Say No Series – Post II: The Making of No
by Laurie Wilhelm
Whether or not we decide to say ‘no’ isn’t a social skills issue – that’s our choice. How we say ‘no’ is a social skill and a communication skill. If, after being asked to host next week’s club meeting, we exclaim, “What? Are you crazy?? You’ve got to be kidding if you think I’m going to do that. No way!” we’re not showing good interpersonal relationship skills. Saying ‘no’ in a way that declines a request respectfully is a positive social skill.
This is the second post of the three post series, Say No. To read Post I: What Happens When You Can’t Say No, click here.
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Saying ‘yes’ to what we want can mean saying ‘no’ to what we don’t want – which usually involves saying ‘no’ to other people. I’ve always found that to be really hard. Even though we sometimes want to say ‘no,’ we say ‘yes’ out of guilt or embarrassment; other times we feel awkward or nervous and saying ‘yes’ is the easiest way out…at least it seems to be so at the time.
Since I had a hard time saying ‘no,’ I researched a variety of recommendations on how to do it. Unfortunately, most didn’t feel right to me:
- stand tall, shake your head, and assertively say, “No.” … I wasn’t comfortable using that method; it seemed too blunt.
- don’t apologize when saying ‘no.’ … Makes sense because there’s nothing wrong with saying ‘no’ but I couldn’t do that either, sorry. I felt badly when I was saying ‘no’ so apologizing just made beginning the ‘no’ process easier for me.
- “Let me think about it and I’ll get back to you.” … This just prolonged the agony of saying ‘no.’ I wanted to decline and get it over with.
I had to figure out a ‘no’ that I could actually say; I wasn’t comfortable blurting out the two letter word. I had to communicate it in a way that ‘no’ was understood, but wasn’t so…no-ish.
Learning to say ‘no’ was a process. I had a ‘yes’ habit and couldn’t quit cold turkey. I needed to ease into ‘no’ and I knew that if I didn’t prepare for it in advance, I’d fall back into my knee-jerk ‘yes.’ So I thought of situations that had come up previously and considered ways I could have said ‘no’:
Q1: Can you take care of my cats for the next two weeks while I’m on vacation?
A1: Sorry, I’m not available to do that but I’m sure you’ll easily find someone else who can.
Q2: Can you arrange the after work get-together?
A2: Sorry, I’ve got a lot on my plate right now and need to focus on my work. I’ll have to pass.
Q3: Can you pick me up from XYZ place at 2pm?
A3: Sorry, I’ve got plans then and won’t be able to.
Q4: We’re having a BBQ on Saturday – care to join us?
A4: Thanks for the invitation; I would have loved to come but I’ve got a lot on the go right now and won’t be able to come by.
These were just ideas of how I could approach saying ‘no’…which was actually replacing the word ‘no’ with ‘sorry’. Hey, it was a start.
I also realized that there were times that I wanted to say ‘yes’ if the situation was just a bit different. For example, while I couldn’t help out this weekend, I could the next. I learned to stop and consider what was being asked of me so if I wanted to help out, I could without sacrificing my own activities:
Q1: Can you take care of my cats for the next two weeks while I’m on vacation?
A1: I’m happy to care for them for the first week but I can’t for the second.
Q2: Can you arrange the after work get-together?
Q2: I’ve got a lot on my plate right now and need to focus on my work. I’ll have to pass. I might be able to arrange the next one.
Q3: Can you pick me up from XYZ place at 2pm?
A3: I can’t make 2pm but if you can change your appointment for a later time, I can pick you up any time after 4pm.
I noticed that the times I said what I was able and willing to do, the ‘sorry’ naturally dropped away. In time, I didn’t feel the need to say ‘sorry’ at all, but I still didn’t use the actual word, ‘no.’
The first few times saying ‘no’ were pretty difficult but the reaction I received was no where near what I thought I was going to get…not that I really thought about how the other person was actually going to respond because I was too busy fretting over saying ‘no.’
One of first times I said ‘no,’ the conversation went something like:
Requester: Can you take care of my cats for the next two weeks while I’m on vacation?
Me: Sorry, I’m not available to do that but I’m sure you’ll easily find someone else who can.
Requester: OK, no problem. I’ll keep asking around.
Huh?
That’s it?
No fits, wailing, cries of upset??
Didn’t you hear what I just said?!!
You mean you can ask someone else?
Maybe this ‘no’ thing isn’t so bad…
Each time I said ‘no’ it became easier. People were understanding and didn’t expect me to turn my life upside-down for them. They actually understood that I had other things to do and didn’t take offense. Best of all, there was no need to feel guilty saying ‘no.’ It was a wonderful revelation.
There was one thing that worried me though: that there would be situations where the receiver wouldn’t accept my ‘no.’ I’m going to write about that in the next post, The Rejected No.
