I Know What I Should Do, So Why Don’t I Do It?

You know you need to set the boundary. You’ve thought about what you want to say. You might have even practiced the words in your head. Then the moment comes. And you say yes. Again.

Or you know you need to tell your partner what you actually need, but you soften it so much that they don’t really hear you.

You know you were too harsh with your child and want to go back and repair, but acknowledging your part feels uncomfortable.

You know you can’t keep trying to make everyone happy. And yet you do.

It’s easy to look at these moments and think, Why am I still doing this? I know better. But knowing what to do and being able to do it when it feels risky are two very different things.

The familiar has a powerful pull

There’s a psychological idea called loss aversion. We tend to feel the possibility of losing something more strongly than we feel the possibility of gaining something. This can help explain why we keep doing things that aren’t working for us, because changing something often means risking something too.

Think about setting a boundary. You might gain more time, less resentment, more honesty, and a healthier relationship. But what might you lose? Someone might be disappointed in you, they might think you’re selfish, they might get angry, or they might pull away.

If you’ve spent the majority of your life learning that being helpful, capable, agreeable, or easy to be around keeps you connected to other people, those possibilities can feel like a very big deal. So you say yes, and something important happens. You feel relief. The other person isn’t upset, there’s no uncomfortable conversation, and the relationship feels okay.

At least for now.

The old behavior works

We often miss this part. The things we want to stop doing usually work in some way.

You say yes when you want to say no, and someone is happy with you. You avoid the difficult conversation, and there’s no conflict tonight. You take over because you don’t know whether someone else will handle it, and the uncertainty goes away. You over-explain your decision until the other person understands, and you feel less exposed. You try to control what happens with your child, and for a moment you feel less helpless.

These strategies may cost you over time and you may become exhausted, resentful, anxious, controlling, or disconnected from the people you love. But in the moment? They can make you feel safer.

And that changes how we need to think about change.

You’re not just learning a new behavior

When I ask a woman I’m working with to set a boundary, I’m not just asking her to learn how to say no, I’m asking her to tolerate the possibility of someone being disappointed in her.

When I ask her to communicate more honestly with her partner, I’m not just giving her better communication skills, I’m asking her to tell the truth without knowing exactly how someone else will respond.

When I ask her to repair with her child, I’m not just teaching her what to say after she loses her temper, I’m asking her to acknowledge that she got something wrong and stay present with what that brings up inside her.

That requires something very different from knowing the right strategy. It requires the capacity to stay present with the reality of the moment. There are some very uncomfortable questions she needs to make room for, and these questions hold the reality of uncertainty and a whole lot of emotional discomfort.

Can I disappoint someone and stay connected to myself? Can I say what I need without knowing how you’ll respond? Can I acknowledge that I screwed up without deciding that means something terrible about me? Can I say no without needing you to agree that my no is reasonable? Can I let my child be upset without immediately trying to make the feeling go away?

This is Relational Intelligence.

The feeling of risk doesn’t have to make the decision

Our nervous systems are very good at learning what has helped us feel safe and connected in the past, but that doesn’t mean those strategies are still serving us. The familiar can feel safer without actually being better. So when you find yourself doing something you know you don’t want to keep doing, there’s a more useful question than, Why do I keep doing this?

Try, What do I believe I’m protecting myself from right now?

What feels at risk if you say no? If you stop explaining? If you let someone be disappointed?

What do you worry will happen If you admit you were wrong? Or if you don’t fix your child’s feeling?

Get curious about the answer. Then offer yourself some compassion. Of course this feels hard. There’s a reason you learned to protect yourself this way.

And then comes choice. Given what is actually happening right now, who do I want to be?

You don’t have to wait until the new choice feels completely safe. That’s the work. You learn that you can feel the discomfort of someone’s disappointment and still say no and that you can have an uncomfortable conversation and stay connected. You can get something wrong and repair it and feel the strengthening impact that has on a relationship. You can let your kiddo have a hard feeling without treating that feeling as an emergency.

Over time, you’re no longer limited to whatever makes the discomfort go away fastest. You actually have more choices. And that is one of the biggest shifts I see happen in the women I work with.

They don’t become people who never feel scared, uncertain, guilty, or uncomfortable. They become women who can feel those things without automatically letting those feelings decide what they do next.