In this episode of the Bright Method Podcast, I’m joined by professional life coach Michelle Gauthier to explore a topic that deeply affects how we spend our time—people pleasing.
If you’ve ever said yes when you wanted to say no, or agreed to something before even thinking it through, this episode is for you. We break down:
- What people pleasing really is (hint: it’s not just being nice)
- How to recognize it, even when it’s subtle
- The emotional and physical cues that signal it’s happening
- Why so many high-achieving women fall into this trap
- Practical strategies to pause before saying yes and evaluate requests with intention
- Michelle’s “Love & Fit” test to help you assess whether a request is aligned with the life you want
- Specific phrases to use when you want to say no with kindness and confidence
- Tips for handling pushback when you do say no
- How to gamify the process and even calendar your “nos” so you can see how much time you’re reclaiming
Michelle and I share examples from our personal and professional lives, including the awkward conversations we’ve had to navigate and the mental load that comes with trying to control how others perceive us. If you’ve ever resented someone for asking you to do something—because you felt like you “had” to say yes—this episode will help you step back, get curious, and reclaim your time.
Michelle Gauthier is the host of the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast and helps high-achieving women create calmer, more intentional lives through private coaching and group programs. She brings warmth, humor, and a down-to-earth approach to this powerful and all-too-relatable conversation.
Whether you’re looking to set stronger boundaries at work, say no to another PTA role, or just want to stop defaulting to yes, you’ll walk away from this episode with tools you can actually use—starting today.
Learn more about Michelle at www.michellegauthier.com, and listen to her podcast, Overwhelmed Working Woman, wherever you get your podcasts.
Links you might enjoy:
- 🌿 Free 5-Day Time Management Program Get five short, practical video lessons packed with realistic strategies to help you manage your personal and professional life with more clarity and calm.
- 📱 Follow me on Instagram Get bite-sized, real-life time management tips for working women—like reminders to set mail holds before travel, anonymous day-in-the-life calendars from other professional women, and behind-the-scenes looks at how I manage my own time.
- ✨ The full Bright Method™️ program If you’re ready for a full time management system that’s realistic, sustainable, and dare I say… fun, check out the Bright Method program. It’s helped hundreds of professional women take back control of their time—and their peace of mind.
Full Transcript
Kelly Nolan: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Bright Method Podcast, where we’ll discuss practical time management strategies designed for the professional working woman. I’m Kelly Nolan, a former patent litigator who now works with women to set up the bright method in their lives. The Bright Method is a realistic time management system that helps you manage it all personally and professionally.
Let’s get you falling asleep, proud of what you got done today, and calm about what’s on tap tomorrow. All right, let’s dig in.
Hey, hey. All right, so today we are gonna talk about people pleasing. Now, people pleasing obviously relates very much to time management because it has an impact on what we feel like we should say yes to, what we have to say yes to. Sometimes we don’t even think about it, and we say yes before we’ve even thought it through because we are in that people pleasing mode.
It has an impact on, we know we wanna say no, we get to the no, but we don’t know how to phrase it. So we say yes. We just feel that discomfort and we let it [00:01:00] dictate, all that kind of stuff. And so I was thrilled when a woman named Michelle Gauthier reached out to me. She is a professional life coach, and she said, I think we should talk about people pleasing on your podcast.
And I couldn’t agree more. I had actually listened to Michelle’s podcast, I think a year or two ago in the. Algorithm or whatever. It didn’t come to the top. And so I stopped listening for a while and it was so fun to get back into her podcast and really think about this stuff, and so I’m really excited to have her on this podcast today.
So you and I both can learn about people pleasing and what to do about it from a practical perspective as well. A little bit about Michelle before we get to the good stuff. Michelle Gauthier is a professional life coach who helps busy, overwhelmed women, create a calmer and more intentional life. She’s also the host of the Overwhelmed Working Woman, a podcast that ranks in the top 2% globally.
As a single mom of two adopted kids, Michelle understands firsthand the challenges of balancing work and family life. She was once an overwhelmed, busy working mom [00:02:00] herself, juggling a successful 20 year corporate career before making a bold move to become a life coach in 2017. Since then, she has helped hundreds of women navigate their careers and home lives with greater ease.
When she’s not coaching, Michelle can be found on the sidelines of her kids’ games at Burn Bootcamp, organizing anything she can, shopping online or getting lost in a great self-improvement book. All right, let’s dig in.
Well, hi Michelle. Thank you so much for joining us today. Do you wanna go ahead and just introduce yourself and explain how you ended up becoming a professional life coach and focusing on that busy, overwhelmed woman to help create a calmer and more intentional life?
Michelle Gauthier: Yes – I basically became who I needed. That’s exactly what it was. I had a 20 year career working in financial services, and I actually really liked it. And it was a great like challenging, fun, rewarding experience until it wasn’t anymore. And when it wasn’t anymore was [00:03:00] when I just kept going and working more and I really wanted kids and.
We had to do a whole bunch of infertility stuff, which is very time consuming, and that didn’t work. And then finally we were able to adopt our kids like one at a time, not both at the same time, but our kids were adopted. So here I had these children that I tried so hard for and wanted so badly and. Then I’m like, oh, but I also have to go on all these business trips and I have to work all the time and I need to work till midnight.
And I also need to like be the room mom at their school. Need air quotes, need yeah, need to volunteer at my church, need to get up at 5:00 AM and work out. So I just went like. 110% in all directions, and it got to the point where it was absolutely not sustainable. Does that sound familiar to you, Kelly?
Kelly Nolan: I do. I do understand that. And so how did you transition into becoming the coach?
Michelle Gauthier: Well, the short story is I was listening to a podcast and the guest was a life coach, and I’d [00:04:00] really never heard of a life coach. Or if I did, I probably would’ve rolled my eyes and been like, what is that? And I loved what she was saying and I loved the way that she said she helped her clients.
And I just had this knowing inside me that was like, that’s it. That is what I’m supposed to do. And I had a couple friends who would like call me their life coach jokingly. And so I googled. Best Life coach and Martha Beck came up. Who was, do you remember her? Yeah, she, okay. She’s written a couple really great books, not a couple, like 10, probably really great books.
And she was Oprah’s life coach and she had a column in Oprah Magazine. So I was like, well, to me that’s like The Tops. Couldn’t get any better than that. And I saw she had a training program and I signed up for it that day. It was like $7,000 and I was like, I’m in. I’m gonna do it. So after doing that sort of on a whim, and I’m not a whim person like at all, I’m very good at planning and all that kind of stuff.
I. Became really more overwhelmed as I was trying to do that training, while still having a job and still having two kids. But [00:05:00] it just felt like the right thing to do. So it was kind of a temporary surge of extra time. And then the funny part to me is that I thought I’m gonna be a great life coach. And what I learned when I started the training was I need a great life coach.
So then I. Took a little side trip on my own journey of really trying to figure out what was going on in my life that I did have the skills and like the clarity of mind to help other people. So I took that and then eventually I saw clients on the side like at night or in the evenings. And then finally I quit my corporate job and took a leap of faith, which was really freaking scary ’cause I was also getting divorced at the same time.
Just side note without alimony. So I was really truly like just depending on myself for that. So yeah, it was really scary and I’m really glad I did it.
Kelly Nolan: Well, that’s terrific. And then before we dive into what you had the great idea to come on here and talk about people pleasing, which is such a great compliment to what we talk about a lot here.[00:06:00]
Before we get into that, do you wanna just explain like generally. How you work with clients and kind of what big pots of things you guys work on. Sure. Together, just so people have a sense of who you are and kind of where you’re coming at this from.
Michelle Gauthier: Yeah, sure. So the name of my podcast is Overwhelmed Working Woman, and I feel like that summarizes who I help.
So if you’re a woman who’s feeling overwhelmed. It’s usually when I work with someone one-on-one, which I do for six months or I have group coaching, we start to get beneath that. So part of overwhelm is a volume problem and that’s like exactly the stuff you address. You’ve got too many things and you’re not planning and well and all of that.
But what I find is that there’s a lot beneath that, that my clients need to be able to solve before they can have the clarity of mind to say. Really work on their schedule and their time. And so what I normally find is a history of people pleasing, which I swear I have yet to meet a woman who doesn’t have that.
Yeah. And if someone’s not a people pleaser, it’s because they’ve [00:07:00] purposefully worked on becoming a not people pleaser. So that’s like everybody, mostly that I talk to. And then also since I work with women who are. Overachievers, high achievers, however you wanna call it. They’re also the go-to person kind of in life.
So they’re like the friend who plans all the friend trips and the daughter who hosts all the brunches for the family and all that stuff. So they’re usually a person who gets a lot of satisfaction from being in charge of things, but it’s too many things and doing what other people want and not stopping to see what they want.
And then the third thing I usually say is that. They’re just not taking the time to take care of themselves like at all. Yeah, ’cause they’re giving it all. I would describe it as giving all their good energy to their job and other people and they have nothing left for themselves.
Kelly Nolan: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
So today we’re really gonna dig into the people pleasing side of things. I think that we [00:08:00] all have some idea of what people pleasing means to us. It’s, I certainly have identified that in the past, and I think we all have those kind of, as you said, I feel like I. Identify less as a people pleaser now, but it’s only because I’ve put a lot of effort into kind of building the responses or like, well, we’ll talk about strategies today of how to counteract that, but I think it’s great to just get on the same page of like, what is people pleasing?
And also, even if the woman listening knows intellectually what people pleasing is, how can you kind of spot it? I just find that sometimes when we do these habits that we don’t like. We don’t feel intellectually, we’re not thinking I’m doing the people pleasing thing. We just have those feelings that then lead to us still doing the people pleasing thing as a result.
Yeah. So how do you think of that? How do you kind of identify people pleasing and then help people understand when it’s happening to them?
Michelle Gauthier: Great questions because it’s true, especially [00:09:00] if you kind of got programmed to be this way without even thinking about it. It becomes like an unconscious pattern that you have.
And so your point is great that you could be a people pleaser without even really ever noticing that you’re doing it. So first, let’s talk about what people pleasing is. So. The way that I think about it is if you are making a decision or doing something because you are trying to control how someone else is thinking about you.
So for example, if you would’ve said, like, let’s say I would’ve said, will you have me on your podcast? Or something like that, and your thought was. No, she’s totally not a good fit. But if I say that to her, I might hurt her feelings. So I guess I’ll probably say yes or whatever. So then you say yes, that’s like a people pleasing Yes.
Versus if you would’ve looked into it and thought she’s not a great fit and written back, best of luck with your podcast, you’re not a great fit. Right. So does that make sense as far as like the difference between, yeah. So it’s sort of what you’re. Thinking about, and I think people [00:10:00] often believe that they are a people pleaser because they’re nice and they’re thinking about other people’s feelings and they don’t wanna hurt anyone’s feelings.
But the part that’s really true is that it’s not nice to try to control how someone else sees you. It’s. Unintentionally manipulative. Actually interesting to try to say. I, what I’m trying to do is I’m trying to get you to like me. Mm-hmm. ’cause when you like me, I feel comfortable. So I’m not really trying to make you feel comfortable.
I’m trying to make me feel comfortable. ’cause I mean, who doesn’t like, I like it when I think people like me. Everybody likes us though. Interesting. Yeah. So it’s helpful to think about it in that way. And again, without judging yourself. ’cause this is probably totally unconscious, but it feels like I’m not trying to hurt someone’s feelings, but.
We can’t control how other people feel. Right. And a lot of people appreciate just the truth as well, told gently. My dad used to always say, tell the truth, but tell it kindly. Yeah. And I think that’s really so much of [00:11:00] a better approach. It feels better too, to tell the truth from our side.
Kelly Nolan: It’s also in a weird way, kind of freeing because if you think saying yes is the nice thing to do, it’s harder to talk yourself out of it.
Because you think you’re, it’s like be nice or not be nice, where if instead you can kind of catch yourself and be like. Like there’s almost a little bit of manipulation on my side. If I say yes to me, that’s easier to then be like, well I should counteract that. ’cause manipulation’s not great either. Yes.
So in some ways it’s like empowering and a way to get at it in a different way than I’ve thought of before. Yes. So that’s, that’s really interesting.
Michelle Gauthier: Yes. Yes, exactly. And if a friend were to ask me to go out on a Thursday night, which I just have a rule that I don’t really go out during the week ’cause I’m just have kids and I’m tired and whatever, but.
If she did. And I thought, well, I’m gonna say yes ’cause she wants me to. And maybe she’s thinking, I hope she says no, I really don’t want her to come. I just feel like I should have asked her if we’re both coming from these [00:12:00] places of trying to please the other person when we never know what the other person’s gonna think.
And I want her to be happy with me. ’cause I said yes. It’s like so convoluted and it takes up so much space in your brain and it’s just so much more clear. And I think kind just to be. Honest and say what you really want.
Kelly Nolan: Yeah, I like that. I think for me too, I’m just trying to think of how it feels when I catch myself.
People pleasing. It’s like I feel resentful at the asker. Yep. For asking, because then I, I almost feel like obligated to say yes. So I’m blaming them for even asking me because I have to say yes. Yeah. If that makes sense. That’s like a feeling that can come up for me. The shoulds, like you’re, you’re saying like, I should do this even though I know I don’t want to do this, I should do that.
Yep. I feel like these are like little flags that for me, when I feel that way, it. They used to push me into the Yes. And now it’s more like a flag for me of maybe you should slow down and think about this a little bit
Michelle Gauthier: more. Yes, exactly. [00:13:00] Before you say yes. Yeah. So the, I would say like the first, and we can talk about all the steps to try to stop people pleasing, but the first thing is just to realize what is people pleasing and then start just noticing again without judgment.
’cause usually when we realize we had a pattern that we don’t like, that we’ve been unintentionally doing for a long time. The tendency can be to be like, I can’t believe I’ve always been doing this. Why am I doing this? I need to immediately stop doing this. So without judgment, just observe it. Like a scientist who’s just taking notes on what’s happening and be like, oh my gosh, I just noticed that I people please someone.
And then ask yourself exactly the things that you just observed. How did that feel? What kind of feelings did I have? You said resentment. I can actually feel it in my body when I’m like, mm-hmm. Out of a line. If I’m saying one thing, but feeling another, I can feel it in my chest, like all the way down the middle of my body.
So maybe there’s an actual physical feeling that could go along with it. Yeah. So really just. Knowing that people pleasing exists and noting how that feels for [00:14:00] you. And one of the things I find most often is that people who say yes all the time when they wanna say no, say yes as almost like a default, they’re not mm-hmm.
Pausing to think about it. So there’s just so much power in that pause of being like, wait. Am I about to people? Please do I want to do this. And it’s, I really try to teach people as just a first step to say, thank you for thinking of me. Let me just get back to you. Yeah. And then you just by yourself some time instead of just saying Yes.
Kelly Nolan: Yeah. Now I really, this is where my brain goes, is just for the woman listening. If you’re like, I wanna do that, but if you’re like me, you forget to do that. Yeah. In real time you’ll, you’ll be like, that sounds great. Yeah. Then you totally forget to do it. One thing to consider is I teach like a Friday weekly planning session is almost creating like a line item that’s like, is there anything I said yes to this week that I kind of regret now?
Yes. That’s so great. And really, yeah, and like thinking about. I would almost like and, and write out, you know, is there anything I said yes to that I would [00:15:00] didn’t want to, and just help out future you by spelling out. Like think about how it felt when I was saying that and is there a way to like avoid this next time?
And it might just be just the awareness and we’re gonna talk about more strategies of how to not avoid it, but address it when it happens. Yes. But I think that that’s great. And then to tease out your second point, so like let’s jump to, okay, we get that we’re people pleasing, what do we do? Just to really highlight it for people.
’cause I’ve heard you talk about this before is building in the pause. And I agree with you. I mean, I very much have this like gut yes reaction and the best skill I can have is not assuming that I won’t have that reaction. Like not expecting that of myself, but instead being like, okay. I’m gonna have it, but let me still build in the pause so that my like next reactions can have some time to come in before I give an answer.
Michelle Gauthier: Yes, exactly. I think that’s perfect. And I think too that. When you’re a person who prides yourself onto being able to do a lot [00:16:00] and being successful saying yes, I used to say like, there’s nothing you can throw at me that’s gonna upset me. Give me it all. I can totally handle it. So when you’ve kind of like built your persona on that Yeah.
To be all of a sudden like, oh pause. Let me think about that is quite a big change. So the first thing is. I love your idea of like making it a line item that’s perfect to review after, but the first thing is to set the intention and say, I’m gonna try to notice when I’m people pleasing. Mm-hmm. Not stop people pleasing, not change it.
Just notice when I’m people pleasing and I always tell people when I work with them. We’ll have this whole conversation and then you’ll go in a situation and you’ll people please without even noticing it. And afterwards you’ll be like, oh, I just did it and I didn’t notice it. So that’s the first win when that happens.
Yeah. And then as you continue to practice and observe it. Gently, kindly, without judging yourself, that you will catch yourself ahead of time. I even tell people, even if you notice it and you still say yes, that’s still a step in the right direction. Yeah. Because you can [00:17:00] say, I noticed I was people pleasing.
I still chose to say yes. Now what’s the next step? Okay, next time I’m gonna pause and say I’ll get back to you. And I call it the long yes. When you say yes, but you actually know you’re gonna say no and cancel later. So even though I. Do not advocate for that. If that’s your first step, that’s okay. Just
Kelly Nolan: do it as a step.
Yeah. I like that you’re, you’re couching these things that, like, if you notice it, but you still say yes or you know, you’re, you say yes and you know you’re gonna cancel. I love that you’re painting those as wins though, because those are so easy to be like, Ugh, I did it again. And like, just give up. Yes.
Over time, but you gotta take the small wins and then know that you can keep building from there. There will be plenty of more asks made of you that you can experiment with. Right. And do better with next time.
Michelle Gauthier: Exactly, exactly. If you can just approach it with a light approach, it becomes almost kind of funny, like, yeah, oh my gosh, look at that.
I just said yes twice in a row and I didn’t even stop and think about it. And then. I tell my clients, like, give yourself points when you [00:18:00] pause and you think about it and just keep a tally of how many times you were able to do that. So you can even just gamify it. Yeah, tell your best friend. Make it into something fun.
Not like this big serious, oh, this is terrible and I have to stop doing this immediately, and if I mess it up, blah, blah, blah.
Kelly Nolan: I love that. It’s making me laugh where I’m kind of jumping ahead, but. One of my clients shared that one of her friends made herself a no sticker chart, and she, it was like a chart and she had to write down the nose and the boxes of what she said no.
And at the end of it, she. I think she had to do 10 big nos and then she could get like a really nice bag. She could buy herself a really nice bag. Oh my gosh. ’cause then the bag became a reminder of the power of the no as well. And I just like, oh my gosh. I, that’s
Michelle Gauthier: absolutely
Kelly Nolan: love that. Yeah. And it, you know, it doesn’t have to work for everyone, but someone listening is like, Hey, I’m gonna do that.
I’ve definitely had it resonate with some clients. So that’s, I I love that. That’s so funny. Like, we
Michelle Gauthier: make sticker charts for our kids for lesser
Kelly Nolan: things. Right. I just [00:19:00] think it’s great. I, I love it. It just, I love the creativity. Again, one listener might be like, that’s not for me. That’s totally fine. But I love that for some people, gamifying things does really work really well.
Yeah, it does. Funny. And it’s again, it’s then you have this little sheet of paper by your desk that reminds you of it every day versus like setting an intention but kind of forgetting about it with everything else we got going on. Right, exactly. So let’s say that we’ve built in the power of that pause.
What do you recommend people do after that you’ve like successfully started buying yourself some time? Do you wanna give a little bit of like phrasing of what that can sound like, just so some people understand of like how to buy themselves? The pause.
Michelle Gauthier: Yes, yes. Okay. One thing is so many asks come digitally now, and we’re programmed to feel like we need to immediately respond to text messages and emails.
So the first thing that I’ll say is like, step away from the phone. Step away from the email. You can see a request come in and just do absolutely nothing. So that’s a great way to [00:20:00] practice. The pause is just see the text message and not respond to it. And then in person, I think. The easiest way to say it is acknowledging like, oh, thanks for asking me.
I’ll have to check and get back to you. Yeah. Or I need to look at my calendar. That would be a great one for your people, right? Yeah. Because they’re really good with their calendar and managing their time, so I need to check on my calendar, whatever it takes just to buy yourself a moment outside of that situation.
Kelly Nolan: Yeah. I like that. When I was even a young associate, and I’m just saying that as like even a junior person in a workplace. I really started getting the handle of that to a degree that was so valuable of you can still like express enthusiasm like, man, this sounds so fascinating, or like such an interesting case or whatever.
Lay it on a little bit and say, I just wanna make sure, you know, I can give it the due that it needs. I need to check my calendar and make sure I can do that. There are ways to phrase That’s a great one, you know, in the context, so I just wanted to share that because I think it is really valuable to have those like practical phrases.[00:21:00]
Michelle Gauthier: Yes. It’s like you need. The wording on a card so that you can just repeat it without having to really think about it too much. I also noticed my kids I know are older than yours, but I have a 14-year-old and a 17-year-old and they will ask me, like, for example, can we go to Starbucks on Thursday before school?
And I don’t really know if I wanna do it, but they will like badger me and not so I’ll say. I don’t know. Let me think about it. I have to check my schedule or whatever. Okay, so we probably can, like, they’ll keep pushing for it and so sometimes, especially if it’s your own children, you might have to say, I actually just need to check my schedule.
You just have to stick to your guns. ’cause sometimes people, especially people who are in, like in your example of work who are in a position of power over, you might try to force you into that decision. So. Just remember too that you can keep repeating the same thing. Not in an annoyed way, just, I don’t know.
I have to check my calendar. Yeah. I don’t know. I have to check my calendar. Your chance of going to Starbucks are decreasing [00:22:00] with each time you ask me this. Yes, exactly.
Kelly Nolan: And so, okay, we have good phrasing for getting that pause. What do you recommend once you’re in the pause? Okay,
Michelle Gauthier: so once you’re in the pause and you have a moment to yourself, I suggest something called the Love and Fit test.
You ask yourself these two quick questions. One is, do I absolutely love this idea? So let’s go to the example that I was giving about a friend asking me to go out for drinks on Thursday night or something. So. No, I don’t absolutely love this idea. And then the second question is, does it fit into my life?
And in this case, I’m not talking about the calendar, which I obviously feel like is a really important part of life. But in this particular case I’m talking about does it fit into the kind of life that I’m trying to create for myself? Because a lot of times. People who are really overachievers might have a little slice of 15 minutes on their calendar and they’re like, well, it’s open.
I better just fill it in. So this is above and beyond that. So in this example that I’m giving, it’s [00:23:00] also a no because the type of life I’m trying to create is one where I have my best energy during the day while I’m working, and then with my kids in the evening. And then I like to just do nothing. I like to read or watch Netflix or something like that.
So. One of my top priorities in life is not feeling overwhelmed, and that to stay up late and to drink wine on a Thursday or whatever just would not feel good to me. So if it’s a no and a no, that’s an easy no. And then there’s the question of saying no, which I’ll get to in just a second. Let’s keep going on the evaluation part.
But if you have a situation where it’s something like, let’s use that case example that you gave, where someone’s asking you, you know, do you wanna work on this case? You might be in the situation where it doesn’t really matter if you love it, you have to do it. So I’m acknowledging that there are times with work like that could be a great example of.
No, I don’t love this idea and no, it doesn’t go with the type of life that I’m trying to create, but you still might be in a position where you kind of [00:24:00] have to say yes, given your position in the company. It’s still powerful to do that evaluation, to say to yourself like, this is not something I wanna work on.
It’s gonna make me feel overwhelmed, but I’m still choosing to say yes because I’m a junior associate and this is my job, and I know one day I’ll get to the point where I don’t have to do this. Yeah. Right. So a lot of times in work situations. And personal situations. Like sometimes I’ll do things for my family, like get together on a Sunday, which is something that I don’t like to do.
I’ll sometimes do it for my family, but it still feels so much more powerful to say, I actually really don’t wanna do this, but I’m purposefully choosing to say yes. Yeah. Versus like, well, my family just got made this get together and now I have to do it. Yeah.
Kelly Nolan: And I also will say in those scenarios where you like do have to say yes, let’s say like there’s really no getting around it.
There are. Just to throw out other options too of like you can push out the timeline, you can ask for [00:25:00] more support. Yeah. So that you’re not like the only person on it or carrying the full load, moving out other projects to accommodate. And then one that I learned as a junior associate that is very uncomfortable and therefore really comes to mind when I think of the people pleasing because this is so awkward to have to do.
But if you truly going back to the FIT test. And I, I’ll take it literally back to the calendar. ’cause that’s where my brain goes. If you cannot do your current commitments and take on this thing, then sometimes if you are in a more junior role, I would have to have conversations of, I actually can’t, I. If you need me to do this, you have to have a conversation with the partners on the case.
Yeah, and I just raised that because if you’re more senior, I hope that you can say no. Like I hope that we can actually do the no that we’re talking about, but for those scenarios where you have to say yes, I would challenge that a little bit. If it’s truly impossible to do it, like don’t say yes, just ’cause you feel like that obligation [00:26:00] escalate to the other bosses.
I will say a lot of bosses in general will be very persistent at you. But if you escalate to other people, they suddenly go away. They don’t wanna confront either the other partner. It’s like nobody likes the confrontation, no one likes it. But it feels very aggressive to say that to. In my past, I’ve felt that way, but it’s very effective and I think very fair if it truly, you need to make sure that your plate is really full with that other person first.
And sometimes I would run it by that other partner before I escalated in that way. But I just wanted to share it because. There is sometimes a sliver of control that we have over our work, even when it feels like we don’t. And I like exercising that where we can. But going back to the love fit test, ’cause I, I really like this and I mean, people know here, like to me, I would make a lot of this visual in the calendar, like also the life you want so that you see it visually, so that it isn’t just white space in your calendar of what your calendar looks like, but.
Whether you [00:27:00] have it in your calendar or not, does this fit with the life you’re striving for? How you want life to feel? All of that. What if you love it but it doesn’t fit? Or I guess if it, if you don’t love it, then that might be the end of the equation. But what do you do if it’s like one in one kind of
Michelle Gauthier: Yes.
Yes. So maybe like. You love the idea of going on a field trip with your daughter’s school, but it doesn’t fit because you’ve set up a life where you really strictly work from like eight to five.
Kelly Nolan: Yeah.
Michelle Gauthier: During. Like weekdays or whatever day of the week that this happened. So if you get a yes and a no or a no and a yes, that’s where you just have to do a little bit more investigation and decide.
’cause the great thing is you always get to decide, even when it feels like you can’t, you do. You always get to decide in your mind. So then you get to say like this, it’s exact example has happened to me many, many times and I have chosen like once a year. I will go on one of my, they don’t have field trips anymore, but they used to, yeah.
Yeah. I’ll go on one of [00:28:00] my kids’ field trips, or I will come to like one room party or something like that, so that way I don’t feel like I’m taking a big hit where my business is an afterthought and I’m doing all these other things. I’m choosing here and there to make special exceptions. If it’s like a, I absolutely love it and it doesn’t fit into the kind of life I’m trying to create, which is I work business during certain hours and then I do the rest of life during other hours.
Kelly Nolan: Yeah. I love that. Well, thank you so much. And so like I love a framework. I love a simple, powerful framework, especially ’cause it’s easy to. Work through and remember. Yes. And actually implement in real life. I think sometimes we overcomplicate and then forget all the nuance.
Michelle Gauthier: Yes, for sure. Especially in a stressful situation.
Yeah. You need to be, to be able to come to you quickly. Yes.
Kelly Nolan: Yeah. So I really appreciate this because I think it’s really helpful to think, pause, try never to give like that gut reaction response in the moment, and then move really through the love and fit [00:29:00] test and thinking about, you know, do I love this?
Because sometimes I don’t even think we ask ourselves that question. Yeah. Does it fit? And then let’s say we’ve landed on the no. Where do we go from there? Yes.
Michelle Gauthier: So I think no kind of gets a bad rap, and we feel like when we say no, that that’s automatically gonna be a bad thing. So first of all, I just wanna challenge the notion.
I mean, do you have anyone, Kelly in your life who you can think about who’s really good at saying no when they wanna say no and yes. When they wanna say yes? It’s funny
Kelly Nolan: that. I’m realizing that it’s hard to even remember who says yes and no to me, and which probably is a good thing to realize that no one is like clocking and tracking your yeses and nos Yes.
Takes the pressure off you.
Michelle Gauthier: Yes. Yes, absolutely. Yes. Well. I have had for a long time a good friend who if you ask her to do something she’ll be like, nah, I don’t really wanna do that. And she just says no right away. And if she wants to and she says yes, then you know for sure [00:30:00] that she’s really saying yes.
So I just wanna offer and like challenge everyone to think of someone in your life who often says no when they wanna say no. And think about how that makes you feel. For me, I feel really great. Because when she says no, you know, she doesn’t want to. You never, I, we’ve all had that moment where we’re with someone thinking, does she really wanna be here?
Did she just come here? ’cause I asked her to come here, whatever. So yeah, first of all, know that no isn’t always a bad answer and that you aren’t always going to hurt someone’s feelings. And even if you do, you can’t know it. Like you don’t know what they’re thinking or feeling anyway. And then just to offer that no is a complete sentence.
No, thank you. Is maybe a. More polite, complete sentence, but we always feel this need to overexplain and explain why we can’t do the thing. And I’m really trying to cut down on doing this and that and the other thing. But just to encourage you to say no and say it fairly quickly instead of making people, you know, wait a long time, say it fairly quickly and then just keep it really short.
Yeah. Like I appreciate you [00:31:00] asking, but that’s not a fit for me. I always tell my clients to say my life coach, that I have to say no to more things. So I’m saying no, you can come up with any line that you want. I have a whole podcast episode on ways to say no. There’s like 15 different ways to say no. You could jot, jot down a couple of your favorite ones and then just keep those on your calendar maybe.
Yeah. Maybe someplace that you look a lot.
Kelly Nolan: Yeah, and I would say that I really like thinking about this stuff ’cause I think that if you’re trying to create these phrasings phrasings phrases in the moment. It can be tricky. So you just say yes because you’re like, I dunno how to say no. Yeah, again, hopefully you’ve built in the pause so you like have thought about this ahead of time, but kind of going back to the same thing before where I just think also expressing enthusiasm for whatever’s going on is a really nice way to soften any No.
Yeah. So it’s like, man, I really wish I could make it. I just can’t. I’m so sorry. Please let me know next time you do this if you actually want them to do that. Yeah, that can be great. Especially for like social settings. Sometimes I say no to [00:32:00] things. It’s no knock on the thing. I just am exhausted and I wanna stay home and just go to bed early to your point of the like Thursday night thing.
And so just saying like, Hey, this sounds awesome. I can’t make it this time. You don’t have to say you don’t have any other plans or all those things. Yeah, and just say, I please do let me know next time you do something. Especially on the weekend. It’s a lot easier for me to make those, or something like that.
Michelle Gauthier: Yes, yes. Especially, and really only if it’s true. Like if you have something nice to say and there’s a reason why you can’t go, like let’s say someone invites me to like a basketball game and I hate basketball. I don’t wanna say, oh shoot, hit me up next time though. I’d love to go. Right? Like, oh, I’m not really a sports fan, but if you ever are going to the ballet, let me know.
Yeah. Which actually, that would be the opposite for me if we’re telling the real truth. Yeah, exactly. But just as an example.
Kelly Nolan: On the work side of things, I’ll just share, I’ve shared this before so people listening have probably heard it. A similar approach with work stuff is I love the enthusiasm [00:33:00] when I was a junior associate when I couldn’t say no, but needed to say no.
I would also, my initial one before any escalating would be something like, this sounds so great given my current commitments, I can’t turn to this for three weeks. I completely understand if you need someone to help you before then, and that was just like a nice way to be like. I’m team player, but I can’t
Michelle Gauthier: do
Kelly Nolan: it.
Yes,
Michelle Gauthier: yes. See that guy over there in the corner who looks kind of bored? He probably is available to help me. Yeah,
Kelly Nolan: that’s funny. Yeah. And then if you know, I also think it can be really. Important to also like expect the pushback sometimes and not be just, I used to not, I’d be like gear myself up for the no, say the no and then be like, whew.
And then I get the pushback and I’d be so thrown that I would say yes or like personally offended or something. How do you handle that? Like the pushback on this? You just. Stay firm. I mean, I guess we’ve talked a little bit about escalating in those work scenarios or things like that. Yes. I dunno if you have any more [00:34:00] on the kind of Yeah, I think expecting pushback
Michelle Gauthier: and I think it’s really.
A situation where if you know you wanna say no and you’ve taken the time to investigate it, and you say it and they come back to you with something else like, well, I really urgently need your help. And all the things you’ve said are great ideas. Like, well, I need to speak to this other person before I can commit to that, or whatever.
But if in the end you end up saying yes out of pressure, that’s a great example of a situation where you go and you note that down. You journal your way through it. Why did I end up saying that? Yes. What was I thinking? What kind of plan could I make for next time if someone says that to me? So just take it as a learning experience.
If you feel like you tried to say no and then you got pushed into a Yes.
Kelly Nolan: Yeah, no, I really appreciate that. ’cause it, I mean, it happens and to, to your point, we. Inevitably cave. Hopefully not all the time, but occasionally. Yeah. And things like that. And it is just a, instead of beating yourself up, really thinking like, how can I avoid this next time?
Yeah. What did [00:35:00] I learn about it in this scenario?
Michelle Gauthier: Yes. And if you’re a person who likes to do an A plus job on all the things all the time, if you try it and you mess it up, quote unquote, it might get in your head. But this is a. Skill. If you think about, depending on how old you are, like let’s say someone who’s listening is 40 years old and they’ve been a people pleaser since they were like old enough to understand how to make other people happy in air quotes.
You’ve been doing this pattern for like 30 something years and so to expect to reverse it from listening to one podcast with no practice is just, yeah, not practical. Like we just have to be kind to ourselves. You couldn’t be like, I’m gonna run a marathon tomorrow. You know? You just have to practice and walk around the block and then maybe run a half mile and all that and eventually you’ll get to the point where people pleasing and saying no is just second nature.
Like. I was a big people pleaser and struggled really badly with saying no. And now it’s not even like, it doesn’t even register. I would never say yes to something I didn’t wanna do anymore. [00:36:00] So you can get there.
Kelly Nolan: I was thinking about, I, I agree with you in that. I, I would say I still struggle with it occasionally.
I definitely have it. I mean, we found out before this episode, we’re both from Minnesota. I think there’s a lot of that. Minnesota nice, Midwestern, Minnesota, nice. Like all that. And I think one thing you’ve mentioned that I loved, I was re-listening to some of your episodes in preparation for this, and I gotta say, Michelle, I think it was a year or so ago that I listened to your podcast and somewhere in there you had mentioned, which I’d love for you to explain more calendaring, the things you say no to.
Yes. And I’m gonna get there. But I, I thought that was such a brilliant idea. But I was listening to so many podcasts, I forgot who said it, and I asked like two or three other women in this space. I was like, was it you who said this? And they were like, I don’t think so. And then I heard it again and I was like, oh, finally it was Michelle.
So will you explain that, because I think it’s such a smart way to show our brains as we’re learning this skill, the benefit of this skill.
Michelle Gauthier: Yes, [00:37:00] yes. So if we go back to my Thursday night example, so when I. Successfully say no to my friend that I don’t wanna go out on Thursday night. Then as a follow up to myself, I put on the calendar time that I would have been out for drinks with Sarah or whoever it was, and then when that pops up on my calendar, I can get the.
Extra hat on the back and the good evidence that I made the right choice for myself as I’m like sitting on my couch in my pajamas with my kids feeling like I’m where I’m supposed to be. Yeah. So it just gives you like an extra dose of, by the way you made the right decision.
Kelly Nolan: Yeah. I think that’s so smart.
And like especially the things that you really would dread. But also feel really obligated to say yes to. Yeah. It’s passed. I think of it often too of like, let’s say it’s a volunteer position that you loved for three years and then you’re in your fourth or fifth year and you’re just like, this is not that enjoyable anymore.
Yep. And you go through all the effort to say [00:38:00] no. All the effort to really hold firm in that. No, you will not be filling that position anymore. All that. Consider leaving those meetings on your calendar for a bit of like just a reminder, yes, you would’ve been busy here and now you’re not. Yes,
Michelle Gauthier: and now you’re not.
Exactly. And some big things. I mean, that’s a big thing. And some big things. It could have been multiple commitments over time that you’ve saved yourself that time and just left open for whatever else you may wanna do at that time. Because saying no is uncomfortable, especially at first. That’s another tip I would say.
As you’re saying, no, don’t think, well, I’m gonna wait till I feel better about saying no to do it. Just do it when it feels uncomfortable and just sit with the discomfort of it. Yeah, and then that follow up of seeing, okay, this is the free time I created for myself is kind of the equalizer. Like that felt really uncomfortable, but this feels super comfortable, so it helps you say no.
And over time it gets less and less uncomfortable.
Kelly Nolan: I love that ’cause I couldn’t agree more. Like [00:39:00] it has just become, the fear can still be there for me, but the benefits are also really clear to me and I just need to Yeah, that really helps counteract it. Yes. Yes. Well, thank you so much Michelle for being here.
Is there anything you wanted to add before we wrap this up? I don’t wanna, I just wanna make sure we covered everything you wanted to talk about. No, nothing I can think of. Awesome. Well thank you so much again. If people wanna learn more about what you do, where should they go?
Michelle Gauthier: My podcast is overwhelmed Working Woman, so you could go and listen to that.
I used to be most overwhelmed on Monday morning, so I drop an episode every Monday morning with like one little tip that you can do to have a better week for yourself. So that’s always there. I. And then you can go to my we*****@mi*************.com and you can get links to how to Work with Me. I have a free quiz about why you’re feeling overwhelmed and then whatever the result is, it gives you some suggestions and there are videos.
Nice. And things I know. I used to love those quizzes and like the teen magazines. Yeah. So it’s, it’s modeled
Kelly Nolan: [00:40:00] after that. Oh, that’s awesome. And you said you work mostly with people one-on-one, and then you do have a group program as well? I do have a group program as well. Yes. Which I’m gonna be opening.
Awesome. Awesome. Well, this should come out with plenty of time for that, so that’s exciting. Oh, great. Perfect. Well, wonderful. Well, thank you so much for being here, and I’m excited for listeners to get to check out your episodes and listen to your own podcast. And thank you so much for taking the time to be here.
And for you listening at home, thank you for being here as well, and I’ll catch you in the next episode.
