Introduction

People don't like saying no to things. And this seems true both for things people think they like but als things people consciously know they don't. Isn't that strange?

In this post, I explain why it is so important to learn to say no to the right things and why the underlying problem can't be avoided by saying yes to everything that crosses your path.

This post covers...

1. 🦸‍♂️ Why we don't like to say no
2. ⛔️ Why we have to say no
3. 🏝️ How to say no
4. ❤️ Why saying no comes from a place of love

Why we don't like to say no

There are two types of situations where we are confronted with yes or no situations that are relevant for this discussion.

The first is a situation where another person (family, friends, colleagues, corporations) directly and specifically make us an offer that we can either accept or decline.

In this situation, I believe most people have a problem with saying no primarily because they want to avoid the potential damage to their social status they believe rejecting the offer may have. The underlying belief is that saying no will cause the other party to be upset and to socially discredit you for rejecting the offer. And so as a result, we say yes to avoid the consequences of this assumption, just in case it may actually be true.

The second situation is one in which an opportunity presents itself in front of us, but no person or other party created this offer or opportunity for us specifically.

In this situation, the fear of social discredit is no longer relevant, but it appears even here, people don't like saying no. This is where FOMO (The fear of missing out) comes in. As humans, we have an action bias. And so we tend to take action rather than to sit tight and wait.

The origin of this is ankered deep within our history. Back in the days, way back in the days of the human beginnings, it could have killed you not making use of an opportunity in front of you in hope of a better opportunity down the line.

Why we have to say no

Whatever the situation may be specifically and whatever reasons, conscious or unconscious, someone may have for saying yes to something, there remains the indisputable fact, that you can't avoid the reality of having to say no.

Although you might assume it to be obvious, many people seem to forget that they have a limited lifespan. And so they forget that because of this limited time they have, the amount of choices they can make and the amount of things they can do is limited, too. This has the consequence that by saying yes to anything, independent of that feeling like a good choice or bad one, you inevitably say no to an endless list of other things.

When saying yes to watching a movie with your friends, you say no to spending that evening with your family, you say no to spending the night playing video games, no to reading a book, no to spending time with other friends, no to working on your projects and no to anything else you could have spent that time on. And whatever choice you end up making, with each one, you sacrifice an endless amount of other things.

From this derives itself one acknowledgement and one inevitable question.

The acknowledgement is that by making any choice, this choice gains inherent value (at least from your perspective) because it is backed by an endless but very much real list of things you sacrificed in making that choice. Let me repeat, each choice is backed by an enormous amount of sacrifice. And that is why each choice is inherently valuable.

The question this creates is the following: What means that much to you, that you would be willing to sacrifice an endless amount of other things you could have chosen instead of that thing? Does the thing you have chosen compare in meaning  to the things you sacrificed for it? Does it feel like an at least somewhat fair deal? Can you accept that deal, that trade-off? And what do you make of that?

How to say no

Saying no the right way has two different aspects to it. The first one is deciding what to say yes to - thus inevitably also what to say no to.

And the second one is how to practically communicate that choice with people making you offers or people affected by your choices.

To the first part, there again seem to be different subcategories:

1. When it is obvious to you that among the things, offers and opportunities you can choose from, one seems particularly worthwhile and compelling, don't hold back on making a fast choice. Ask yourself: Is this a "hell yes" situation? If not, say no for the time being.
2. Unfortunately, it may not always be an obvious evaluation and thus decision which things, offers and opportunities to say yes to in sacrifice of their opposing trade-offs. And sometimes you simply can't predict the benefits of different choices and so it is hard to predict which choice is worth sacrificing another for. In those situations, acknowledge that taking your time with making that choice may very well be worth it, especially if the choice has some significant impact on your life. Evaluate carefully with all the means you have, but also understand that sometimes you may be forced to make a decision and thus a sacrifice without full certainty. In those situations, there is no need to beat yourself up if you make the wrong choice. There is nothing you can do about it.
3. If you immediately know or believe that some choice, offer or opportunity is not going to be worth it, have the guts to say no straight up.

Now to the practical part. Saying no can be uncomfortable both for you and the person or entity you are saying no to. Often enough though, we make up way worse reactions from those people than how they would actually react in reality. With this in mind, simply communicate clearly that you are saying no and if you want to help the other person understand your reasoning to not make them upset, explain to them the principles you based your decision on. This may or may not work. But it's worth a try and you may even gain a new level of respect from that other person. Which leads me straight to...

Why saying no comes from a place of love

Although saying no may feel bad sometimes, it actually comes from a place of love and respect, both for yourself and for others.

Think about it. By properly evaluating what you want to spend your limited time on before you say yes to something means you respect your own time by not using it up for things that don't mean anything to you.

Equally, you are respecting others and their time by not spending it with them or engaging in something they set up without actually being interested in it. Not only is that a waste of your time, but also a waste of the other person's time. This also means that as the people around you begin to understand what you base your decisions on, they will understand: Each time you do say yes to something, you actually want to participate and genuinely believe this thing is worth your time.

Conclusion

Decisions are important and fundamentally influence the direction of our lives.

Too often though, we let our action bias get into our way and cause us to say yes to everything that crosses our path without giving it a second thought.

The result: We spend our time on things we don't actually care about and often unconsciously sacrifice the things that do matter, because we simply didn't take them into consideration when we said yes to that thing.

Learning to say no is a crucial part to escaping the cycle of letting other people decide what we spend our time on. It surely takes practice and isn't always easy. But both yourself and others profit from you being honest about what is you want and from saying no when it is needed.