The Art of a Good "No Thank You"
If “yes” and “no” were positioned on a spectrum with yes on the right and no on the left, where along that continuum would you locate yourself? Do you have more of a problem with yes’s or no’s?
Tuesday, March 29, 2022
If “yes” and “no” were positioned on a spectrum with yes on the right and no on the left, where along that continuum would you locate yourself? Do you have more of a problem with yes’s or no’s?
Extreme “yes” people are overburdened, overbooked and at risk for losing life force fast. Extreme “no” people are highly defensive and at risk for being regarded as a non-team player and living very small back there behind their barricade. But there is a sweet spot somewhere in the middle in which a person contributes to the greater good and is also able to get ahead but does so from a place of carefully maintained vitality. As the saying goes, a car without gas doesn’t go. Fumes will only take us so far.
Life up to this point has already shown you that there will never be an end to the ways you will be asked to spend your time and resources and prioritize your life. By way of example, you may be asked to:
- Join the PTA
- Recommit to a new term on a Board
- Agree to a weekly Sunday dinner with your in-laws
- Provide caregiving
- Loan or donate money
- Take on projects
Strategies for no
None of those asks are bad, per se, but they all take something from us, even if they also give something in return. If you are a person in the habit of the automatic (or even foot dragging) yes, here is how to recover your power:
- Delay your response by necessarily and automatically responding with a “Sounds interesting; let me think about it.”
- Evaluate each request to see how it fits within your own objectives, schedule, desire, other commitments and ability to maintain your health and wellbeing
- If you find it doesn’t align with all the stuff in the previous bullet, you can soften the no by offering an alternative, taking on one small and manageable piece of the request, and/or indicating that there may be space in your life down the road
- If the request is something you would like to include in your life, consider if there are other commitments you can step away from to re-balance the scale
It helps to remember that you have objectives of your own for what you are trying to accomplish in your life. You may find your own goals going out the window – including the goal of health and wellbeing -- if you are always there to take it on. You may also find yourself being an ever-available dumping ground.
Consider this: being able to say no is a form of self-advocacy, self-preservation and self-respect. Learn more about how to do that in Happify Daily’s
“How to Master the Art of Advocating for Yourself and start discovering the power of the well-considered “No thank you,” as the parents these days say to their young children when being pummeled by frustrated toddler punches or other displays of bad behavior. I love that…how it turns an act of aggression into an
offering of aggression.
To a wellbeing-informed response,
E
Source: ©2022 United Benefit Advisors, LLC.