Learning to Say No

I’m a mom and I work full-time. I’m also a Girl Scout leader and I’m on the board of my HOA. You’re thinking, what a nice, giving person I must be, to do that volunteer stuff that no one else wants to do. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Yes, I wanted to be part of the solution, to be the change I want to see, blah blah blah. Let me just say that I now admire the gall of quitters, or better, of people who never say yes to shit they don’t want to do in the first place. Once you say yes, you’re stuck, until moving away or death saves you from having to do the thing you said yes to.

I daydream about quitting Girl Scouts and the HOA almost daily. I even started looking into other schools my daughter could attend just so I could get out of being a leader. I never wanted to be a leader; what I wanted was for my daughter to be the Girl Scout I never was. There wasn’t a troop, so voila! I became the leader.  And I completely LOATHE being on my HOA. The HOA was the straw that broke me, you could say, because even though it only demands action from me March-September, it is the volunteer thing I hate the most vehemently, because it’s so stupid, useless, and unappreciated (we still get hate mail from people who have nothing better to do than complain). Also I’m the youngest member on the board and I have this fear that the old ones will die and leave me the sole living member with access to the bank account.

Know your limits, they say. Learn to say no, they say. Well the thing is, how do you know your limits until you test them? You have to say yes a few times and live the pain of that before you can become wise enough to say no in the future.  Well I have definitely tested my limits and have found long-term commitment volunteering is NOT for me. I would much rather volunteer sporadically to help someone else out, instead of volunteering for a long-standing commitment, as I have apparently done.

I could just quit, walk away, leave the people behind to pick up the pieces…and that is my fantasy. Just quitting, turning in my keys, so to speak, letting someone else pick up the pieces. So why don’t I? Because I’ve never been a quitter, I persevere. But as no one wants to willingly pick up the mantle while I’m still here, able-bodied and alive,  it’s getting to a point where I may need to just work up the courage to quit and let whatever happens, happen.

How did I get into this fix? At the time I started both of these volunteer positions, the job I had wasn’t challenging, and quite simply, I was bored. I have since changed employers and now do not have time during the day to devote to planning anything other than work. The question is, how to escape my commitments, made three years ago under very different circumstances?

I could go ‘Juliette’ with my daughter and Girl Scouts. Quit being a leader, and continue to attend GS events, just my daughter and me. Without having to cater to 11 other girls and their fickle parents, without having to plan and remind everyone three different ways prior to every event or outing. Or maybe someone would step up and continue the troop if I really stepped down, and I could continue to be Troop Cookie Mom. Yeah right. If it’s a reality I could theoretically cope with, like just being the TCM, it definitely won’t happen.

I could also quit the HOA (or I could move). When no one else stepped up to take our places for the second year in a row, I put my foot down with the president (a 73-year old lady), stating that I would continue only if all I did was the work of a treasurer, e.g., collecting payments, paying bills, keeping track of spending, doing a report twice a year. Period. Because I have “computer skills,” it fell to me to order signs and address labels, write and publish the newsletter, create a Facebook page, etc. I let the old lady do the last newsletter on her own and she botched it all up. Sigh.

Part of my problem is that I like to feel like I’m being helpful, but I now realize there’s a fine line between being helpful and being taken advantage of. If I’m going to go above and beyond on something, it’s going to be at my job, not on some volunteer board.

I have pledged to give myself one more year in both volunteer outlets, and if I still feel this way in May, I’m stepping down as leader. And I’m definitely quitting the HOA after next year because that will have been 3 years and someone else on the board can be treasurer!

Please give me the ability to say NO and the strength to withstand the results of my saying no.