Are you a people-pleaser or over-doer?
Do you reflexively say “yes” to requests without weighing your own desire or capacity first?
Do you want to say “no” and mean it?
I bet you do! But if you normally say “yes” to every request, saying “no” to the pushy people in your life can be overwhelming.
Try this modification: Do Less.
Doing less is a stepping stone to saying “no.”
Let’s try an example: A neighbor asks you to water his plants for a week. You normally say yes, even though going to his house every day for a week is tiring.*
What would doing less look like?
You could do less by limiting the number of days you water, the number of plants you water, the location of plants you water, the number of times you water, or the number of ways you water.
“I can water the plants Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.”
“I can water the outdoor plants.”
“I can water the plants on days that I don’t have anything to do after work.”
“I can water the plants on the weekend.”
“I can water any plants I can reach with a hose.”
Notice that these examples all involve saying “yes” to part of the request, just not the whole request.
Which leads to another tip:
Say what you can do, not what you can‘t do.
This positive language catches the requester off-guard, giving you time to make a breezy exit before they can push back.
Try One Thing:
Say a Smaller Yes to One Request Today
Related: Do You Need to Do The Opposite?
Post how you did less today!
*If this scenario sounds familiar, you might be thinking of the Gilmore Girls episode where Lorelai gets “roped into” (read: does not use her “no”) watering very particular plants for a very particular neighbor. Take a re-watch of Season 3, Episode 5, Eight O’Clock at the Oasis, and see where Lorelai could have said smaller yeses 🙂
