the Gentle Art of Saying No - 10 useful tips

the Gentle Art of Saying No - 10 useful tips

  

The art of saying no is the skill in you in not accepting or agreeing to something or someone in a polite manner. Understand the direction of your life. Work towards meeting your goals. To achieve what you desire and to pursue your ambitions, you have to stay productive in life.

You need to gain control over senses and emotions, anxieties, and stress in order to stay productive. As part of delivering productive results, you should also possess the ability to convey a polite no at times of need. Do not overload yourself with too many tasks. Understand your inner potential and agree to commitments. Ensure you stay focused at work.

Saying no is a skill in itself. Because you do not want to hurt someone by rejecting or disagreeing with something. Therefore practice saying yes only when you are able to do justice to your time, happiness, and priorities in life.

10 useful guidelines are illustrated below for you to follow if you want to master the art of saying no in a humble and polite manner in life.

  1. Know your potentials.

Identify your key strengths. Understand the areas in which you can excel. Keep trying to learn other skills that are related to your line of work. When you are highly occupied with busy tasks in life, it is ok to say no to those areas of work in which you are not well aware of. Because working in the eleventh hour, you are expected to perform, not test.

  1. Value time and time values your life in return.

Respect time. Work as per your planned schedule. Do not just keep inviting and executing all those pieces of work that keep coming your way. When you are sure you cannot deliver within a stipulated time, given the amount of work in hand, it is fine to disagree on that.

  1. Act as per your priorities.

Make a list of all your actionable items. Work in accordance with the priorities set. Just because you fail to convey a no to some ad-hoc task, don’t just mess up your prioritized list. Execute your activities as per your urgencies. Stay focused and motivated and give your full potential in delivering out of the box on your actionable. In circumstances like these, you will be given a second chance when you try to say no sometime.

  1. Have the courage to refuse with a positive attitude in mind.

Be honest about your work and deliverables. Have the courage at heart and imbibe the gentle refusal statement as per the circumstance. Help the other person understand from your perspective. By being true to self and surroundings, your viewpoints are valued by others as well.

  1. Stand by your ethics and philosophies in life.

You have a predefined set of principles in life. Live by what you truly are. When you are asked to take up a task which is against your ethics, it is very right to articulate the art of saying no. If you are giving it a second thought, then it means you are misguiding your own self. You do not have self-love and self-respect. You are giving up on self-discipline.

  1. Do not express regret or ask for forgiveness.

When you make a bold no statement, do not step back and regret or feel sorry for your word. Stand by your word by heart, mind, and body. Do not make yourself feel inferior or substandard just because you were not able to accommodate that additional piece of work into your schedule.

  1. Practice declining your accord to illegitimate tasks in life.

Whether or not something fits into your rules of life, always ensure to pick up and work only on legitimate tasks. You have to for sure master the refusal art when someone approaches you seeking help in an unlawful act.

  1. Suggest replacement ideas and changes.

When in doubt that you will not be able to do an upcoming task, it is ok to seek permission or have it delegated to someone else. By making things transparent, you are in a way of advocating the other person to quickly think of plan B.

  1. Do not take things personally or let others take it personally.

Explain the underlying reasons. That however doesn’t mean to justify your actions. Work is all a part of life. Sometimes you say no and some other times, you get to hear a no. So do not take things to heart and spoil your well-being. When one door closes, the other door opens. Both these circumstances come parceled with life.

  1. Maintain healthy relationships.

A truthful and humble, gentle refusal to taking up on tasks, work incredibly well when you are in a healthy relationship with the other person. Do not just open up a robust relation, but also continue to maintain the same, for the benefit of both.

Finally to say no without hurting the other person is indeed a major challenge in life. You need to set things transparent and present your true self to the world when mastering this art. The other person also feels empathetic and will understand your situation. By inculcating this skill, you build up your mental strength and help yourself stay physically healthy as well.


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