It’s okay to say “NO”

Many of us have difficulty saying no, fearing rejection, anger, or simply the uncertainty of the other person's response. We might have been brought up to be a decent girl or boy, adored for being “mummy’s little helper”, or we might not have been getting sufficient attention, and so strived it by pleasuring others, even as the damage of ourselves.

We can get used to saying yes and liking other people so much that we don't even know what we want or what our needs are. But if your life is so tightly sealed with other people’s recommendations that you don’t keep time for what is significant to you – or worse, your cognitive fitness is in danger – it is time to make a difference.

The initial step in learning the word “NO” is to get slightly angry about all the time, stability, and money you have paid saying yes to stuff that you could have said no to. How much coffee did you take with people you didn't want? How many weddings did you go to that you never wanted to see? How many hours of cumbersome meetings did you have when you didn't have a reason to be here?

You might raise a question to yourself: “What’s wrong with saying yes and making the nation pleased?” It might be a heavy pill to swallow, but contemplate this: obsessive people-pleasing can be a shape of manipulation. The professor and writer Byron Katie sums it up gaily: “It’s the biggest fallacy that ‘I can manipulate you to love me.” We as kids make sure ourselves that we’re just being respectable people by empowering others, but aspects can twist suddenly stale when our desires aren’t confronted.

In his book, The Power of No, the writer James Altucher writes: “When you say yes to something you don’t want to do, here is the result: you hate what you are doing, you resent the person who asked you, and you hurt yourself.” When it is appearing from a position of modest manipulation or even irritation, can say yes when you signify no ever be a nice thing?

To begin restoring your time and your cognitive well-being by saying no more, tune into what it is that you wish. Rather than saying yes on instinct, get into the manner of inquiring yourself: “Am I accepting this for me?” Commence with the small stuff, such as when you are asked for a drink at the barber’s or if somebody asks you for an irrelevant flavor. Understand to recognize what saying yes and no feel like in your torso. Yes might feel comprehensive, while no might feel contracting; find out to pay interest.

Does the feeling of saying no to the person to their face fill you with fear? If you are put in the position and pleaded to support with something that you don’t have the capability for, but you cannot bear to turn somebody down, buy yourself some extra space. “Ask people to text or email you their request so you can get back to them,” says Vanessa Van Edwards, founder of the human behavior research lab, Science of People. “It’s flawlessly acceptable for you to say that you want to examine your plan before answering.” This enables you to check in with yourself about what you want, and find the true words (or the motivation) with which to decline them.

If you are still battling to say no, keep in mind what the billionaire businessman Warren Buffet famously said: “Successful people say no to almost everything.” Saying no enables you to say yes to what is valuable to you. It authorizes you to be a nicer person because when you say yes, it appears from a good position, not from bitterness or terror. It builds a space for what is important to you, instead of drenching you in a busy life, like most of us are.