How good are you at saying no?

When someone asks you to commit your time and attention to something and you are already maxed out, are you confident and comfortable enough to say no, or do you want to keep them happy?

There’s no need to be hard on yourself if you have difficulty saying no.  There is an art to professionally and firmly saying no, and you can master it.

Here’s what can happen when we don’t say no and overcommit:

We experience burnout, adrenal fatigue, and exhaustion. 

We feel stressed and overwhelmed by simple tasks that need our attention.

Our productivity plummets.

We feel anxious and depressed. 

We experience insomnia.

Our cardiovascular system is compromised.

Our personal and professional relationships are strained.

We feel guilty about the lack of personal and family time.

We experience dissatisfaction in all areas of our life.

We don’t have the time or energy to pursue new opportunities or take on challenging projects.

The quality of our work suffers due to rushed deadlines and divided attention.

When life hits you with a two-by-four and there's a gift.

When I was thirty-two, I suffered a miscarriage, got a massive infection, and was hospitalized. My mother flew in to take care of my two-year-old son, and to make sure that I saw him every day.

I was a young attorney with my own law firm and I couldn't work.  My body was unwell, stressed, and needed time to recover.

What I learned was that life would go on without me. The world would keep turning, and if I died, someone  would assume my responsibilities.

I didn’t feel morbid or upset by this discovery.  It was freeing. 

The experience helped me to create the space I needed to be a mother and to take care of myself physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.  I stopped trying to be everything for everybody.

Something inside of me let go.

What I learned.

Saying yes when I need to say no is not about self-care or self-love. It hurts me and the people who depend upon me and that I love. 

If someone reacts when I say no and holds a grudge, they are not someone I want in my life.  Most people who receive my no will find someone to replace me, another way to handle the situation.

Life will go on.

Here are ten polite, professional ways I've learned to say no.

Thank you for considering me, but unfortunately, I have to pass.

I appreciate the offer but I’m unable to commit at this time.

I’m honored that you thought of me, but I must respectfully decline.

I’m afraid I have other priorities at the moment, so I’ll have to say no.

While I’m grateful for the opportunity, I have to decline due to prior commitments.

I’ve had to learn to be selective with my time, so I hope you understand that I have to decline.

Thank you for asking, but I’m not available to take on any more responsibilities right now.

I’ve had to make some tough decisions about my schedule, and unfortunately, I can’t accept.

I appreciate your understanding that I need to focus on other obligations at this time.

I wish I could help, but I have to decline this time. Thank you for thinking of me.

For Your Sanity and Wellbeing

Memorize several ways to say no. Practice them. Be comfortable saying them. Breathe.  Notice how you feel when you have the courage to listen to your own heart’s knowing and be true to yourself.

What do we learn from living life, from our day-to-day experiences that challenge and stretch us?

Do we use our mistakes, our forgetfulness, our dropping the ball regarding our responsibilities and to-do lists to beat ourselves up, to cause ourselves to contract and play small? 

Or do we use ‘life happening’ as a springboard to truth, as an opening to a deeper knowing of what makes us tick, where our fur balls and strengths lie, and what we need to let go of to be more of our best self?

The choice is ours and nobody else’s.  No one else can pick us up and cause us to feel grateful for our experiences. 

No one else can assume responsibility for what we need to clear and release, for what we need to master and embrace in our lives.

When we are triggered, hurt, upset, or off balance, is our first go-to to make someone else wrong?  It’s just not helpful or useful to play the blame game because we are responsible for our own evolution and growth.  

No matter what someone else did or said, we choose if we react or respond. We are the ones that choose love or fear. We are the ones who make messes that we need to clean up.

We can have accountability buddies and life hacks to help to get us through what we find to be unpleasant, boring, or ‘no fun’. 

But in the final analysis, it’s our job to step up, break through any procrastination or reasons 'why not' and act, take a step forward and do something that moves us beyond the inertia that wants us to stay stuck.

No matter how we complain and moan, no matter what stories we tell ourselves or how we try to mask the feelings that need to be felt, loved, and let go, what is not serving us remains until we deal with it.  It’s there percolating in the background causing us to feel less than love, less than whole, less than who we truly are.

The first step is to choose to be aware when we are kidding ourselves, where we are not loving and embracing the truth.  It’s helpful to affirm, “I love the truth. Please show me the truth. I choose to know the truth.”

The next step is to be open to seeing, feeling, and knowing the truth.  The truth is not fairy tales or make-believe scenarios where all is rosy and perfect, where there is no tension, angst, or anxiety. 

We are simply choosing to be open to acknowledging and accepting how we feel with kindness, patience, and love.

We are choosing to be more of our best self.  We are choosing to open our mind and heart to the reality of our situation, and how we could mulch the fear we are experiencing into love. 

Maybe the truth is about seeing and acknowledging the bits that are selfish, rude, and impatient.  Maybe the truth is about accepting ourselves where we are at, how we presently are, warts and all.

It’s okay that the truth is not pretty. It’s okay that we need to work on ourselves to embrace positive change.  It’s okay that we are always a work in progress, that there is no ‘getting there’.

Whatever the truth is, knowing and acknowledging the truth opens us to healing and a new state of being that’s more calm, real, and true. 

The half-truths we tell ourselves, the smoke screens we erect not to see what’s going on inside of us, that’s what weighs us down, causes physical pain and disease, keeps us going around in circles and feeling small.

Admitting when we’ve made a mistake, said something stupid, or done something harmful is cathartic.  It helps us to feel clearer and brighter.  It’s liberating, setting us free from the chains that bind us. 

If we need to make amends, if we need to right a wrong, if we need to embrace a new way forward, that’s up to us as well.  Spirit/Source/God/The Universe cannot do that for us. 

Sitting around and hoping, praying, meditating, and visualizing is not going to create the change we desire.  It can support the change.  It can uplift us and help us to feel more whole. But, we need to take action on the ground, one step forward and then another.

Sometimes stepping forward feels scary like we’re stepping off a cliff with nothing to brace our fall.  In those moments, we must trust in the benevolence of the Universe.

She has our back. She supports us and places stones beneath our feet so that we may experience the consequence of our choices; so that we may learn how to follow our heart and make course corrections along the way. 

So that we may experience the joy of being 'love in action'.

One of the biggest obstacles to work-life harmony and balance is avoiding and denying our feelings, pretending that they don’t exist, pushing them away, and distracting ourselves with social media, sex, food, movies, mind-altering substances, and more.

It’s amazing how housework and spring cleaning become attractive when we don’t want to feel what we have decided are bad or painful feelings.

There are no bad feelings.

Feelings are simply something that we can allow to move through us and be replaced with more love.

The problem is we judge our feelings and make them wrong.  We judge ourselves for having these feelings.  There’s this myth that there must be something wrong with us if we’re not happy.

Happiness is an elusive goal.

When we strive to be happy, we look outside of ourselves for validation and love. 

And that’s a recipe for disaster. 

Most people are chasing happiness, so their life is like a roller coaster, with lots of highs and lows, lots of drama, and unfulfilled desires and expectations.

When we don’t feel our unresolved painful feelings and make new choices that support us moving forward and experiencing more love, they don’t go away. 

Feelings can be pushed into our bodies and cause disease.  They can be pushed into the energy field surrounding our bodies and cause mental disturbances like anxiety and depression.

Believe it or not, it’s easier to feel and stay with our difficult feelings, holding them in our compassion and love and allowing them to return to where they belong in time and space, than to push them away or try and avoid them.  When we don’t deal with them, they build up and boomerang back bigger and stronger. 

So, if feeling is healing, how do we do that? 

How do we feel our painful feelings without falling into a deep, dark hole with them? 

How do we stay conscious and in our hearts when our feelings are filled with anxiety, overwhelm, grief, and fear?

As you ponder these questions, notice how you are feeling.  On a scale of one to ten, with one being very anxious, stressed, and overwhelmed and ten being very relaxed, open, calm, and peaceful, where are you now? 

Write down that number and any words that describe how you are feeling.

Now let’s focus on the first key to Feeling is Healing, which is being aligned to love and centered in our hearts.  One way to experience this is through circular breathing.

Close your eyes.  Sit with your spine straight and your feet flat on the floor.

Start by breathing in through the nose and out of the nose with no pause between the in-breath and the out-breath.  This is circular breathing.

Breathe like this for three to ten minutes until you feel yourself deepening into your breath, your busy mind stilled and relaxed, and feeling fully present in your body.

Continuing to breathe this way, only now breathe in and out of your high heart or heart chakra deep within your chest.  Notice how this feels, focusing on and energizing your high heart.

Return to comfortable breathing. Still breathing more deeply, feeling your chest and abdomen rise and fall with each breath, and notice how you feel.

We are calming the busy mind, oxygenating our bodies, aligning to love, and centering in our heart of hearts.

Revisit the one-to-ten scale. Where are you now? How are you feeling?  Make a note of this.

Notice how simple it is to change your experience by oxygenating the body, and taking it from fight or flight mode to rest and relax mode.

From this space, we are more expanded and at peace.  We are more able to feel as we feel without judgment.  We are more able to be grateful for our feelings and flood ourselves with love.

This is the transformational space that we hold to feel our feelings.

Managing our time can be tricky, no matter how organized we are.  We can be thrown off track by an unexpected phone call, someone who needs our help, or a barrage of texts.

We can also be thrown off track by noise pollution like construction, traffic, sirens, people talking around us, or the negative self-talk in our heads.

We need to be clear about what constitutes a real emergency and what does not.  We need to know when not to respond and how to do it, and when someone else’s problem is not our own.

Today, let’s consider some tips on how to stop people from distracting us when we need to focus on a task, and no one else’s problem requires our immediate time and attention.

Wear Noise Cancelling Headphones.

Wearing noise-canceling headphones tells the people around us that we’re focused, working and not to be disturbed.  Headphones give us a sense of privacy from the people around us.

Shut Our Door

If we have our own office, close the door, and tell our team or the people working with or around us that we need a block of time to concentrate.  It can be as simple as sending out a group email or text that is kind, clear, and direct.

Listen to Music or Other Sounds

For ones who prefer background noise while working, instrumental songs, white noise, ambient music, or nature sounds are great alternatives.  Here’s an interesting website with some music/sound alternatives: https://moleerelaxmusic.com/ultimate-work-music-playlist-for-productivity/

Use Alternative Spaces

If it’s a viable option, work from home or use a conference room to avoid interruptions.

Remove Chairs, Stand, or Speak Up

When we work in an open-plan office, we can remove extra chairs around or in front of our desk or stand when a colleague arrives.  If someone in our space frequently interrupts us, we can talk to them; they may not even realize that they are distracting us and that we need uninterrupted blocks of time to get our work done.

Final Reflections

​Distractions are time-consuming, costly, and add to our stress.  A conversation with a co-worker can make us late for a meeting with our team.  Checking our emails, reading customers’ X (Twitter) comments, or surfing the internet for cheap vacation flights can take more time than anticipated for us to fully regain our focus on the task at hand. 

Many things can distract us. Focusing on all the things that can distract us in one blog article can be overwhelming and can cause us to distract ourselves because it’s too much to digest and put into practice in one sitting.

Find what works for you and your team members to get more done. We are all works in progress. The only thing certain is that everything changes. Regularly review what’s helping to lower stress and increase not only productivity but also feelings of confidence and the satisfaction of a job well done.