141. How to Say Yes to the Right Things

Do you ever find yourself doing all the things—laundry, carpool, volunteering, saying yes again—and feeling resentful, even though you care deeply about your family and your life?

In this episode, I explore why the reason behind what you do shapes how you feel while doing it. Drawing from my social work training and real-life parenting examples, I explain why guilt-based decisions often feel rational in the moment—but lead to exhaustion over time—and how to shift into active, values-based choice.

We’ll talk about:

• Why guilt is such a powerful (but costly) motivator
• The difference between surface-level interest and deeper, long-term meaning
• How to use this framework to make clearer decisions and set healthier boundaries
• Why joy comes from purpose—not ease
• How reconnecting with your “why” restores power, confidence, and leadership

If you’ve ever wondered why good things can still feel heavy—or how to stop saying yes from guilt—this episode is for you.

If you'd like to get the show notes for this episode, head to:

 https://leighgermann.com

Transcript

If you're like many of us moms, you find yourself doing things every day that quietly leave you feeling resentful, depleted, or just stretched too thin. Today we're talking about where those feelings actually come from. And you might be surprised to learn that it's often not what we're doing, but why we're doing it. This is Leadership Parenting, how to say yes to the right things.

Did you know that resilience is the key to confidence and joy? As moms, it's what we want for our kids, but it's also what we need for ourselves. My name is Lee German. I'm a therapist and I'm a mom. Join me as we explore the skills you need to know to be confident and joyful. Then get ready to teach these skills to your kids. This is Leadership Parenting, where you learn how to lead your family by showing them the way.

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Leadership Parenting Podcast. I'm Lee and I'm so glad you're here.

Do you ever find yourself doing something? Maybe it's late at night loading the dishwasher while everyone's asleep. Maybe it's bigger than that. Maybe it's volunteering to host Thanksgiving again when you're already stretched thin, or saying yes to coordinating the school fundraiser when you can barely manage your own schedule right now. And do you ever notice that you sometimes feel resentful? Not because the thing itself is terrible or that you don't want to do it, but because somewhere along the way you found that you said yes to this. Maybe you never really said yes at all, right? Maybe you just — I don't know — you didn't know how to say no.

We all do these things every day, sometimes all day long. We show up, we respond, we say yes, we push through, we take care of what needs to be done. But here's the question I want to focus on today. Why are we doing what we're doing? Because the reason underneath what you do becomes the source of how you ultimately feel about it. And when that reason isn't clear, or you don't feel aligned to it, or maybe you just feel really tired, resentment might come up — guilt, that feeling of being trapped, disconnected from ourselves. And this falls into what I call the boundary section of our self-protection pillar in the resiliency system.

This is about way more than just learning to say no. It's about understanding why — underneath what's going on — why you might feel resentful. Because these kinds of things that are happening in our lives are not random. They're actually signals that something needs to shift. And this is what I want to unpack today.

Because most of us move through life acting from one of a few places — guilt, obligation, fear, love, faith, trust, meaning, purpose. You notice I mix those together — things that maybe we want to be motivated by and things that maybe we don't want to be motivated by. But here's what matters: the same behavior can feel completely different depending on the reason underneath. You could do something from guilt and feel resentful. And you can do the exact same thing from love and feel satisfied or grounded. The task itself maybe doesn't change, but your experience of it does.

Let me give you an example. Let's say you've been asked to coordinate the holiday gift exchange for your extended family. Do you ever have one of those? Maybe you've done it before and you're good at it. Everyone expects you to do it. But this year, maybe you're feeling more overwhelmed. Your plate is fuller. You don't have the bandwidth. So why would you say yes, even if you don't really feel like you have that time? Is it because you would genuinely enjoy bringing your family together and it feels meaningful to you? Or is it because you're afraid of disappointing people — afraid of being seen as unhelpful or difficult or selfish — afraid of the guilt that might come if you said no?

So maybe you say yes, but for different reasons, right? Let's assume that you said yes, you would do it. But it's either because you had a feeling of guilt and responsibility to say yes, or you tapped into that feeling of meaning and love and you really wanted to say yes. Same action, but totally different experience. When you say yes from love or meaning, from wanting to serve your family in this way, it can feel full — maybe even overwhelming — but it'll work. And when you say yes from fear or guilt, it's going to feel maybe hollow, and it maybe even brings some resentment.

This is why guilt-based decisions can make sense in the moment. And here's what helped me understand this — I learned this in my training as a social worker, so stay with me for a second. Every choice we make actually does make sense to us in the moment, even when it looks irrational from the outside or even to us later, because we're always weighing costs and benefits based on what we believe and what we're experiencing in the moment and what we've experienced in the past.

So if you find yourself that you keep saying yes, you're avoiding setting boundaries, or you're over-caring, overgiving — it's not because something's wrong with you. It's because in that moment, that choice feels like your best option. And for so many of us, guilt-driven decisions feel rational in the short term, right? Because the guilt says: if I say no, someone will be disappointed. If I don't do this, I'll be failing. If I choose myself, I'm being selfish. So your nervous system does a quick calculation and says yes — to avoid discomfort, to avoid conflict, to avoid guilt. And that choice really makes sense to us sometimes in the short term.

But over time, those guilt-based yeses can come at a really high cost. Resentment, exhaustion, loss of self-trust, emotional reactivity. The action itself is not the problem. It's the reason underneath it. It could be misaligned.

So to simplify it: we don't always choose what's best for us in the long run. We choose based on what we believe serves our interests right now. So I want you to think about those two levels of interest. Surface — things that are happening right now that kind of help us avoid guilt, avoid fear, avoid conflict, keep the peace. And then the things that are under that — deeper — that support you more over time. Your health, the things that matter to you as far as your growth, your faith, your integrity, your alignment with who you want to be and what you want your life to look like.

Most of our inner conflict comes from us living at the surface while wanting the deeper life. And that right there — that's why we feel out of control. Because we're responding to the pressure up here instead of choosing from our purpose down here. Active choice making is what we're looking to do. And once you can see these two levels clearly, you're going to have more of a choice.

This is where we're moving out of guilt into what I like to call leadership, right? It doesn't mean you suddenly enjoy everything that you've signed up to do, but you're always being motivated by the deeper things. And that means that it feels less difficult. You're saying yes for a reason that matters to you — not because it just relieves the tension in the moment, but because it's connecting to that deeper place in you.

A great example of this in my life is sugar. I don't avoid sugar because I stopped liking sugar. I now use less sugar in my life, eat less sugar, because I clearly see how sugar affects my body, and it's usually not very helpful. So my reason isn't to restrict sugar — it's actually deeper. It's love for my body. And that changes my entire experience, because I find myself less deprived. I see that I'm caring for myself. It doesn't feel like deprivation. It doesn't feel like things I can't have. It feels more like a way that I can make a decision that loves myself in a deeper way. It's a way that I care for myself.

Another instance that I experienced this — a long time ago, I was asked to be the music leader for our children's church group. And honestly, I didn't want to do it. It scared me. I didn't feel ready to do something like that. Because when you're a leader for children's music, I don't know if you've ever done this, you're really kind of a showman, right? You kind of show up and you're singing and everyone hears your singing and you're trying to engage the kids, and it's a little bit of an entertainment situation. And that caused me a lot of anxiety. I didn't feel ready for that.

But underneath that fear was something actually deeper. So I had the pressure to say yes to something I was asked to do, and I love the women that I was going to be working with. So I had a desire to serve and a desire to help. And even though I didn't feel ready on the surface, I had a deeper commitment underneath — a reason that mattered to me — because I really cared about those little kids. And I could see the power in me doing something hard that would help me grow. So I said yes — not because I really wanted the role and not because I didn't want to disappoint someone, but because I believed in the deeper meaning of being asked to participate in that role and what it meant. And over time, I really learned to love it. Not because it was easy, but because it was meaningful to me.

Now I want you to think about the everyday work that you don't love, because I think this framework really matters just as much for the small things that we do on a daily basis — like laundry, cleaning the toilets, doing the same things over and over again. You know, I don't do those things because I enjoy them. I do them because I care about my family's health. I care about the environment we live in. I care about the people that I love. And when I stay on the surface, it sounds like: why do I have to do this? This never ends. And when we live there, life feels very victimizing, doesn't it? But when we go underneath, when we reconnect with the deeper reason, we rise above that surface judgment. The task is exactly the same. It's the experience that changes.

So I want you to think about something in your life that might feel heavy to you — either you feel like you're doing it without your full agreement (that would be that resentment, like I don't want to let people down or I don't want to disappoint people), or you're doing stuff feeling like you have to do it without your full commitment to it because it feels like something you don't have a choice in doing. And I want you to think about your reasons for what you do. I want you ultimately to get behind them. And the things that you can't get behind — we want you to set a boundary around and not do.

You know, joy doesn't come from ease or comfort. Joy comes from meaning and purpose. A meaningful life includes hard things. A comfortable life without challenges but without meaning has its own kind of heaviness. And I think this is the tug-of-war of almost everything we do. I could easily avoid the hard things that I really care about because they're uncomfortable, but then I'm not growing, right? And if I really care about something — and let's be honest, being mothers and taking care of children, it is a meaning-and-purpose-driven job — when we lose touch with meaning, resentment grows. And when we reconnect with meaning, our strength returns.

So let me be clear about something. Choosing from love and meaning doesn't mean you'll always feel happy about it or loving about it. It doesn't mean hard things become easy. It doesn't mean we don't have days where we think, I do not want to do this. Because you're going to have those days. That's normal. But what changes is this: when you know your why, when you're clear on the deeper reason and you're clear on your agency to choose it, you don't get run into that guilt or resentment feeling. You can remind yourself: I choose this and I know why. That's where our power lives.

So right now I want you to think about that thing you do regularly that feels heavy. Maybe it's a commitment, maybe it's a routine task, maybe it's a dynamic in a relationship. And I want you to ask yourself — what's the reason for you showing up day after day doing that? Is it guilt? Is it obligation? Is it love? Is it service? Is it growth? Just notice. And you don't have to change anything yet. Just get clear on what's underneath it.

I think using this framework to make decisions is so helpful, because instead of asking, should I do this? Is this expected of me? What will people think? — I want you instead to ask: what is the reason that matters to me for me to do this? And if you can name a deeper value — love, faith, something that's meaningful to you — you can say yes with ownership. That's with power, with agreement, even when it's uncomfortable or inconvenient, even when you're scared. But if the only reason that you're doing something is out of guilt or fear or pressure, that is such good information. And sometimes that information leads you to a no.

This is where boundaries come in. Boundaries aren't emotional reactions — they shouldn't be, at least. They should be rational, value-based decisions. When you say no because something doesn't align with your deeper interests, you're not being selfish. You're being honest. You're being clear. When you say yes because something aligns with who you want to be, you're not being taken advantage of. You're not losing your power. You get to choose, and you're choosing intentionally. And this is that leadership that we're looking for.

Even value-based decisions can get hard. And there are going to be days that we maybe second-guess our decisions. We feel tired. We question ourselves. But that doesn't mean that we chose wrong. It means that life gets hard and we lose track of the vision of why we're doing things. That's when we need to reconnect and even re-choose what we do. That's why knowing ahead of time what matters to you helps you when it gets hard. You can come back to: I chose this for a reason. This matters to me. This aligns with who I want to be. And meaning then can carry you when motivation gets hard.

So I want you to listen for the difference between those two voices. Guilt makes it feel like we don't have a choice — that's that surface response, that we've got to do something to get rid of that feeling of guilt, to get that safety back. So you're going to hear that guilt voice: you should, you have to, you don't really have a choice. But your agency, your choice says: I get to choose, and I get to link this to what matters to me. Guilt kind of shrinks you. Choice grounds you. Guilt creates resentment. Choice creates ownership. And ownership is powerful.

So let's come back to that moment in your day when someone asks you to take on one more thing and you have to make a decision. I want you to think of saying yes for the right reasons. Because you could say yes out of guilt and obligation and then feel resentment — like you have to, like maybe you hear that track in your head, like no one helps, like you're trapped, like you don't have a choice. Or you can say yes from your powerful side, because you care about it, because it matters to you, because this aligns with who you want to be and how you want your life to look.

The task doesn't change. You do.

And this is what I want for you. Not a life where everything is easy, not a life where you never feel conflicted, but a life where you trust yourself — where you understand why you're doing something. And if you no longer have meaning attached to it, that you have permission to say no, no thank you — even at the beginning or even later — so that you're living outside of that guilt and fear, out of pressure, into choice. Out of guilt, into confidence.

Because you're not here to just live on autopilot or be driven by fear or obligation. You're here to choose consciously, intentionally, and with self-respect. That is power. That is choice and leadership.

This is the same thing we're teaching our kids, isn't it? At first, we want them to do things because we ask them to. But we're always teaching them the meaningful part underneath. Hopefully, as you teach your children chores, you're helping them see the meaning of that — that that's part of being in a family. It's very difficult for human beings to do things detached from meaning.

So take this as a little food for thought. Be looking at your life. I want you to feel not worried about it, not over-critical of what you're doing and why you're doing it, but actually emancipated — free to make choices and stand by them and comfort yourself through the hard times. Encourage yourself through the hard times. Let yourself see the deeper decisions you're making because you really care. And that's going to help you feel lighter and stronger and more empowered.

Friends, I hope that this is helpful to you, and that you feel the power of what you're doing in your life — raising children, impacting the world with your love and your goodness. I'm grateful for the time that we have to spend together each week talking about these important things. I hope you have a great week and you take care. I'll talk to you next time.

You can always find me on Instagram at Leigh Germann or on my website at LeighGermann.com.

The Leadership Parenting Podcast is for general information purposes only. It is not therapy and should not take the place of meeting with a qualified mental health professional. The information on this podcast is not intended to diagnose or treat any condition, illness, or disease. It's also not intended to be legal, medical, or therapeutic advice. Please consult your doctor or mental health professional for your individual circumstances. Thanks again and take care.