When I was seeing patients, I would often say to a patient, “Can I examine you now?” Sometimes, when I said it to a child, the response was, “No!”
At that point, I would say, “Let me rephrase that: I’m going to examine you now.”
My initial request was not really a request and most of my adult patients were aware of this and went along with my wishes. Kids, not so much.
The problem with getting a “no” response to a request is not the “no,” it’s that it highlights the fact that the request was not really a request, it was an order.
When we say, “Can you bring a dessert to the pot-luck?” or “Can you pick up dinner on your way home from work?” what we really mean is “Bring a dessert,” or, “Pick up dinner.”
Which is fine, as long as the response is the expected, “Okay,” or “Sure.”
If it’s not, then we have thoughts like these: “How dare she?” and “After all I do around here all day long, he can’t do one little thing for me?”
My friend and mentor, Brooke Castillo, talks about the manual we have for others. It’s full of rules we think everybody in our lives should follow, and we all have them for everyone in our lives (including ourselves.)
In my manual, if I ask my husband to pick up dinner on the way home from work, he’s supposed to say, “Okay,” and then do it. If he doesn’t, I get upset (or, at least, I used to.)
And if he says, “Okay,” with a heavy sigh and doesn’t seem thrilled to go out of his way when I’ve been home all day and could have planned something for dinner that didn’t involve him, I get upset (or, at least, I used to.)
Not only do we want people to follow our rules, we want them to want to follow our rules—so we can feel comfortable.
Has this ever happened to you? Someone asks you for something that’s not easy for you to give. You may hem and haw, but eventually you say, “Yes, I’ll do it.”
What happens next? Often the person asks, “Are you sure?”
Not only does this person want you do this thing that is going to take a lot of your (time, energy, money, whatever), but they want you to be happy about it—so they can feel comfortable.
How about we take out the middle man? You be responsible for how you feel, and I’ll be responsible for how I feel.
For me, that means that I will give you an honest “yes” or “no,” no matter what you ask me. If I say “yes,” I am all in. If I say “no,” it doesn’t mean “don’t ask me again,” or “how dare you?” It means, “no.” Feel free to ask me a different day or a different request.
What does it mean for you?