How to Say NO

Nancy Reagan may have been onto something much bigger than just saying no to drugs when she launched the campaign in the eighties. Saying NO is one of the hardest things for many of us to do.  It’s also necessary if we intend to have the life of our dreams.

There are many reasons we say YES when we want to say NO. We don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. We want to be liked and we don’t want to be seen as selfish.  While most of us want to help others, we have to remember when we say YES to them, we might be saying NO to ourselves.

In order to say YES to what’s important, follow these 6 tips to help you say NO to everything else.

1.  Define your goals. A goal can be as simple as spending more time with friends and family. When someone asks you to do something, compare it to your goal. If it doesn’t match or complement, say NO. There’s nothing selfish about it, you are honoring your boundaries.
2.  Be direct, yet graceful.  Make sure to be clear when you say NO.   The best way is to keep it simple and straightforward, “No I can’t, but thank you for asking.”  One of my favorites when I want to say YES but it doesn’t make sense is, “While my heart wants to say yes, my calendar makes this a no for me. Thank you for thinking of me.”  Another option is to say NO to the request, but offer something smaller that you can do, “While I can’t make it to the meeting, I have a couple ideas I could share with you.”
3.  No excuses necessary. NO is a complete sentence.  While it’s natural to want to justify, it’s not necessary.  If you choose to share why, that’s ok as long as you are honest.  We don’t have room for guilt in our lives.
4.  MAYBE = a future YES. You’re just delaying the inevitable YES when you say MAYBE. If you want to say YES and aren’t sure it’s the right choice, tell them you will check your calendar and get back to them. It gives you time to consider what’s best and you’re more likely to say, NO when you take pause before answering. If you want to say NO, MAYBE is not the path to get you there.
5.  Stop saying YES when you mean NO. The only response worse than MAYBE, is YES when you want to say NO. You’ll end up feeling overscheduled, trapped and resentful which are feelings that pull us away from our goals. It also keeps us too busy to say YES when you really want to. Save yourself the trouble and just say NO.
6.  Create white space/flex time. For times you want to say YES, use this time to honor those commitments. If this time fills with activity, it’s your reminder the next request might be a NO.  This space can also be used to do something in line with your goals or do nothing at all.  Sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves is spend a couple hours with a good book or an evening out with friends.

Saying NO is about setting boundaries in your personal and business life and leaving space for yourself. Empower yourself by learning to say NO. You’ll thank me for it later.

If you’re looking for ways to improve your life, click here to contact me.  Let’s talk!