Do you hate saying ‘no’ to friends and family? Do you always find yourself saying ‘yes’ to others at the expense of yourself to prevent yourself from feeling guilty? Well, we’re here to tell you that saying ‘no’ does not make you a terrible person and it should certainly not make you feel guilty!

In this day and age, protecting your peace and mental health is extremely important. We’re often faced with so many stress factors that could possibly make you spiral out of control and some of these factors come from not saying ‘no’. Saying ‘yes’ comes with consequences and your day could be filled with things that others want from you, with little to no time for yourself.

In an ideal world, saying ‘yes’ to everyone would be wonderful but saying ‘yes’ to everyone is not healthy. You need to start saying ‘no’ in order to manage your time and responsibilities, set boundaries and protect yourself.

Here are a few tips on how to say ‘no’..

1. Don’t beat around the bush

The first step to saying ‘no’ is to not turn it into a lie or find an excuse. If you know that you want to say no, say it immediately instead of rambling. The longer you stall, the more complicated it becomes. Just be direct and get straight to the point.

2. Be sincere

Saying ‘no’ may make you feel as if friendships could be ruined, so we adopt a ‘we’ll see’ attitude, with the hope that it will get swept under the rug. Here’s the thing, most people will accept your ‘no’ if you are sincere with your response. The people that care about you will understand.

3. Alternative options

This is always an option. If you can think of an alternative, suggest it. If you can’t say ‘yes’ right now, you can always tell the person you can do something some other time – only if that’s what you want!

4. Don’t be responsible for other’s feelings

As tough as it is out there, you are responsible for your feelings and no one else’s. You can’t constantly want to make sure someone is always happy. You need to stop bending over backwards for others and use that same time to help yourself.

5. Let them go

If someone takes offense to you saying ‘no’ and is disrespectful of your needs and time, then you may want to re-evaluate the relationship. As mentioned above, you should not be responsible for someone else’s feelings.

Start saying ‘no’ to things you have no interest in, to conversations you don’t want to participate in and to people you don’t want to hang out with. At the end of the day, you need to be able to rely and depend on yourself because you are your own hero 😊.