How To Say NO

I’m going to show you the tactics I use to make it easier for me to say No.

I am a total people pleaser and a lot of times it’s really hard for me to say “No”. But I developed these tactics that I use and a mental checklist that I go through which has helped me get my priorities straight and be able to say No.

1. Look at your background or childhood

People who are people pleasers most of the time can’t say “no” because they feel like they aren’t enough, that by doing things for other people that’s how they validate their self-worth. They feel as though the only way that they will be worth something like they are important like they do matter, is by doing things for other people. It’s the way you've raised. It’s how your family dynamics was and that’s how you developed your sense of self and sense of worth. Let’s say you came from a family that was kind of a mesh, like everyone’s feelings, are all over the place if one person wasn’t happy and everyone wasn’t happy and you had to tiptoe around certain people because you were afraid to say the wrong thing. Or that you came from a family that was very authoritative that whatever they said went and that’s it. You never got to explore yourself, developed a sense of self and you never got to figure out what it is that you like, who it is that you are and what really, truly makes you happy because you were busy trying to please other people. So it comes from your childhood, if you think back of your childhood, how you were brought up, I’m sure you can pinpoint it to something that happened or the type of family dynamics that you had.

So having said that, here’s what I do. It really helps me to figure out if I should be saying “yes” to things. Sometimes we feel like we will be missing out on things to all these people or things or opportunities, sometimes we have a fear of missing out, right? We feel like nothing better will come along so I have to say “yes” to this one thing. Here’s the thing, if you find yourself saying “Oh this is the opportunity of a lifetime nothing better will ever come along,” and that is the reason why you say “yes” to this opportunity then that means you need to say “no”. There is will always be something better that will come along. The only time that you should be saying “yes” to an opportunity or something that it’s going to be taking a lot of your time and energy is when you really want to say “yes” and you know without a doubt. So the thought that “oh, nothing better going to come along,” should not cross in your mind, that’s fear of missing out. So, when I find myself thinking that, I have learned from experience, from intuition, that I should say “no thank you,” “not now,” “not this time,” “now is not a good time,” “maybe later,” and this comes from practice.

2. Know your priorities.

Know what your goals are, thirty days, ninety days, those are the things that matter to you right now. Priorities change, nothing is set in stone. Just because, let’s say me growing my online business right now is my priority it doesn’t mean it will be my priority two months from now. So priorities change. Right now your priority might be spending more time with your kids. It might be to read five books in the next thirty days whatever your priorities are they change.

So know what your current priorities are. Pick three or five of them and then when things come along, people ask you to do things, think about, “Do these honor my priorities?” “Should I be saying yes to this?” “Do I really need to be doing this?” “Is it going to be wasting my time really,” or “Is it going to be adding value,” “Will it help these priorities,”  “Will it help me get to my goal in the next thirty days, ninety days, sixty days?” 

Knowing your priorities helps you be okay with saying no, because you know what matters.

3. Tell them, “Can I get back to you on this?”

I usually tell the person asking me to do something, if I’m a little bit hesitant, “Can I get back to you on this?” It’s okay to do that because it’s your decision. You don’t have to answer them right away. They should be okay with waiting and you should be okay saying, “Look, I need a day or two to think about it but if you need an answer right now it’s a no.” I’m usually impulsive and I tend to impulsively say “yes”. But I found that when I have a little bit of time to think about it, my thought process kicks in. I make more grounded decisions and I realize that I probably should be saying No to this because it’s not the right time, it doesn’t honor my priorities and then I’m usually okay with that decision.

4. Have a set of policies.

I learned from Smart Success this year that Chalene Johnson and her husband have a set of policies. They have stuff that they’ve gone through and things that work. They don’t stray away from those policies until they speak to each other and they decide that it’s ok.

So what are a set of personal policies? For example, Chalene said, “We don’t travel back to back.” That’s it. It’s a policy, like a rule. When they are on a trip they come back, they won’t immediately go on another trip again. Now, whatever their reason is for doing that they’ve probably been through an experience and made them realize that was the best decision.
So when you have policies in place, it makes it easier for you to say “yes” or “no” because it’s your rule. So it’s easier to say “no” when you have to. Another policy that you can have is that I don’t do anything over the weekend except spend time with my family and friends. So when other opportunities come, it’s easier to say “no” because it’s a personal policy. It’s going to be different from person to person. Someone might be okay just working 24 hours a day, that’s them. So decide what kind of personal policy you want to have and if you have a partner, decide with your partner.

Now, of course, there are times where you need to kind of stay away from those policies. There are exceptions but that’s when you need to evaluate all your options and you need to ask yourself, “Is it worth it for me to break this policy?” “Will the outcome will be more than what this policy means to me,” “Is it okay if I break it?”

So those are my four little ways on how you can be able to make better decisions and you be able to say “no”. When we just keep saying “yes” and we have so much on our plate and then we can’t concentrate on what we are trying to do. Because we all are trying to be better. We are trying to change the world, whether you know it or not you really are because you’re you and there’s no one else like you.

You have a unique gift the world needs. It’s been there since you were born.

You need to spend time doing the things that matter to you and things that make you happy because that is your gift to the world!