214 - Saying No with Confidence: How to Stop People-Pleasing and Set Boundaries | Life Happens Podcast
Life Happens with Barb & Michelle
Michelle Maros & Barb Schmidt
4.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 15 July 2025
⏱️ 66 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Learn how you can empower yourself to say no with confidence, stop people-pleasing, and set boundaries to cultivate healthy connections.
In this episode of Life Happens with Barb and Michelle, we’re talking about the art of saying no with confidence—why it’s so hard, how people-pleasing steals our joy, and how honoring your needs can lead to deeper, more authentic relationships.
With personal stories, vulnerable reflection, and practical advice, this episode will give you the courage to pause, speak your truth, and set boundaries that support your well-being.
What you’ll learn:
- Why saying no matters—and how it builds self-worth
- How people-pleasing leads to resentment and burnout
- Learning to prioritize your needs without guilt
- The fear of being excluded and how to move through it
- Saying yes out of obligation vs. alignment
- Tools to pause, reflect, and respond from your authentic self
💌 Struggling to say no and reclaim your confidence? Start your day with “Dear Friend” – Michelle’s new book filled with daily encouragement and clarity. Preorder now at thedearfriendbook.com.
If you’ve ever felt pressure to say yes when your heart is screaming no—this episode is for you.
Leave a comment with what resonated most. We’d love to hear your story.
Episode topics:
We’re so grateful you’re here with us. As a mother-daughter duo, we’re passionate about having honest conversations about the struggles we all face—and the healing that’s possible when we start from within.
This July, we’re diving deep into confidence, self-worth, self-advocacy, and purpose—beginning with the relationship we have with our bodies. In past episodes, we’ve unpacked how early experiences and cultural messages shape our self-image, why external validation never fills the void, and how to reclaim your worth one kind thought at a time.
We're challenging the beliefs that tell us we have to look a certain way to be enough. Because you are enough—just as you are.
And in this episode, we're expanding that conversation by exploring the art of saying no with confidence—honoring your needs, setting boundaries, and showing up fully as your authentic self.
Join us next Tuesday for another heartfelt and healing episode of Life Happens with Barb Michelle! 💕
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey friends, welcome back to Life Happens podcast. It is me, Michelle, and I'm yet again here with |
| 0:06.0 | my mom, Barb, and we're excited to chat with you all again this week about life and the things |
| 0:11.3 | that happen all along the way. Hey, Mom, how you doing? I'm good. How's it going being you? |
| 0:18.2 | It's going fantastic. I'm looking forward to our conversation today. |
| 0:21.6 | Yeah. |
| 0:22.6 | This is a topic that you and I have chatted about. |
| 0:26.6 | I know we've talked about it briefly on the show in the past, |
| 0:30.6 | but as life takes us on our journeys and provides opportunities for new lessons and growth, |
| 0:41.2 | we have new insights on it. And it's not always easy being human. It's not easy being empathetic |
| 0:49.4 | humans. It's not easy knowing how to make decisions, how to make choices. |
| 0:56.5 | And I think, like we say so often on the show, it's our intention to share our lived experiences |
| 1:02.8 | to maybe hopefully help our viewers, our listeners navigate life. |
| 1:08.0 | And I'm really excited and hopeful that today's conversation will help so many |
| 1:14.0 | navigate, I think, a tricky dynamic that many of us often face. Yeah, it's really difficult. |
| 1:19.6 | You and I even had a huge conversation about it before we even sat down here. And it's, |
| 1:23.5 | I think it's prevalent with just about everyone. At one point or another, I think, yes. |
| 1:29.3 | I was just going to add that. |
| 1:30.3 | At one point and another, we come into this space of having difficulty knowing how to say no. |
| 1:36.3 | Ooh. |
| 1:37.3 | I broke it. |
| 1:38.3 | I broke it fast. |
| 1:39.3 | Yep. |
... |
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