According to the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, the Spanish language has around 100,000 words. Among them you can find some that are very hard to pronounce, such as pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis (a medical term for a lung disease caused by inhaling silica dust) or hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia (the name given to the fear of long words). But the word we find hardest to say is one as short and simple as NO.
The difficulty of saying this word, or the fear of saying it, has caused more emotional and financial distress than any other. Saying no can sometimes leave another person disappointed in us, or even angry. It can cost you a friendship or make you feel bad for having said the wretched word. That is why, in many cases, this word takes a conscious effort and a willingness to accept the consequences.
The discipline of knowing how to say no
Saying no is an art, one that not everyone has mastered and that we should all practise with skill. As you start to feel comfortable saying this word, your quality of life improves, your mental health improves, and so does your self-esteem. And if saying no is going to annoy or anger someone, you shouldn’t give a damn, because if you say yes when you want to say no just to please others, you’d be pleasing everyone except yourself.
How many times have you said yes to plans you didn’t feel like just to please someone? How many times have you said yes to a salesperson who kept pushing you to buy something you didn’t really need? Or, worse still, how many times have you said yes to that holiday or that little luxury you knew you couldn’t afford? The fear of saying no to others ends up eroding our own willpower to say no to ourselves in some areas of our lives.
See also: What makes us become the people we are and act the way we do? Time for reflection
So, on the one hand, finding it hard to say no to others would be a consequence of low self-esteem, and at the same time it would gradually sap our willpower in our own lives.
How do you learn to say no?
It may sound silly, but this is a very common issue in psychologists’ offices. Many people are unable to say no and then feel extremely guilty, driven by an unconscious desire to satisfy others even at their own expense.
There are two paths you can take here. One is long-term therapy, which would first work on your self-esteem and that irrational need to constantly please others. The other is the quicker path: recognise that you have this problem and start tackling it the way we tackle many other challenges or fears, by building the habit even if it hurts at first, until it becomes an ingrained part of your personality.
Simply start listening to yourself. Next time someone asks you for something and you hesitate, just ask yourself: do I feel like it or not? Am I comfortable doing it, or would I rather not? If the answer is that you don’t feel like it, then even if it’s hard, even if it hurts, even if you feel uncomfortable, say NO. And stand firm. Don’t make the mistake of inventing excuses. If they ask, “Why not?”, just say, “Because I don’t feel like it.” Stand firm, even if you feel you’ve been rude. Believe me, if you said no because you weren’t comfortable, you were not being rude.
We’ve all been through this. It’s hard. I’ve been the first to make plans I didn’t feel like or to come up with excuses to soften why I wouldn’t go along. But having NO as part of my discipline may well be one of the things I’m proudest of having mastered. If someone calls me to go to the beach, go out partying or go hiking and I don’t feel like it that day, all I have to say is:
“No, I don’t feel like it today.”
“But why not?”
“I just don’t. I’m not in the mood.”
In the past I’d have made up a story about cousins visiting from Italy whom I had to look after, or I’d probably have ended up going because they kept insisting. Today I’m comfortable saying exactly what I mean, without embellishments, excuses or lies. I don’t mind if someone gets annoyed, and I don’t mind if it sounds rude.
Was it easy to get there? Looking back, in my case at least, the truth is that it was. Then again, the problem wasn’t as deeply rooted in me as it is in some people. But the process is the same: start saying no even when it’s hard, until it stops being hard. Be disciplined about it until it becomes part of your personality.
The art of saying no in your finances
When it comes to managing your personal finances, the greatest difficulty lies in knowing how to say NO to yourself. Advertising constantly bombards your brain, and it’s not just advertising: your circle of friends and social media also make us want things that cost money. Spending less than you earn is hard enough on a tight income without also struggling to say no to yourself for expenses that aren’t needs, just wants.
In finance, learning to say NO is much easier, because the most effective way to avoid relying on willpower alone is the BUDGET. It’s the thing everyone mentions in personal finance but people don’t take seriously, when in fact a budget is the best financial tool there is for steering our finances and building financial discipline.
As we always say, you can’t properly manage what you can’t measure. With a budget, we know exactly how much money comes in, how much goes out and how much we have available to spend. So when you face a purchase decision, the NO or the YES won’t depend on your willpower to say the word, but on your budget.
So, whether it’s your personal and emotional life or your personal finances, learning to say NO is one of the best skills you can acquire: in your personal life it improves your emotional wellbeing and mental health, and in your finances it pays dividends on its own.
See also: 10 things you should stop doing to improve your life
Featured image: Alexander Baxevanis, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
