All you need to know about 'No'

While I was a kid, one of my most favorite section in examination paper was True or False. You provide your point of view with a Yes(True) or a No(False) and you get marks for that if it is correct. The reason True or False was my favorite section is, because it required minimum efforts to write an answer giving you maximum results. However, it might require a deep analysis of the question and scenario in case it was asked in a convoluted fashion. Also you know that there are only two probabilities for correct answer. So whatever option you choose you had 0.5 probability of getting it right :) What is it all about ? Now as easy it sounded then, it also is difficult to choose when there are only two options. A probability of 0.5 to choose something wrong can cost you loose all the marks. So, before you start guessing more, why am I talking about this? Well, because one thing I have learned in life is that, life will periodically throw a lot a questions and scenarios which you will have to deal in a similar fashion i.e True or False; Yes or No; Agree or Disagree. Trust me, at times it also comes with multiple twists. When you say YES to others, REMEMBER you are saying NO to yourself. You trade your desire to fulfill someone else's. In today's world of wanting to get appreciation from others, we have stopped appreciating ourselves. Wanting to get loved by someone has refrained us from loving ourselves. In order to keep others happy and pleased, we choose to make ourselves sad and suffer in pain. Cultural influence and environment in our surroundings play a major role in what choice we make. But, no influence is bad or good enough that propagates you in taking a decision that would eventually sacrifice your desires. Talking more about the True/False section in an exam paper, it is very unlikely that solution to all the problems is always True. There are some statements which are incorrect and you have to mark them as False and say No. Similarly, there will be times where you may be asked to do something for which you have to stand up and say NO. Why we don’t say No ? Most of us always live in illusions like

• I cannot say No, it will spoil my relation with others.

An example to this would be when you have to say no to your close friends, family or loved ones. We fear of loosing people by saying No to them. But we also forget that we are loosing our identity by saying yes which we don’t whole-heartedly believe.

• I do not have an option or choice.

An example of this would be when your boss, manager or lead asks you to do a task. The task is probably out of your bounds or doing it will require to sacrifice your personal commitments or may be it does not have realistic deadlines. But out of peer pressure, you feel you are obliged to agree and saying No is out of the question.

• Saying No, will make me sound negative

An example of this can be, when you sense that agreeing to what is asked to be done will lead into something undesirable. You can say No for that.

Why say No ? If you do not agree to something with full conviction, you cannot justify that commitment with complete dedication too. Also, you should not forget that it was at the cost of what you wanted to do. It was at the cost of you choosing to not say NO. In such cases, you always say No to someone (yourself) if not others. As a famous author says, if it is not a 100% YES it is always a NO. Benefits of saying No

• Honesty

Something I always stand by is, people appreciate honesty. If you say No and disagree to something with no ill feelings but with the right intentions, people will always appreciate your honesty and how you set your priorities straight. People usually respect your NO , because when you will say yes, they can trust you that you will do it with complete dedication and your heart in it.

• Know your rights

As said earlier, people think that they cannot say no to people who are at their higher authorities. But that is not the case. You can always have your share of opinion as well as your personal preferences. This stands true even at work place or with your family members or friends. So if you disagree, ask questions to understand their point of view and say NO if you do not agree.

• Empower Yourself

You need to get your voice heard. Sometimes people just agree to something because either they are very shy or fear out when they have an opinion on something. Anything that needs to be done for the first time in life, requires courage and confidence. Once you are able to break that ice, you will feel empowered and start loving yourself more.

• Commit only what you can

If there is something where I feel that the task or request assigned me is not achievable in given time frame. People appreciate it more when you say No upfront rather than over-committing yourself and not able to achieve it with the deadline you promised.

• Sharpen your learning curve

Doing something that went wrong with full conviction is always better than doing something that went just right but with half the dedication and half hearted. Because in the process of doing it, there will always be a background noise that keeps on saying why you don't want to do it.

So should I always say NO ? Until now I laid a good amount of emphasis on How to say No? Why to say No ? And When to say No ? So we basically learned how to say no. The reason we put so much emphasis on saying No is, most of us come from a background and with a mindset that saying No is very demeaning. But that is not true, until you do something with right reason and no wrong purpose. But saying no should not mean to be selfish and always putting your choices and yourself at choice of others. As we saw previously, it is very unlikely that answer to all the questions is True, the opposite also stands right. Always saying No is not what we are talking about. I believe, anything in excess is equally harmful as scarcity itself. One can never drink water at its boiling temperature or when its freezing cold. Yes, how much of hot or cold water one can handle, varies from person to person. As the beautiful quote says, "Everything is give and take. The solutions are in the middle not in the extremity of the situation." So how would you know, when you should say No and when you should not ? The way I like to decide what decision to make is using what I call as Divide and Scale method. So basically what I do in Divide and Scale method is

1. Divide - I jot down a list of pro's and con's for what choices of decisions I have.

2. Scale - Then I weigh the pro's and con's I would run into, for each of the decision. The decision that outweighs the pros with respect to its cons is what I usually end up taking.

Hope this article helps you in decisions and choices you will have to make now and in future :)