I recently received a request from a friend asking me to join for dinner on Wednesday. I simply did not feel comfortable driving 50 kilometres one way in the middle of the week evening. I had two options: 1. I could say yes. 2. I could say no. I went with the second option.
Like me, you must be receiving numerous requests, whether formal and informal, large and small, on a daily basis. They can be from bosses, teammates, and customers. Add to this the demands of family, friends, and acquaintances, and sometimes even of complete strangers. The requests keep coming, across tables and through zoom screens, by phone, e-mail, and instant message. And your professional success and personal well-being depend on how you manage it.
We all know saying yes, in most cases, indicates positive connotation and reassurance. That’s why we are happy to either give or receive yes. But this people pleasing habit can lead to chronic scarcity — not enough time, not enough sleep, not enough money, not enough bandwidth to think clearly, claims award-winning researcher at Yale University Zoe Chance, in her recent book ‘Influence is your Superpower’. Stress and exhaustion can be common and these can even temporarily lower IQ and bias people toward unpleasant memories, hampering their ability to make good decisions. These effects extend beyond ourselves. Managers who felt overwhelmed ran teams with worst performance and lowest profits, claims Zoe Chance in her book.
Despite these negative impacts, you might wonder, why don’t we say no more often? One of the main reasons for this is we fear rejection, anger or just the uncertainty of what the other person’s response will be when we say no. Saying no also feels like we are being aggressive, we are being a bad person who is letting the other person down. We don’t want to look as if we are an uncaring or unhelpful person. As a result, we usually go the path of least potential conflict and often end up saying ‘yes’ to a lot of things.
Our people-pleasing habit is often rooted in childhood. We have been raised to be a good kid, appreciated for being parent’s little helper. Or we might not have been given enough attention, and so sought it by pleasing others, even at the expense of ourselves. That’s why we try to say yes when someone makes a request or an invitation because it would be impolite not to. Yet, when we ourselves are in need, it seems rude to bother other people by asking for assistance. Somehow, we have been taught to be both generous and self-sufficient without considering how much this depletes us, claims Zoe Chance in her book.
We say yes not only to please others. There are other factors in play too. Zoe Chance’s book ‘Influence is your Superpower’ points to some of these factors. One factor can be fear of missing out or FOMO. When given an exclusive or a limited time opportunity, we might get a big bout of FOMO. Another issue is reciprocity — if we say yes, the other person will owe us a favor. And finally, many of us love to help. If life has been good to us, we want to pay it forward. Conversely, if life has been hit hard, we want to protect others from suffering like we did.
However, saying yes regularly can leave you exhausted and stressed, which has a negative impact on your personal and business relationships, and your emotional, mental and physical health. In his book ‘The Power of No’, entrepreneur and author 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.” So start reclaiming your time, relationships and your wellbeing by saying ‘No, thank you!’ more often.
It takes courage to say no, but it maintains liberty by setting boundaries. Saying no will help you figure out what self-imposed burdens you can learn to avoid. It will help you manage your opportunity costs. What will you have to say no to if you say yes to this? What can you say yes to if you say no to this?
So, following Zoe Chance, I invite you to say no for the next 24 hours and create some more space in your life — no to working late, no to your professional advice for free, no to drinking alcohol after meal, no to your relative who invites you to a mid-week dinner, no to a coffee catch-up, no to an upsell at your salon. Say no to every person and request for the next 24 hours and see what happens. Observe how you feel? How do others react?
The no challenge is not about only saying no to your guilty pleasures. It’s about saying no to people close to you, even to things you want to do, even to things that are small. This No Challenge is about being kind to yourself and giving you permission to take up more space in the world.
As you go on saying no, try not to explain yourself more than you have to. ‘No, thank you!’ is a polite complete sentence. Be warm, clear and firm. More often, we say no in an ineffective way — we say no with an excuse. For example, we might say, “I’d like to come for dinner but I’ve an early start the next day. So I can’t make it.” The problem with this approach is it gives the other person an opportunity to continue to ask. He or she feels there’s an opening. “Since you can’t this Wednesday, how about next Wednesday?”
So when you say no to some requests, don’t beat around the bush or offer weak excuses. Stand firm, and don’t feel compelled to give in just because you feel the other person is uncomfortable. Be assertive but courteous. Put your needs first.
When you say no, believe me it won’t be as bad as you think. People won’t hate you. You may find it exhilarating, empowering and practical. As Zoe Chance writes in her book, at the most basic level, saying no helps us take care of our own needs. But saying no to others is also the implicit permission you give others to say no too. You’ll learn that when people ask for something, they aren’t pressuring you, they’re simply asking. They understand you can’t do it and they are ok with it. Asking for something is not a life or death situation in most cases.
Perhaps we can learn from Warren Buffett, who said, “The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say no to almost everything.” The delivery of a “no” is a critical skill required for our professional success and personal well-being. So let’s start with a 24 hour challenge. Once you get comfortable saying and hearing no, increase it to a week and then to a month.
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