From People-Pleasing to Personal Power
A conversation with Dr. Sunita Sah on redefining defiance, breaking free from compliance, and finding your voice.
We’ve all been there. Someone asks you to do something that doesn’t feel right, but you smile and say yes anyway. A family member crosses a boundary, but you stay quiet to keep the peace.
For many of us—especially women—this pattern of compliance starts early and runs deep. We’re praised for being “good girls,” polite, and accommodating.
But at what cost?
Dr. Sunita Sah, a physician turned organizational psychologist, professor at Cornell University, and author of Defy: How to Speak Up When It Matters, has spent decades researching why we struggle to speak up and how we can reclaim our voice. In our recent conversation, she shared powerful insights on transforming compliance into authentic defiance.
Why Women Struggle to Say No
From the moment we’re born, we receive messages about what it means to be good. As Dr. Sah recalls, well-meaning relatives would ask about her baby son: “Is he good?” What they really meant was: Does he comply? Does he sleep when you want? Eat when you want? Not cry?
“We start at that stage, thinking good means compliance or fitting in, doing what other people want you to do, what’s expected of you,” she explains. Even her own name, Sunita, means “good” in Sanskrit—setting her up for what she calls “a masterclass in compliance.”
This early conditioning creates a powerful equation in our minds: compliance equals good, defiance equals bad. We learn that being polite, nice, obedient, and doing as we’re told makes us worthy of praise. But this framework leaves out a crucial question: What happens when compliance violates our values?
The Hidden Cost of Being Too Good
While we’re extensively trained in compliance, we rarely receive training in defiance. Yet constantly prioritizing others’ comfort over our own needs can lead to significant harm—both to ourselves and others.
“We give our children so much training in compliance, we also need to train them in defiance because just going along with what other people want can actually lead to harm,” Dr. Sah emphasizes.
The costs of compliance often go unexamined until we really lean in and pay attention. We might lose ourselves in trying to please everyone. We might fail to advocate for our children, our patients, or our own health. We might stay silent when policies harm vulnerable people. We might sacrifice our physical boundaries to avoid awkwardness.
Think about it: How often do you weigh the costs of speaking up (awkwardness, potential conflict, being seen as difficult) versus the costs of staying silent (betraying your values, enabling harm, losing yourself)?
Redefining Defiance: It’s Not What You Think
The word “defiance” carries heavy baggage. It sounds aggressive, loud, rebellious—maybe even violent or superhuman. But Dr. Sah offers a radically different definition that transforms defiance from something negative into something essential and positive.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, to defy means “to challenge the power of another person openly and boldly.” Dr. Sah disagrees with this narrow definition.
After decades of research, she arrived at this revelation:
To defy is simply to act in accordance with your true values, especially when there is pressure to do otherwise.
Dr Sunita Sah
This definition shifts everything. Defiance isn’t about being loud or dramatic. It’s about alignment with what matters most to you. It’s not about opposing others for the sake of opposition—it’s about honoring yourself.
Why It’s Easier to Defend Others Than Yourself
Many of us find it easier to speak up when someone else is on the line. As a mother, I can fiercely advocate for my daughters. As a healthcare provider, I’ll fight for my patients without hesitation. But advocating for myself? That’s a different story.
Dr. Sah calls this “the superpower of responsibility.” When we tap into our responsibility for others, we overcome psychological hurdles much more easily. We’re willing to be the “difficult patient” when seeking a second opinion for our child, but not for ourselves. We’ll challenge harmful school policies when they affect children, but stay silent about workplace issues that harm us.
“I find it so much easier to defy if it’s for my son than for myself,” Dr. Sah admits. “And I think we have to recognize the situations where we do find it easier and lean into that and think, well, what factors enabled me to do that? What factors usually make it harder for me to speak up?”
Understanding these patterns helps us identify where we need more practice.
Defiance Is a Skill, Not a Personality Trait
Here’s the empowering truth: Defiance isn’t a personality trait you either have or don’t have. It’s a skill you can develop and choose when to use.
“It’s not a personality because people tend to think of defiance as a character trait—you know, that person’s so defiant,” Dr. Sah explains. “It’s not really a description of a person. It’s a skill that we can choose to use or not.”
We can be compliant one day and defiant the next. The key is developing the ability to defy so it’s available to us when we need it. Like any skill, defiance requires practice—not just innate talent.
The Five Stages of Defiance
Dr. Sah outlines five stages we move through when contemplating defiance. You don’t have to experience every stage, and you can move back and forth, but understanding them helps you navigate the journey from internal desire to external action.
The process begins when two opposing forces collide: what you think is right versus what someone else expects of you. This collision creates internal tension that manifests differently in different people—a constricted throat, an uneasy stomach, a headache, dry mouth.
Step one: Recognize your warning signal. What does that internal tension feel like in your body? Often we disregard these signals, sweep them away, dismiss our anxiety or doubt. But that physical sensation is your compass telling you there’s a values conflict.
As Dr. Sah explains, “You really need to get to know what that warning signal is because often we disregard it. We sweep it away. We think it’s not worth our anxiety.”
Pay attention to these moments. They’re not random discomfort—they’re information.
Start Small: Practice in Low-Stakes Situations
You don’t need to start by confronting your boss or challenging systemic injustice. Begin where it feels manageable.
Dr. Sah recommends practicing in everyday situations that feel less risky. Maybe it’s saying no to an extra committee at work. Declining a social obligation that drains you. Asking for what you need at a restaurant. These small acts of defiance strengthen your neural pathways.
“We have been trained for compliance. That’s why it’s so easy to say yes, we fall into it and we’re polite and we smile,” she notes. “We need to practice pausing and bringing in something else and strengthening those neural pathways.”
- One powerful practice: Think about moments when you wish you had spoken up. Write down what you wish you had said. Practice saying it out loud. This mental rehearsal prepares you for the next time a similar situation arises.
“Use these opportunities where we didn’t act in alignment with our values and we have regret because often we ruminate on that,” Dr. Sah advises. “What is it that you wish you had said? Because the next time you’re in that situation, if you keep practicing it, that’s the thing that’s going to change the neural pathways.”
The Crocodile Smile: Recognizing False Compliance
Dr. Sah describes her “crocodile smile”—that automatic response when things are awkward or you feel pressure to appease someone. You smile, nod, and say “yes, okay” even when everything inside you is screaming no.
Many of us learned this behavior early. I grew up in a culture where hugging and greeting every “uncle” and “auntie” was mandatory, even when it felt deeply uncomfortable as a teenager. That forced physical affection taught compliance over bodily autonomy.
With my own daughters, I’ve worked to give them more choice. They can greet people warmly without sacrificing their physical boundaries. As Dr. Sah reminds us, “We can be polite but we can go against what’s expected and do something different. We’re making a choice as in, well, this is my physical space and this is what I feel comfortable with. There’s other ways to greet people.”
This is crucial: You can be polite AND maintain your boundaries. These aren’t mutually exclusive.
False Defiance: When Rebellion Isn’t Freedom
Not all defiance is created equal. Dr. Sah introduces the concept of “false defiance”—when we rebel simply to rebel, not because it aligns with our values.
She shares the example of her teenage son going through a phase of doing the exact opposite of whatever she asked. While this looks like defiance on the surface, it’s actually a form of compliance.
“He’s listening very intently to what I want and doing the exact opposite,” she explains. “So that’s actually a form of compliance. It’s just in opposition. This is false defiance, but we think of it as being defiant. It is oppositional, but it’s not true defiance.”
True defiance comes from within—from your values, not from reacting against someone else’s expectations.
Why Defiance Matters More Than Ever
In today’s climate of political turmoil, social unrest, and rapid change, the ability to defy—to act in alignment with our values—has never been more critical.
Many people are asking: When is it safe to defy? Is it safe to protest? What will happen to me, my family, my job?
Dr. Sah offers this perspective: There isn’t just one way to defy, and not everyone needs to protest in the streets. Defiance looks different for different people.
“Not everybody wants to go and protest in the way that we might see on TV,” she says. “There’s other ways to do it. You can be of help. You can make a phone call. You can write a letter. You can do what feels more natural to you.”
The key is not being a bystander. When we look at historical atrocities, only one to two percent of people were perpetrators. The vast majority—about 90 percent—were bystanders. Imagine if they had all done something small, something they were comfortable with. The collective impact would have been transformative.
“Whatever you can do just by advocating or helping, these are the things that we need to think about. How can I act in alignment with my values in a way that feels comfortable for me too?”
Name It to Tame It
One of Dr. Sah’s most practical pieces of advice: Name what you’re feeling to reduce its power over you.
When you feel uncomfortable about speaking up, identify the specific emotion or psychological process at play. Is it anxiety? Fear of conflict? Worry about being seen as difficult? Concern about damaging a relationship? Insinuation that you’re being unreasonable?
“We can name it to really tame it,” Dr. Sah says. Understanding the language of compliance, consent, defiance, anxiety, and fear makes it easier to navigate these situations.
This isn’t just about abstract concepts—it’s about giving yourself the vocabulary to understand your own experience and make conscious choices.
Moving Forward: Finding Your Defiant Voice
Whether you’re naturally inclined toward compliance or consider yourself comfortable with defiance, there’s value in examining your relationship with speaking up.
Dr. Sah has heard from activists who realized they could defy in public but struggled with defiance at the kitchen table, in personal relationships. She’s also heard from people who’ve carried the weight of moments they didn’t speak up, who finally understood why they acted as they did.
“I have had people come to me that they cried so much when they were reading the book because it was something that they’d been carrying with them for a long time and they just didn’t understand why they didn’t act in this particular way or why they did this,” she shares.
That burden of regret—of wishing you’d spoken up, of not understanding your own silence—can be lifted by understanding the psychology of compliance and defiance.
Your Practice Plan
Here’s how to start developing your defiance skills:
- 1. Identify your physical warning signals – Notice how your body responds when you’re being pressured to do something against your values.
- 2. Start small – Practice in low-stakes situations where the consequences feel manageable.
- 3. Reflect on regrets – Write down what you wish you’d said in past situations. Practice saying it.
- 4. Recognize your strengths – Notice when you find it easier to speak up (for others, at work, with family) and understand why.
- 5. Name your feelings – Put words to what’s making you uncomfortable or holding you back.
- 6. Remember: Politeness and boundaries can coexist – You don’t have to choose between being kind and honoring your values.
- 7. Define your values – You can’t act in alignment with your values if you haven’t identified them.
- 8. Find your natural style – Defiance doesn’t have to be loud or dramatic. It can be quiet, thoughtful, and completely authentic to who you are.
The Bottom Line
Defiance isn’t about being difficult, rebellious, or aggressive. It’s about honoring what matters most to you, especially when there’s pressure to do otherwise.
We’ve been extensively trained in compliance from the day we were born. Now it’s time to give ourselves permission—and practice—to speak up, set boundaries, and act in alignment with our true values.
As Dr. Sah reminds us, defiance is available to all of us. It’s a skill we can develop, strengthen, and choose to use. And in a world that so often demands our compliance, that skill might be one of the most important we can cultivate.
Start today. Notice that moment of internal tension. Name what you’re feeling. Practice your response. And remember: you can be good, polite, and kind while still defending what matters most.
Dr. Sunita Sah’s book, “Defy: The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes,” offers a comprehensive framework for understanding compliance, developing defiance skills, and acting in alignment with your values. Her research and insights provide both the psychology behind our struggles to speak up and practical tools for finding our voice.
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