Has anyone else noticed that as they have gotten to be of a certain age, they have a firmer stop on things they don’t want to do? I am inching toward 40, and it’s become so much easier for me to say no and set a firmer boundary (and admittedly, that is happening more often than not) than it was when I was younger. Heck, even just a few years ago.
While younger me might have forced myself to go out to eat or to a party or event because I didn’t want to disappoint anyone, older me finds myself thinking (and saying), “Actually, no.”
That shift can be especially noticeable for women who spend years being expected to be agreeable, accommodating, and available. But according to Dr. Natasha Correa, a licensed clinical psychologist at Curry Psychology Group in Orange County, California, there are several reasons women may become more protective of their time, energy, and emotional bandwidth as they get older.
One of them is simply the weight of everything they have been carrying.
“It will eventually weigh on you so much that you realize that something has to change,” she tells Scary Mommy.
It’s undeniable that as women move through adulthood, the list of responsibilities can get longer and longer. There’s a career, a partner, children, friendships, aging parents, household responsibilities, and the seemingly endless mental list of things that need to be remembered, scheduled, and handled. Eventually, Correa says, many women realize they cannot keep pouring themselves into everything and everyone without making some changes, and because we can’t control other people, the place to start is often with ourselves.
“It’s a combination of recognizing things aren’t working quite the way that they used to work when we were younger … that tends to be pretty overwhelming,” Correa says.
This doesn’t mean every woman experiences this shift, and age alone isn’t necessarily responsible for it. Correa says individual tolerance for overwhelm, life circumstances, and personal experiences all play a role. Hormonal changes may also be part of the equation for some women, particularly during perimenopause and menopause.
“There’s a hormonal change that’s going on in a woman’s life at around that time that’s unlike any other period of time in their life,” she explains.
Correa says there may be another important reason saying no starts to get easier. Simply put: We become more aware of what actually matters to us.
When you’re younger, it can be easy to make decisions based on what you think you should do. You go because you don’t want to disappoint someone or squeeze one more thing into an already packed schedule because everyone else needs something from you. Correa says age and experience make us more comfortable asking ourselves, Does this actually align with the life I want?
“It’s this interconnection between really paying more attention to what we value, what we want out of life, what version of ourselves we want to be, and the steps that we need to take to move closer to our values,” the California-based psychologist says.
Correa explains that distinction is important, because protecting your energy isn’t necessarily about choosing yourself every single time, but making intentional choices instead of automatically saying yes out of guilt.
If health and wellness are important to you, for example, choosing your workout over an obligation may feel less selfish when you recognize that you’re making a decision based on your values. But if connection is one of your core values, you may also decide to drag yourself out of the house for dinner with a friend when you’re exhausted because maintaining that relationship matters to you, too.
The key is not making every decision based on how you feel in the moment. “Feelings are very temporary, right? They come and they go,” Correa says.
The difference can come down to whether the decision is helping you move toward the life you actually want or just allowing you to avoid discomfort. Correa says that discomfort is particularly important for women, who may have been taught from an early age that being a “good” woman means being agreeable and accommodating.
“Often, we grow up in a culture or society (and) get messages from even our own families or friends that we should act a certain way, that we should show up a certain way, that this is what a woman is meant to be like, and so, if we do something that goes against that, that feels very uncomfortable. It feels almost impossible,” she says.
So, the first few times you say no, advocate for yourself, it can feel incredibly uncomfortable, but that discomfort doesn’t necessarily mean you’re doing something wrong.
“Once we do it a few times, again, making decisions that are in line with our values, not just saying no for nothing, then we realize, ‘Hey, this actually is not as bad as I thought it was going to be’,” she says. “Being able to advocate for yourself reinforces self-respect.”
Correa describes boundaries less like a wall and more like a net. Sometimes the holes are smaller, and sometimes they’re larger, depending on the person and the situation. For example, a boundary with a partner looks completely different from a boundary with a toddler.
“It’s person-dependent, situation-dependent, and it’s a flexible, active process,” she says.
Correa says there is a point where saying no to everything may be worth examining. If you notice that you’re consistently withdrawing from friends and loved ones, losing interest in things you once enjoyed, or experiencing other changes such as difficulty sleeping, trouble concentrating, or feeling depressed, the issue may be bigger than just becoming more protective of your time.
And if a friend who normally loves getting together suddenly starts declining every invitation, Correa says it’s worth getting curious rather than judgmental. “Not to attack them, not to blame them, not to jump to assumptions or conclusions, but to get curious about what’s going on for them,” she says.
Correa emphasizes that getting older doesn’t have to mean caring less about other people. It can mean becoming more honest about how much of yourself you have to give and more thoughtful about where you choose to give it.
“We don’t want to disappoint ourselves just to avoid disappointing someone else,” she says. “I think if someone is very in tune with what they value in their life, it makes it easier to make these decisions.”
