How to say no

The nice way

For a generation of women raised to say NO!! to any suggestion of sexual sauciness, we sure do have a hard time saying no to advances on our energy, time and emotional bandwidth.

You’d think we’d be well practised in side stepping and deflection growing up in an era where the term ‘handy man’ didn’t just apply to the plumber. Where saying no outright would be against our Good Girl / be pleasing training and so we’d smile and deflect and make sure we didn’t offend the gropey gobshite even though he was being utterly offensive to us.

Yet so many of us can’t say no if our sanity depended on it.

Which it does.

In my recent survey for women 40+ (you can still take it here) it was the sheer bloody relentlessness of it all that really came across and a few people asked me about boundaries. I’ve written about them before but I thought I’d share some really easy ways to get some early, easy wins to help flex the No muscle a bit more.

We tend to think saying no is a boundary about other people but ultimately it is about yourself. You’d rather let yourself down than someone else. You’d rather use up your own time to save someone else some time. You’d rather deal with your own disappointment and rage than theirs.

So here are a few quick tips to making it an easy yes to saying No.

Wrap your no in a yes.

This is one of my favourites for a quick get away when I need to give a no to a desperate teenage request (which are all desperate and urgent). You can say “I can’t do this, but I will do that.”

So one of my frictions in the morning is when having planned out exactly my times and how I get the kids up and out, the dog walked and back in time for a coaching session or meeting, I then get hijacked by a tired / late / hysterical / crying teenager looking for a lift. They pressure me, and the thought of saying no risks an escalation of epic emotions I’m not sure I can handle. But I know if I don’t say no, my morning is hijacked, my well-planned routine is kiboshed and my inner (and shouty) Martyr Mary will have a field day for the rest of the day. So I’ve learned - especially with kids - to wrap a No in a yes. “Ah love I’m sorry, I just can’t this morning, but I’ll come and collect you after school.” (It wasn’t in the plan but I have to buy dog food anyway later so I can make that work).

If they ask me to collect them and it doesn’t suit - ah you poor thing, I know it’s raining but I’m about to go on a call, but tell you what, I’ll make you some nice hot chocolate for when you get home.

At work it could look like - I can’t help you on the report I’m afraid because I have this deadline but I’m more than happy to read over it for you and give you my thoughts when it’s done?

This is especially helpful if you have a tendency to feel guilty about not being everything to everyone. Wrapping it in a yes allows you to feed the people pleaser in you without being a total walkover.

Create a pause

Maybe you say yes automatically because it’s just what you’re used to doing? So next time you are asked to do something, make a quick excuse to buy some time, and then actually decide if it’s a yes for a no. I had a client who, because she was single, was continually asked by her teaching colleagues to cover their lunchtime yard monitoring, or after school jobs. She was feeling really put upon but had zero capacity to say no. When I suggested she make a quick excuse to nip to the loo and say she’d come right back and let them know, and then sit on the loo and actually decide if she wanted to do the cover this week, she looked at me and said “I’ve never even asked myself if I wanted to do it or not. I just assume if I’m asked, I say yes.”

She started buying enough time to think through her answer, created some guidelines for herself (I’ll only give 2 yeses each week), and allowed herself the gift of intention. Game. Changer. A pause to really assess if you can make it work or it really doesn’t suit means you take the habitual out of harrasment.

Have your Yes-things to make their No easier!

Given the landscape of modern lives, women are at permanent risk of being hijacked, pulled away and distracted by the needs and expectations of others. Some we are happy to oblige, but others just suck our time and energy for no other reason than we didn’t say no. So getting really intentional about where and how you are going to spend your time and energy, build your own life, fill it with passions and purpose and friends and activities and stuff that means something to you, means you have other pulls on your time - but pulling that nourish you. “I can’t because I’m doing x……” is a much easier no than a no in a vacuum. Even if that something is resting for an hour with a book, or going for a restorative walk, or just hiding in the toilet for 15 minutes to doom scroll…. If that is your choice, and you’ve been looking forward to it, it is a valid reason. You don’t always have to explain exactly what you’re doing… just a simple :”Oh I have something I’m doing…”. Which leads nicely to …

Do a Kate Moss

This is easier when you’ve already flexed your No muscles a bit, but it feels more glorious the older you get and the less f*cks you give (something great about the hormonal flux). Kate Moss has a policy: “Don’t complain, don’t explain.” No is a full sentence. Now personally, I enjoy a bit of complaining so I’ll only take the second bit but sometimes I don’t have to explain myself. “I can’t” is enough. (As I write this, my daughter has just sent me 3745317 emergency texts asking me to bring her a pair of trousers to her work because the ones she is wearing are a bit faded and don’t look great. I kid you not. This is the text:

I could go on a rant about the fact I AM WORKING, and I’ve better things to do, but this one actually requires a Kate Moss.

That’s a firm “I can’t” while I have a rant to myself. Sweet mother of god. Just fucking no.

(The thing is, on another day if it suited I would, but it will put me under pressure today so I’m not explaining myself.)

Use your no’s to make your yeses more affective.

If you say yes every time, firstly it becomes habitual - not only to you but to the people asking of you. If you pepper a few less-impactful no’s around the place, the yes has far more appreciation. I almost have a policy now of saying no just so I can be more appreciated when I say yes. The more we train people that our time is theirs, the more they assume it is (see above text message).

Do a Taylor Swift

Your energy and time is precious. Not everyone can afford it all the time. Even the people you love. I’m going to repeat that for the women who have been reared to think their love = always giving. Sometimes you can love just as effectively from behind a no-wall.

I had a coaching session this morning with a woman who is so shattered she said she thinks her two sons will soon render her redundant because all they want to do is hang out with their dad and play footy. She can’t wait to be redundant. I gently reminded her that when she puts the scaffolding and structure in place to create more bandwidth for herself, she won’t want to be rid of their neediness but to enjoy time with them because she is able to enjoy time with them.

Not saying No at least some of the time ultimately leads to us resenting the people we think we love by saying yes. Saying no means the person gets the happier you in the long run.

No can take many forms - no. Not now. Not always. No but let’s do this instead. No doesn’t have to come with an exclamation mark. It can come with a smile, a hug and sympathy for their disappointment.

And like any muscle, the more you flex it the stronger it becomes. So let’s start flexing. As always I’d love to hear where you find it hardest to say no.

And as always, as always, if you’re a paid subscriber and want a little exercise and feedback on where to start planting your ‘no’s’ email me at alana@alanakirk.com.

And……. an inability to say no when you need to is the foundation of overwhelm. You think it’s the To-Do list, when often it’s your inability to protect and support yourself because all that guilt-tripping trips us up so much. So if you’re exhausted from carrying all the things - the jobs, the decisions, the emotional load - that’s what The Overwhelm Breakthrough Session (Oct 14th) is all about.

✨ You don’t need more hours in the day.
✨ You don’t need to be more organised.

What you do need is to stop carrying the invisible weight that was never meant to be yours.

We’ll cut through the chaos, challenge the patterns keeping you stuck, and build a plan for more balance, boundaries, and breathing space in your everyday life.

You can register here. As always, my paid subscribers get a 10% discount - just message me for the code.

https://www.alanakirk.com/