dr. Greg and Lisa Popcak, tune in to the More2Life radio show every weekday between 10 and 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time, or catch it on your favorite podcast app. And if you need more help setting healthy boundaries in your life, you can connect with the Catholic counselors at the Pastoral Solutions Institute at CatholicCounselors.com.

4 Questions to Help You ­Discern the Next Chapter of Your Life

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The heroes of the Bible had it easy, didn’t they? Anytime God wanted to communicate his will to them, he sent an angel or a burning bush or a prophet or a patch of wet wool (see Judges 6:36-40 for that last one).

For the rest of us, discerning major life decisions can feel a lot more difficult:

  • Should I marry this person or not?
  • What field of work should I study for?
  • Should I take this job or not?
  • Is it time to end this relationship?
  • Where am I going to put my time and energy during my retirement?

Most of us wish God would just telegram us with the “right choice”; Instead, he invites us to engage in a richer, more dynamic conversation with the Holy Spirit.

Fortunately, he has also given us some basic principles to follow as we have that conversation with him. Drawing on those principles, here are four questions that the Pastoral Counselors at the CatholicCounselors.com suggest you ask as you prayerfully discern your next big life decision.

1. What will bring you closer to God?

It’s tempting to focus on the immediate consequences of a big decision, but it’s important to always prioritize our ultimate destination.

“The end goal of every decision we make needs to be directed towards one thing: knowing and loving God more,” says Jacob Francisco, M.A., LMHC.

A prerequisite for good discernment, then, is that we’re trying our best to lead a good and holy life: staying connected to the church, receiving the sacraments, and basically trying to do what God wants in the decisions of our daily life, said Dr. Greg Popcak.

For Christians, this also means respecting the “guardrails” that God provides to keep us on the right course.

“God’s never going to ask us to do something that’s contrary to the Ten Commandments or the teachings of the Church,” Dr. Popcak said. Those teachings are part of a 4,000-year-old conversation that God has been having with his people. “He’s not going to just randomly say to us, ‘Well, I’m going to make an exception for you.’”

2. What is your heart’s deepest desire?

One common misconception is that following God’s will means denying our own happiness—but that’s just not the case, says Jacob Flores-Popcak, M.A., L.P.C.

He sees a lot of Catholics assume that if they have two options, “it’s the one I don’t like that’s probably the one God is calling me to in order to help me grow in humility or holiness or whatever.”

It’s true that God may call us to do something difficult or unpleasant for the sake of our own long-term well-being. Exercise can be tough, for example, but in the long run, it makes us stronger.

Still, that doesn’t mean that the hard, unpleasant thing is automatically the good thing. “God is not asking you to just randomly seek out crosses to nail yourself to,” Flores-Popcak said.

Keeping in mind that God wants our happiness, we can begin our discernment by reflecting on the deep desires of our heart, said Anne Brunette, M.S.W., L.C.S.W.

“God will put a desire on your heart before he calls you to it,” Brunette said.

The principle that the deep desires of our heart can help us discern our course in life is a key feature of the discernment approach developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola. St. Ignatius taught that our problem wasn’t desiring too much but desiring too little. In other words, we need to move beyond our petty, superficial desires and instead pursue the desires that lead us to the bountiful life God wants for us.

3. What leads to more meaningfulness, intimacy, and virtue?

And what does that bountiful life look like? Dr. Popcak suggests that the life God wants for us is always characterized by meaningfulness, intimacy, and virtue.

We lead a meaningful life by using our gifts to be a blessing to others and to make a positive difference in whatever we do, he said.

Intimacy is about fostering deeper relationships with God and others. When we’re prayerfully discerning a choice, then, we can ask: What allows me to make my relationships healthier, stronger, deeper, and more honest?

And virtue, the third guiding principle, is about seeing every situation as an opportunity to become a stronger, healthier, holier person—that is, more fully the person God made us to be.

“So, in discerning God’s will for our lives, we’ve always got to ask, ‘How can I use the thing I’m going through right now to become a little bit more of that whole, healed, godly, grace-filled person I’m meant to be?” Dr. Popcak said.

4. How does God want me to move forward?

Finally, it’s good to ask God not just what he wants us to do, but how he wants us to do it, Dr. Popcak said.

For example, it’s pretty clear that God wants us to share his message of good news with the world. But how we do that matters; we need to approach that task with love and respect, taking into consideration the circumstances of the person in front of us.

The same is true of our big life decisions. We might be called to end a relationship, for instance, but we also want to prayerfully discern how we can do that in a way that leads to the best outcome for the other person as well as ourselves.

Looking for more discernment advice? Check out The Life God Wants You to Have: Discovering the Divine Plan When Human Plans Fail by Dr. Greg Popcak. And you can get one-on-one guidance from any of the Catholic counselors at the Pastoral Solutions Institute by reaching out at CatholicCounselors.com.