How to recognise on time that I should refuse

I struggle with being taken advantage of, I was even told that at work by a manager. The lady is our bosses assistant. She asked me if I'm afraid of refusing. I'm not sure if I'm afraid... I just don't recognise on time, or not myself at all, that I should have refused to someone. It looks like people pleasing, but its not my intention. I obviously don't get people's intentions. I'm like a child- assume that all people are good and don't want any harm for me. Unfortunately I got it a hard way and although I already know from my experience,  that absolutely not all people are good with good intentions,  I still fall into this trap. Someone tells me to do something or go somewhere.  I do it automatically. Like a robot. And maybe only later I would analyse the situation and come to a very unpleasant and uncomfortable conclusion,  that I was taken advantage of. It's since ever. In my childhood it was same, I had some very painful memories of being bullied thus way.

Thus is one of the reasons, why I feel inferior to others. It's hard at work. The world is crazy, too fast, too complicated and I have to take decisions in real time. I'm too slow.

Sorry for this post. Has anyone experience or advice? Would be appreciated. 

  • Thank you, I can and do refuse if it's a conversation that I prepared in my head in advance.  But my work environment is pretty unpredictable.  I will try to sort out the situations that already happened.  But I can't predict everything. My colleagues noticed that im vulnerable and I'm ashamed of it and worried they will take advantage of me more

  • I don't know if your work environment is predictable enough to imagine likely scenarios. I used to think up things that could happen and then think how I should respond a d how I should feel. It was sort of scripting or planning to enable masking.

    You can work out what you should say yes or no to, then when it happens you don't have to think because you recognise it.

    An alternative is to ask at the time if you can have a few minutes to think about it. This might be long enough for you to realise whether it is ok or not.

    I try to avoid possible rejection and conflict, so setting boundaries is hard.