Ep #36: Stop Over-Apologizing
episode summary
Have you ever caught yourself uttering a quick "I'm sorry" even when there's nothing for you to apologize for? Have you ever wondered why we do that?
Apologies are important when we've actually made a mistake or hurt someone's feelings, but far too often, women apologize for things like asking a question or shopping for shampoo at the same time as someone else. Let's stop over-apologizing and just say what we mean!
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CHAPTERS:
3:55 - The Only *Real* Reason to Apologize
8:10 - The Other Reasons We Apologize
15:02 - Why to Say Instead of Sorry
listen to the episode:
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Hey, I'm Michelle Gauthier and you're listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast. Hey friends, thanks for joining me today. Today, we're going to be talking about saying sorry. Women say sorry more than men say sorry. That is my opinion, but it's also backed up by statistics. When I read that, I was like yeah, no kidding. I thought the interesting part, though, when I was reading about it, was that men and women apologize at the same rate, meaning when they feel like they have done something wrong, they apologize at the same rate. It's just that women perceive that there are more situations for which they need to apologize than men do. A nd I think that's a problem, because it sort of undermines us. It makes it like we're in the wrong. When you say sorry, you're admitting that you were in the wrong, which is great when you've done something wrong and you actually want to say sorry, but it's not great when you're saying sorry for no real reason. So we're going to jump into all of this today, and the thing that inspired me to talk about this and do this podcast is that having an argument with my 16-year-old son, as one does, and he was really frustrated and opposed to what I was making him do and some of the things that he's really opposed to these days are doing anything at all after school. He doesn't want to commit to or do anything after school. He just needs to relax after school. Okay, I get it. He also is very opposed to sitting at the dinner table for family dinner. He wants to just be on his own. Now, he is an introvert who goes to school all day, so I can appreciate the fact that he wants some alone time at some point. But what I was saying, and this is how he is the one who brought this to my attention, I said, "bud, we're all going to have dinner together. I'm sorry, but we're having dinner together. And he's like stop saying you're sorry, you're not sorry, and I thought you're right. I'm not sorry, I'm not, but what else do I say in this situation? So that's what kind of inspired me to look into this, and I have a few people in my life who I can think of women who apologize all the time when an apology is not necessary, and I think about, at work, in my corporate job, women apologizing for things that men would never apologize for. So this whole podcast is going to be about sorry - when to actually say sorry and then when to not say sorry and what to say instead in that situation. Okay, before I jump into that, since we're kind of in the midst of getting ready for the holidays, I have a couple of things I want to tell you about. One is, if you haven't listened to last week's podcast talking about tips for having a calmer holiday season, that is a great one to listen to. I have also been emailing out a tip every Wednesday, and I'll continue to do that through the end of the year. So if you're not already on my email list, you can go sign up for that at MichelleGauthier. com. Right on the homepage it says sign up for my emails. You can just do it right there. And then the third thing - this is looking ahead a little bit, but I'm offering a class on January 9th that is about planning your best 2024. So it's a workshop. In the workshop on the 9th, we're going to work through what went well for you in 2023, and what do you want to do or change or accomplish in 2024, and then we'll create like a blueprint for that that you can follow for the year. So it's going to be a live workshop. It'll be lots of fun. You'll get a lot accomplished, which is my favorite combination. The cost of that is $24 to get a whole plan for your 2024. So the link for that will be in the show notes as well. I'd love to see you. Okay, back to being sorry. Let's first talk about a really good reason to say sorry. That's when you have made a mistake and you regret it and you want to apologize to the person who was affected by this. To me, this is like the reason to say sorry, and everything else I'm going to talk about today are reasons to maybe say something, but sorry is not that thing. So recently I went on a trip with my mom, my sister, and my sister-in-law, and it was my mom's birthday, my birthday, and my sister-in-law's birthday, so the only one whose birthday it was not was my sister. So I got us all hoodies for the trip, and the birthday girls got a certain hoodie, and then I got my sister a hoodie, but a different one, and the reason why I did that is I didn't think that she would like the ones that I got for the birthday people, so I thought that I was like going out of my way to get her something that she would actually like instead of just getting her the same one that I got the birthday people. And it turns out I hurt her feelings. I didn't mean to hurt her feelings, but I hurt her feelings. And so she told me I wondered why you didn't get me that one. I really like it, I really want it, and so that to me is a perfect opportunity to say I'm sorry. So it's not like I made a mistake or tried to hurt her, but, I hurt her feelings, and I would never want to do that. So I said I'm so sorry, I did not think you would like it. I was thinking for you. I should have asked you or just gotten it, but I'm sorry that I hurt your feelings and made you feel left out, and I will send you one. And I just got online and bought the sweatshirt and sent her the one. So I think when you're going to actually say sorry, you should say it quickly, after the situation, after you realize, oh shoot, I did something wrong and I didn't mean to. So say it quickly, take responsibility for the fact that you made a decision or took an action or whatever. What I mean here is don't say, "I'm sorry that your feelings got hurt". Say I'm sorry that I didn't get you a sweatshirt that you wanted. See the difference there. Because just saying I'm sorry that your feelings got hurt sort of blames it on the person who has the hurt feelings. So say it, take responsibility for what you did - you don't have to explain a ton - and you have to right your wrong. So if it's something for example, if I mess up on scheduling a client and they text me and they're like, "Michelle, aren't we meeting right now?" And I look on my calendar and I don't have it on my calendar and say I accidentally scheduled it for tomorrow, I would say, oh my gosh, I have it on my calendar for tomorrow. That is totally my error. I made a scheduling mistake. I can still meet right now. If you can meet" or I can't meet right now, are you able to do tomorrow Like I'll resolve the situation and then say, "his shouldn't happen again? It was just because I rescheduled it and all of your appointments are normally scheduled for the same time, so this shouldn't happen again. I think it's helpful, too, to tell people, when it's something like that, sort of like, why it happened and reassure them that it won't happen again. So if you consider that, that is what I would say is a reason to actually say sorry and apologize. We can't not make mistakes - we're always gonna make mistakes. B ut we can be good apologizers, good at saying sorry. I think we probably all know someone who sucks at saying sorry, and it's so frustrating that that person can never just be like, "I'm sorry, I made a mistake, I was wrong, you were right", move on. It's very frustrating, so don't be that person. Now let's take a look at some of the reasons that we say sorry when we actually don't need to say sorry, and I'll give you some suggestions for what you can say instead. As I'm going through these examples. Just pay attention, as always, without judgment, and notice when you're doing some of these things and, if you are, just notice them and consider trying to substitute in some of these other ways to address the situation without being sorry. Okay, so number one reason why we say sorry - not number one in terms of like I've statistically analyzed this, just the first one that I'm going to talk about - is that we want to be liked and seem nice. It's the dang people- pleasing that comes up for all of us all the time. For example, if you're at a restaurant and your water is empty and you want some water, how likely are you to say, "I'm so sorry to bother you, but could you please bring me a water refill" to the waitress or whoever it is? It's nice to ask for that in a nice way, but are you really sorry? You're in a restaurant and she's doing her job, or he's doing his job, and you're doing your job of being a customer. Are you really sorry? I think you could say something like "I can see you have your hands full when you have a minute. Could you please bring me another glass of water? Or even just could I please have a water refill? There's really no need to be sorry about that. So if you have a tendency towards people pleasing, then notice. If you are saying sorry in an attempt to try to cushion a message that you're just asking someone for something, okay. The next one is tied to perfectionism. Another one of our favorites that we all tend to suffer from is that we're not living up to our own perfectionistic expectations. So we feel like guilty for not doing something that the other person wasn't expecting us to do in the first place. So, for example, you sign up to bring cookies for a school luncheon and you end up saying, when you bring them in, "Oh, I just made these lame cookies. I'm sorry, they're kind of boring. I didn't make a better variety. I wanted to make like four different kinds, but I just ran out of time. I mean, I stayed up to like midnight making these cookies" et cetera. So in your mind, you're criticizing yourself for not doing this over-the-top perfect job that you wanted to do in your own mind, and you are apologizing for that. And I think the receiver of that is going to be confused, like, "Oh well, you said you bring cookies and you brought cookies, so thanks for that. So instead of saying I'm sorry about that, you could just say here are the cookies I've made for the school lunch today and drop them off and just leave it at that. No apology needed in that situation. So when you're apologizing, check to see what am I apologizing for and whose expectations am I making this apology against. And if you have expectations, very high expectations of yourself, you're probably apologizing for something that the other person wasn't even looking for. Okay, another reason why we apologize to someone and say sorry is when we're trying to show empathy. So this is exactly what happened in that situation that I gave you at the beginning with my son, when I said, "I'm so sorry, bud, but you just have to have dinner with us tonight". What I was trying to say by my I'm sorry is "I can see that you don't want to do this. I can see that you're frustrated, or I can see that you're, you know, not feeling it to have dinner with us tonight, but you're gonna. It's pretty much what I was saying, and so if what you're really trying to do is show empathy for someone, another way to say it is I can see that you are frustrated, or you seem like you're frustrated, but we're gonna sit down for dinner for 20 minutes and eat dinner together. That's just the rule at our house. Or if a friend comes up to you and says, "oh my gosh, I just had the worst day at work", there's no reason for you to say "oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. Are you really sorry? Like, was there something that you did that created? Unless you're your friend's boss or work with that person, you probably have nothing to do with the situation. So think about is this my fault? Do I really have something to apologize for? What about instead saying something like oh no, tell me about it. Or or why was it the worst day ever? Ask them some questions so that they can tell you, instead of automatically defaulting to saying that you're sorry. Another reason why you might say sorry is when you don't understand and need more information on a situation. So this is like your typical, which I've seen a million times, I'm like picturing conference room after conference room where a woman will say, "I'm so sorry, but can I ask a stupid question?" Stupid question that just makes it even worse. This makes it sound like we're apologizing for even being in the meeting, being at the table, participating, and I have seen this come from women who are very powerful otherwise and know exactly that they should be in the room and know a lot more than the other people in the room. But even if you're the newest, greenest person and you have a question, you can just say "I have a question or even just ask your question. You don't have to be sorry for having a question. Having a question Indicates that you're listening and you're engaged and you're trying to gain understanding of what the person is saying. No need to apologize for that. I also think this is the last reason why I think we say sorry: it becomes a habit. I truly think that if you get into that mode and there must be some kind of thought of like, I'm a nuisance, or I'm a bother, that you can get into a habit where you almost apologize just for everything, like, "sorry, do you have a minute to talk?" Like if you call someone and you pick up the phone I have a friend who said this to me before and I'll say ello,", sorry, do you have time to talk? Why are you sorry? I, you know you don't have to be sorry for that and I think it just makes it feel like you don't believe that your presence is okay or that you should be there, or that you're bothering everyone. If you're in a store - this is one that I have recently caught myself doing and have stopped doing - if you're in a store like, let's just say, I'm in Target and I'm looking for a new shampoo, and I'm standing in the shampoo section, and if someone's anywhere near me in there also trying to look at shampoo, I would totally have a tendency to say, "oh, I'm sorry", and really what I'm doing is I'm standing there shopping, looking for something that I need. If someone wants to get in there, or I am blocking them, which I would not mean to do, I would just say, "oh excuse me, do you want to get in here too?" Like, why am I sorry for existing and shopping in a store that I meant to be shopping in? So I think in this case we can just drop the apology entirely and I think excuse me is a great way to say it if you're physically in someone's way. Now the other day I did run my cart straight into someone else's cart when I had my head turned. That was a legit sorry. She was nice about it, so that was good. So a couple other ways that you can just think about if you're trying to find words to replace I'm sorry is to say "I appreciate your patience as I'm working on this. Instead of saying I'm sorry for interrupting, you can say excuse me if somebody's doing like a little mansplaining to you, for example, instead of saying I'm sorry for interrupting, you can either just interrupt or say excuse me. Instead of saying "sorry I'm talking so much, you can say thanks for listening. I appreciate that I get to share my ideas with you. I think another thing that women tend to apologize for a lot in the workplace is for being emotional. I remember when I was like 30, yeah, I must have been about 30. One time I got teary at work. I was really upset. Someone had really hurt my feelings, a customer had been really mean to me and I kept saying "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry that I'm upset about this and I felt like shame for getting upset in the workplace. Like women aren't supposed to cry at work. Especially it makes you whatever, I don't know what, I thought it made me human or something. But a great way to say that instead is "thanks for listening to my perspective", or thanks for listening, cause I had gone into the CEO's office and said I'm not talking to this person ever again. He was just so horrible to me and I got all teary and apologized. But really just to say I feel really strongly about this. It does not feel right that someone can treat me like this. So thank you for listening to my perspective and if that makes you tear up or feel emotional, that's okay. It should. Well, it shouldn't if you're not the kind of person who would get upset about that, but for me it did. It hurt my feelings, it really did. All right. So I'm really sorry this podcast took so long. See how I would just negate the whole thing if I said that?? Thank you for sticking with me and listening to all the ways that we say sorry when we don't actually need to say sorry. I challenge you to just notice even just one of those kinds where you are saying sorry when you don't need to and try to change it. As I always say, the first key is noticing that you're doing it, then making the change, but never judging yourself. So if you're doing all five of the things that I just said, there's no need to judge yourself. It's just simply based on the way you were socialized, the cues that you got, information that you got, people you modeled yourself after - your brain got programmed, just like a computer, to react in a certain way. That's not your fault. There's nothing that you really need to be upset about. But if you wanna change it, you can start changing it now by changing your behavior. All right, that's a wrap for this week. I will talk to you next week. Have a great day. Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast. If you wanna learn more about my work, head over to my website at MichelleGauthier. com. See you next week. Fine, thanks for listening.
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