Learn to say NO!

 

Learn to say NO! 

Many of us feel compelled to agree to every request and would rather juggle a million jobs than refuse to help, even if we are left with no time for ourselves. Learning to say no can earn you respect from yourself as well those around you. So why do we continue to say yes? It could be that we believe that saying no is uncaring, even selfish, and we may have a fear of letting other people down. On top of this may be a fear of being disliked, criticized, or risking a friendship. The first step to find the word NO is to get a little angry about all the time, energy and money you have spent saying yes to things that you could have said no to. How many coffees have you had with people you didn’t want to have coffee with? How many weddings have you been to that you didn’t really want to attend? 

Did you ever wonder why it was so easy to say no when you were a little kid and why it has become so difficult now? Well, as children, we learned that saying no was impolite or inappropriate. If you say no to your mom, dad, teacher, uncle, grandparents and so on, you were most certainly considered to be being rude and you would probably been told off for it. Saying no was off limits and yes was the polite and likable thing to say. Now that we are all adults, we are more mature and capable of making our own choices, as well as knowing the difference between wrong and right. Therefore, no shouldn’t be an off-limit word, but rather something that we decide on ourselves, based on our own decision.

In this book “The Power of NO”, entrepreneur and author James Althucher wrote: “When you say yes to something, you don’t want to do. You hate what you are doing, you resent the person who asked you, and you hurt yourself.” Interestingly, the ability to say no is closely linked to self-confidence. People with low self-confidence and self-esteem often feel nervous about antagonizing others and tend to rate other’s needs more highly than their own. Being unable to say no can make you exhausted, stressed and irritable. It could be undermining any efforts you make to improve your quality of life if you spend hours worrying over how to get out of an already-promised commitment. If your spare time is taken up with committee meetings and myriad other engagements, your family may be suffering. 

Sometimes people also couldn’t say no to please people and pleasing people is something a lot of individuals battle with. They like to care and nurture, make sure everyone is feeling good and get excited about things that others are excited about. But after a while they realize that saying yes to everything that comes their way often leaves them saying no to themselves and their most important people too.

If you are still struggling to say no, bear in mind what the billionaire businessman Warren Buffet famously said: “Successful people say no to almost everything.” Saying no allows you to say yes to what is important to you. It allows you to be a better person because when you say yes, it comes from a good place, not from resentment or fear. It creates space for what matters most to you, rather than drowning in business, like most of us are and consider this that if you said no more, what could you say yes to? A common way to start out is “I’m sorry, but” as people think that it sounds more polite. While politeness is important when you learn to say no, apologizing just makes it sound weaker. You need to be firm and unapologetic about guarding your time. You always have to allow the possibilities to inspire your no.