Hot take: learning to say no at work took me almost 2 years, and I still mess it up
Back in 2022 I was a first year teacher in Fort Worth and said yes to everything, lunch duty, after school tutoring, the spirit committee, and by October I was grading papers at 11pm on a Tuesday. I tried all the usual advice, read a whole book on boundaries, even practiced a script in my car before a meeting with my principal where I finally turned down one extra thing. The weird part is the hard part wasn't saying no once, it was doing it again the next month and the month after, because the guilt comes right back every single time. Did it take anyone else way longer than a weekend to get okay with this, or is it just me?
Something kind of close happened to me with a friend who always wanted to vent for like 3 hours on the phone. First time I cut it short I felt awful for a week. Second time was a little easier. But then she'd call again the next month and all that guilt would come right back like it was day one. The thing nobody tells you is you're not learning one skill, you're basically redoing it over and over until your brain stops panicking. Two years honestly sounds about right, not slow.