How do you become fully confident and in control of your emotions and experience at work? It’s by mastering your own psychology and that of others. On this show, we decode the science of success, exploring how to get out of your own way and advance your career to new levels without becoming someone you’re not.

I’m Melody Wilding, bestselling author, human behavior professor and award winning executive coach. Get ready and let’s put psychology to work for you.

Today, we’re talking about something I bet you’re dealing with right now. The constant pressure to take on more work. Just think about your typical workday, how much of what you do is actually in your official job description. And how much of it is just extra stuff that somehow landed on your plate. And I think you know what I mean, those quick favors that seem to turn into ongoing commitments, the projects you inherited when someone else left and they became yours. Those tasks you volunteered for once because you were good at them and you wanted to help, that now you are the go to person for.

If you’re nodding your head right now, you are not alone. This is very common. And I want to invite you to a special event I’m hosting on February 5th at 3 p. m. Eastern Time. And yes, don’t worry. Your replay will be available. It’s called Push Back and Protect Your Time, Even When Your Boss is Demanding, Deadlines are Tight and Stakes Are High.

This is a 90 minute live training. Only for pre order purchasers of my new book, Managing Up How to Get What You Need From the People in Charge. And to join this exclusive, it’s a closed door event again, only for people who pre order my new book.

All you need to do is head to managingup.com. You’re going to preorder the book in any format from the links on the page, then fill out the form on that same page. We just need your name, your email, and your confirmation order number. And then you’ll receive in your inbox, the details for your training.

Now during this event, you’re going to find out how to get back two to three hours of I’m going to give you word for word scripts to decline, unrealistic deadlines, extra meetings, scope creep.

You’re going to learn how to gauge your pushback power, your hidden leverage to set boundaries that you are probably currently overlooking.

I’ll show you how to use a simple 60 second practice so you can quit reacting and focus on deep work, that advances your career. And best of all, I’m going to give you exactly what to say or do, again, word for word exact scripts, when your boss challenges you, pushes back on your boundaries and to do all of this in a way that makes them respect you even more. Just imagine that.

Now this event is valued at $97, but you can join us for free when you preorder my new book, Managing Up

again, head to managingup.com. Plus when you preorder now, when you fill out the form on the page, not only are you going to get access to this live event and the recording of this live event on February 5th, you’re also going to get $300 worth of other bonuses. Including the Promotion Playbook Masterclass.

This is a three part video series showing you how to make your advancement feel almost inevitable to decision makers around you. Including, again, word for word negotiation scripts that my clients have used to secure $20,000 raises, $100K bonuses, a lot more.

You’re also going to get access to the Chapter Cheat Sheets. This is your implementation guide. It has ready to use templates, key concepts from each chapter of the book. So in total, you’re going to get over $400 of value.

Again, to join us, want to head to managingup.com, select whatever format you want, all formats qualify, from your favorite retailer. You’re going to enter your order details on that page at managingup.com. And then once we verify your purchase, check your email, we’re going to give you access to your complete bonus bundle.

Now there is a pattern we see all the time in our coaching programs and our work with clients. The most capable, conscientious professionals often become the go to person, for pretty much everything, and often it’s lower value work, and it’s not just because they’re good at what they do.

They genuinely want to help. They want to be seen as team players. They want the gold star for going above and beyond.

And especially in the last year, work is picking up at a rapid pace with layoffs and reorganizations happening, it seems like every few months. Pretty much everyone is being asked to do more with less.

And the truth is, if you are good at your job, you are probably the first person people turn to when they need help, right? If you want something done, give it to a busy person.

And I want to tell you about a client of mine. We’ll call her Irene. I think her story is really going to speak to you. Now, Irene, she’s a project manager and her team had recently lost about 15 percent of their head count. And within about 48 hours of her colleagues leaving, Irene had volunteered to take on three major initiatives. She wanted to help. She wanted to pitch in. She knew her boss was under a lot of pressure. She wanted to help ease her stress. Well, what happened next is that Irene started living at work. Every day, felt like walking around with this cloud of dread over her head. She couldn’t remember the last time she saw her friends or she did something for herself. And don’t get me wrong, helping out when your team is short staff is very admirable, speaks a lot to your character.

But the crucial question here is, and what we’re going to explore today is, are you saying yes for the right reasons?

Because you can’t say no to everything. You shouldn’t say no to everything. Taking on certain responsibilities can absolutely lead to new skills, greater visibility, advancement opportunities. But you have to know the difference between what’s a strategic opportunity and what’s just an energy draining obligation that’s being thrust on your plate.

You have to know the difference between work that moves you forward, that is promotable versus just work that’s keeping you busy. And very crucially, you have to discern when you are being helpful versus when you are just being taken advantage of.

So let’s talk about how do you tell the difference? And more importantly, what do you do about it? So we want to give you four situations when you should say no to extra work.

And remember, grab your spot in that Push Back and Protect Your Time training happening February 5th, where I will be going much, much more in depth on this. I will be giving you tons of specific strategies, tools, scripts, and this event is only available to pre order buyers of my new book, managingup.com. So head to managingup.com, pre order in any format, doesn’t matter, audio, ebook, hardcover, and then all you have to do is fill out the form on that page at managingup. com. We will verify your purchase and send over all of the details.

And even if you can’t make this training live on February 5th, still pre order the book, sign up, you will get the replay and you’ll get the rest of that bonus bundle, the Promotion Playbook Masterclass, as well as the Chapter Cheat Sheets.

All right, so let’s get into situation number one. You should say no when your primary job responsibilities will suffer.

Let me give you an example of what this looks like in real life. So let’s say you are on the product team, but marketing keeps asking for your help with reviewing their materials. And it seems innocent enough, right? It seems like it’s minor enough, okay, I’ll, I’ll do it once or twice, but soon you’re spending so much time on marketing stuff that you can’t focus on your actual job. User research, product strategy, those things get pushed to the side because you’re just reactively responding to these requests.

This is exactly when you should say no. When taking on extra work stops you from doing your core job duties well and you’re not even learning valuable new skills in the process. When that is happening, that is a clear signal, you have to step back.

And now I know you might be saying to yourself, but, but how do I do that? How do I say no without looking bad? Because of course you just can’t say, “sorry, that’s not in my job description.” Don’t do that. That’s, that is going to make you not look like a team player.

Instead, what I want you to use is what Harvard researchers call a relational account. Let me say that again. Relational account. Basically, put very simply, what this means is explaining how if you said yes to this request, it would actually hurt everyone involved. So, here’s what this might sound like.

” I have to decline because if I spent my time on marketing projects, I wouldn’t be able to hit our product launch dates, which would affect our entire team’s goals.”

So do you see the difference between that and saying, just “sorry, It’s not my job description. Good luck.”

When you use the relational account, you’re not just protecting yourself, you’re showing that you care about the bigger picture, about everyone involved. You’re being responsible, not necessarily just being difficult for the sake of it.

And research shows when you use this strategy, the relational account, it actually makes people respect you more.

Second situation, say no, when it’s someone else’s work. This happens all the time, teams overlap, everyone is supposed to be collaborative and you suddenly find yourself doing work that is not actually yours.

Like, say you’re in sales, but somehow you’ve become the unofficial customer service person. Now, if we go back to Irene, the client I mentioned in the story earlier, she was finding herself doing operations work on top of her own work. This really should have been owned by the operations director, not her as a project manager.

Here’s how she handled it and did it gracefully. She went to her boss and said, “it’s not possible for me to continue handling these operational duties because when that happens, it only creates confusion about who owns what. I’m happy to hand this off and I can put together detailed documentation so that the operations team doesn’t miss a beat and they can take over this properly.”

Now, maybe you don’t mind taking on some extra work. Maybe you actually see it as an opportunity. That’s fine. Just make sure you are strategic about it.

If you are going to do somebody else’s job, make sure you are getting something out of it. That might mean having a conversation with your boss about how does this extra work actually lead to better or bigger opportunities for me, a promotion, a title change, more visibility with senior leadership.

And yes, if you have been handling tasks beyond your scope for a while now, then it probably is time to talk about adjusting your compensation to reflect that.

And actually this is something I talk about in depth in that Promotion Playbook Masterclass. So if you want the on demand recordings of that, again, make sure you preorder your copy of Managing Up at managingup.com.

The goal, or rather I should say the point here, isn’t to never help others. That’s that’s not what I’m saying. I want you to be intentional with your time. I wanna make sure you’re valued for the extra work when you decide to take it on.

Alright? Third time you should say no is when there is no clear exit strategy. You probably know how this goes. Someone asks for your quick help on a project, but they’re super vague about the details and what’s involved.

Maybe your boss comes to you and says something like, you know, could, could you just help out with this analytics work? And it sounds simple, but the next thing you know, you are stuck in endless meetings. You’re getting copied on every email thread. Somehow you have become the point person for all of these things.

And this is what I call the scope creep trap. Where one small favor, just gradually keeps ballooning, expanding into this major commitment. And you maybe didn’t even know what you were getting yourself into. It tends to happen so slowly often that you don’t even notice it happening until you’re drowning, until it’s become so unsustainable.

This is why you need to get really specific before saying yes to anything new. So when your boss comes to you with a new initiative, ask questions, “How long do you need me on this? What meetings will I be expected to attend? What exactly do you need from me? Who will be my main point of contact? What’s the expected time commitment per week?”

And I know it can feel awkward to ask these questions up front. You may worry about seeming difficult or that you’re not cooperating, but asking these questions shows you’re thoughtful. It shows you’re being considerate about the commitment and it demonstrates that you’re taking it seriously. You want to deliver real value.

And if after getting the details, you realize, I don’t know if I can handle this or fit this in, you can decline gracefully. You can say, “thank you so much. I’m really glad I came to mind for this. It sounds interesting, but I wouldn’t feel right committing to this knowing I don’t have the bandwidth to do it well.”

And here’s another little trick that I love. You can also offer to help in some sort of smaller way. Maybe you can’t lead the project, but could you join a few brainstorming sessions to help shape the vision and the strategy? Could you review a plan once it’s drafted? Could you connect them with someone who might be a better fit to help?

So this is all showing you’re a team player and you know your limits. Being helpful does not mean saying yes to everything. Please put that out of your mind. Stop equating the two.

Being helpful means being thoughtful about where and how you can contribute without burning yourself out. When you are clear about your boundaries upfront, you can be more helpful in the long run, not less.

All right, here’s the last crucial time to say no. And that’s when someone makes an impossible request.

Let’s say it is Wednesday afternoon and senior leadership wants a complete business plan by Friday, or your boss has said they need you to rebuild an entire dashboard before tomorrow’s board meeting. Someone asks you to take on a project that requires skills you don’t have, and it’s going to take you a little while to get up to speed.

These moments are tricky because often the person making the request has more power than you. But here’s what I’ve learned after years of coaching people on this, that if you say yes to these impossible requests, it actually damages your credibility more than saying no does.

When you give an unreasonable timeline or rather you agree to an unreasonable timeline, one of two things tends to happen. Either you burn yourself out trying to deliver and you still probably don’t meet expectations because you were rushing. Or you end up having to go back later and admit that you ran out of time. Or you didn’t do this to the extent that you wanted to.

Neither scenario helps your reputation. So instead, I want you to try this approach.

Acknowledge that the request is important, then be crystal clear about what’s actually possible.

So here’s what this might sound like. “I understand. I hear this as a priority. I can’t deliver the full plan by Friday. I could have. This one section done by then, and then I could have the complete plan by Tuesday afternoon. How does that work?”

So here that I offered an alternative solution, not just saying no, but helping solve the problem in a more realistic way. So when you handle unreasonable requests this way, you actually build more trust with your leadership.

You’re showing them they can count on you to be honest, to think critically about what’s involved, and to care about actually delivering them quality work.

So there you have it, four times when you should say no to extra work.

Number one, when your primary job responsibilities will suffer.

Number two, when it’s someone else’s work.

Number three, when there’s no clear exit strategy.

And number four, when someone makes an impossible request.

There is this deep seated fear, so many of us have, that saying no is going to make us appear difficult. We worry that if we push back, we’re going to be labeled as rigid, we’re going to be passed over for opportunities, people may even retaliate against us.

The irony is that the people who actually get overlooked aren’t always the ones who say no, strategically. They’re the ones who say yes to everything. Because when you’re drowning in everyone else’s work, leadership can’t possibly give you more responsibility. They look at you and think, this person is already stretched so thin. How could we promote them? How could we give them that big project when they’re already at their capacity?

If you’re known as the person who takes on everything, then the people above you assume two things.

They assume one, that you need to stay right where you are because nobody else can handle all of this work.

And two, that you might not be ready for bigger opportunities because you haven’t shown you can prioritize effectively. You haven’t shown you can make tough trade offs when it’s necessary.

So this is exactly why learning to push back to say no is such a crucial part of managing up. Because managing up isn’t really about your boss at all. It’s about you getting what you need and want to thrive at work, about having the confidence to push back when needed, the clarity to focus on what really matters and the control to shape how you work. So think about what you really want in your career.

Maybe you want more flexibility in your schedule. Maybe you want bigger, more interesting projects. Maybe you just want peace of mind, not being everyone’s go to and having the cognitive load of handling everybody else’s tasks.

None of that happens by accident. None of it happens just by working harder, gritting your teeth, white knuckling through it.

It happens when you learn to manage up effectively, when you can say no to the wrong things so you can say yes to the right ones. When you can push back on unreasonable requests in a way that actually makes people empower, respect you more.

That is why managing up matters so much because when you master it, work feels different.

You’re not being reactive to whatever comes your way. You’re in control.

You’re not just hoping you get noticed for your good work. You know exactly how to make your value visible.

You’re not just drowning in other people’s priorities. You’re focused on what actually moves your career forward.

So if you are tired of giving your best hours to other people’s priorities, if you’re ready to stop wishing for more flexibility and actually create it, if you want to quit second guessing every interaction with your boss, I want to invite you to join me for something special.

On February 5th at 3 p. m. ET, I am hosting that training, Push Back and Protect Your Time. This is a live 90 minute training where I’m going to walk you through exactly word for word scripts, how to decline extra work, how to set boundaries that stick, even when your boss is demanding, deadlines are tight and stakes are high.

You are going to learn how to get back two to three hours every week. And again, I’m going to give you the exact phrases for declining on real realistic deadlines, extra meetings that you’re being pulled into. I’m going to teach you this quick 60 second practice that helps you just stop reacting to everything, focus on work that really advances your career.

And I’m going to walk you through again, play by play, step by step, word for word, exactly what to say when your boss challenges your boundaries and how to do that, how to respond to them in a way that makes them respect you more.

This training is valued at 97, but it is yours free when you pre order my new book, Managing Up at managingup.Com. And plus you’re going to get instant access to those other two amazing bonuses. Number one, the Promotion Playbook Masterclass. This is valued at $297 is a three part video series showing you how to make your advancement feel inevitable. And I give you word for word negotiation scripts that tons of our clients have used to get bigger raises, bonuses, new positions.

And second, you’re going to get the Chapter Cheat Sheets valued at $47. This is your implementation guide with step by step instructions, key concepts from every chapter in the book. So in total, this is over $400 of value for you. And here’s how you join us for that live free training and claim this entire bonus bundle.

All you have to do is head to managingup.com And you’re going to see an option there to preorder managing up from your favorite retailer. You can choose whichever format is your preference, hardcover, audio, ebook, doesn’t matter. They all qualify for the bonus bundle.

Then on that page, managingup.com, you’re going to fill out the form there. It’s really simple. We just need your name, your email address, and your order confirmation number from the retailer you purchased the book from. And then once we verify that, we’ll shoot over an email that has all of the details to access your complete order bundle. All of those details for the event will come straight to your email.

So please, please don’t let another week, month, year go by where you feel overwhelmed and undervalued. You deserve so much more than that. Join us on February 5th and you will learn exactly how to push back and protect your time. I’ll see you there and I’ll see you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning in to today’s episode of psychology at work. If you enjoyed the show, I’d be so grateful if you could take just a minute to rate and review wherever you are listening. It’s how we reach more professionals just like you. And if you’d like to see even more content on how to feel more self assured, grounded, and in control of your emotions and reactions at work, follow me on LinkedIn or head to the links in the show notes.