A Sense of Selfish

Growing up, being selfish was a cardinal sin. ‘Don’t be so selfish’. It was almost as humbling as ‘stop showing off’.

Girls were told over and over again not to be selfish. 

You had to share your toys, you had to offer your sweets round, you had to let others go in front of you on the slide, you mustn’t take the last piece of anything, you had to pretend to like your birthday presents, you had to pretend to like your parents’ friends’ children, you had to smile in photos, you had to be polite when angry, you had to be grateful for everything. 

Be a good girl. Or you were selfish and, God forbid, rude.

We began to suppress ourselves. We covered our emotions with polite, palatable, likeable responses. When you’re told often enough that you have to do things you don’t want to do because not to would be selfish, it becomes your default.

Life trundles on, and one day you find yourself a woman putting everyone’s needs before your own.  Often without even realising it’s happening. You are a good partner, mother, daughter, sister, friend, colleague. You can be depended on to organise things, remember things, help with things.  You hold all the responsibility in your home, making sure everyone has everything they need at all times. You don’t question it.  These things need doing and you are the person who does them.

And it is rewarding and joyful in many ways, don’t get me wrong. 

Which is fortunate as you definitely don’t have the head space to examine this dynamic and ask yourself if you’re ok with it. Anyway, wouldn’t it be selfish to stop doing exactly what’s, by now, just expected of you?

As I hit 50 I began to experience a disruption of the status quo.  Who was I underneath those dense layers of anti-selfish conditioning?  

Was my actual character selfless and amenable - or was I something else entirely? 

Am I (whispers) a selfish person masquerading as a people-pleaser? 

Yesterday I asked a male friend if he wanted to do something and he replied ‘No thanks’.

No thanks!!!!! With no softening, no caveats, no appeasing.

You mean to tell me you can just say ‘No thanks’ when someone suggests something??  Do men say ‘no thanks’ to things all the time?   So simple and yet so effective.

Personally I have always found saying ‘No thanks’ very tricky.  I have a compulsion to either say yes, or say no in such a way it might as well be a yes.

I’ve thought a lot about this wonderfully abrupt ‘no thanks’ response since.  It is the magic wand that instantly gets you out of whatever it is you don’t want to do. 

Could I become a ‘No thanks’ kind of woman?

I’m going to give it a go. Even if it feels like the conversational equivalent of slamming on the car brakes and giving myself whiplash.

I will report back on my foray into the uncharted land of choosing myself(ishness). In the meantime, wherever my 50s lead me, will I ever go back to being selfless to a fault?

No thanks. Full stop.

I want my midlife coachees to feel:

AS CONFIDENT SAYING ‘NO THANKS’ AS YOU ARE SAYING ‘YES PLEASE’.

Whatever you want to say no to, the right time to learn how to say it, is right now.