Self Improvement
Stop Saying ‘Yes’ All the Time—10 Tips to Get You to ‘No’
Our brains are working against us. But you can gain control.
Saying “no” is hard.
It’s one of the most difficult things we can do, even when we know it’s the right thing to do.
For many of us, it feels like we’re being a bad person when we say no. We worry about disappointing the other person, or making them angry. We worry they won’t like us anymore if we say no.
But why do we feel like this way the moment we deliver the bad news?
The answer is because our brains are working against us.
When we’re confronted with a request, our brain goes into overdrive. It comes up with all the reasons we should say yes. Our brains think about all the other tasks or chores we can shift around to make time.
We might think about how it will make the other person happy, or how it will be good for our work career. We might also think about how saying no will make us look bad if the other person doesn’t get what they want from us.
Our brain is programmed to focus on the negative things that could happen if we say no. And this is because, historically, it was more important for our survival to avoid…
