Why You Keep Saying Yes at Work When You Mean No
There's a very specific kind of lie we tell at work: "yeah, no problem" — when it is, in fact, a very large problem. You already have too much to do. Someone asks for one more thing. You know you don't have the bandwidth. You pause for half a second, and say, "sure, I can take that."
Would you still say yes if you knew they wouldn't be disappointed?
Because saying yes solves a problem immediately. You don't have to look difficult. You don't have to disappoint them. You don't have to have the awkward conversation. Relief. Then tomorrow comes, and now you're overwhelmed.
So before you automatically say yes, try this: if I knew they wouldn't be disappointed, would I still say yes? If the answer is no, you've just learned something important.
The problem may not be that you can't say no. You may be using yes to avoid the feeling that comes with no — and once you see that, you can decide what to do with it.
Ori looks at your past to see your pattern — not to hold it against you, but to reveal it to you. There are two kinds of patterns: a hidden pattern is the one you haven't spotted yet, still running quietly underneath your choices. A recognition pattern is the moment it becomes visible — when you finally see it clearly enough to do something different. Ori's job is helping you move from one to the other. People repeat themselves more than they think. Almost nothing happens only once.
Ori is weyoga's AI — it helps you see the patterns behind your choices, before they repeat again. If you want to break your pattern, talk to Ori → try it free
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weyoga Editorial, New York City, New York — weyoga.ai · editorial@weyoga.ai