Chapter 6

Tough love: setting boundaries and saying no

You know you can’t be everything to everyone, right? But, even when you know, it’s still hard to put it into practice. Here are some practical ways of setting healthy boundaries and expectations, managing your availability and saying no with grace and confidence.

Why we struggle to define boundaries

We struggle to define boundaries because we think they are about keeping people out. We don’t want to be rude, ungenerous or unwelcoming. We don’t want to turn clients away or put people off. We don’t want to offend or upset. We fear putting our jobs or our relationships on the line, because we don’t want to push people away:

‘I don’t want to be too specialist because I don’t want to put people off.’

‘I don’t want to say no because I don’t want to be rude or unhelpful.’

‘I don’t want to tick off my boss’

‘We can’t ignore our customers!’

But boundaries are actually more about valuing what’s inside, than keeping people out. The most helpful definition I have come across is in Danny Silk’s parenting book, Loving Our Kids On Purpose:

To have boundaries you have to value yourself. What are you really saying when you always have time for others and not yourself? What are you saying about the value of your personal time, when you work through the night and into the weekend? Or the value of your family time when your emails join you at the dinner table? What are you saying about the value of your services if you constantly undercharge or give them away for free, or the value of your health or sanity if you’re regularly sacrificing sleep in order not to let anyone else down?

How valuable is your time and attention? How valuable is your contribution? How valuable are you? Or your team? Or your family?

Boundaries are not about who or what we keep out. They exist to honour what we value.

What happens when you don’t set boundaries

Initially, in the short term, it might just be an inconvenience – an extra hour here, an extra commitment there, cancelling one of your own plans or being out of pocket once. But when it keeps happening, an inconvenience becomes a toleration, and the longer you tolerate something the more of a toll it takes and the more established it becomes.

Tim’s always in the office early.

Sarah’s always the last one to leave.

Kate can always pick up the pieces.

Mum’s never home.

Dad’s always on his phone.

An exception becomes the norm and reluctance becomes resentment. Somewhere along the line, something we chose to let happen becomes something that happens to us. We feel powerless and we lose ourselves in the process.

No one else can set our boundaries for us. It’s up to us to define what we value and how much we value it. It’s up to us to establish the rules of engagement and to set expectations. Just like the walls of a house provide definition, support and security, we find that when we do set boundaries they actually strengthen and enhance our relationships, as well as our productivity.

What one boundary can you put in place this week that would make a significant difference to you?

What happens when you try and please everybody

So you think you want to please everybody? Here is what happens:

When you’re afraid to turn down an opportunity

‘Ahrrrghhhh! Why did I take this project on? Why, why whyyyyyy? Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! This project may be stable and lucrative but it’s a massive pain in the bum! Is it wine time yet?!’

The curse of the capable is that there are lots of things we can do even if it’s not what we do best, what we enjoy doing best, or what gets the best out of us. It’s a classic case for most new (and some not-so-new) businesses – but it happens just as much in employment, too: the extra project you’re asked to be involved in because you’ve some expertise or experience in that area; the client who’s not ideal or the jobs you take on ‘just to tide you over’; the tasks that need doing that may not be your field of expertise but, nevertheless, need to be done.

We’ve all done it and, when it enables you to do what you love and move forward in the right direction, it can have its place. Being flexible and resourceful and willing to do the hard things is both necessary and noble. But operating outside of your strengths zaps you and can easily take over your time, energy and headspace, leaving you with no capacity or strength for what you really want to do, what you do best and what energises you. When you settle for what you can do, too often, it can leave you feeling resentful, frustrated, unfulfilled or drained.

When you shy away from saying what you mean

When you ask your other half if they’re sure they wouldn’t prefer a takeaway (because you’re really tired and can’t be bothered to make dinner) and they tell you they would choose your cooking over a takeaway any day.

When you ask someone if they know of anyone who could help you do something, when really you want them to offer, and they don’t get the hint.

When you ask a colleague, ‘How was the traffic this morning? Is everything ok?’, then accept a vague answer that leaves you none the wiser why they’re often 15–30 minutes late for key meetings.

When someone who’s come into your office for a chat outstays their welcome and you keep looking at your screen, but they don’t seem to be getting the hint.

Sometimes, we find it hard to say what we really mean, so we drop hints and might even try to sell a more attractive alternative instead of asking for what we really need. The problem with this is it involves mind reading and can often leave us feeling frustrated or even resentful.

When you don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings

What happens when you have to deliver bad news, give critical feedback to one of your team or explain to a client that what they want can’t be done?

The phrase ‘don’t shoot the messenger’ comes to mind, but where you are invested in the outcome a hit-and-run strategy might not be that helpful. For those of us who do like to please people and avoid upsetting others, there’s also a danger of taking too much responsibility.

Every communication has three parts – the message, how it’s delivered and how it’s received. Your responsibility only goes as far as crafting and delivering the message – which, of course, you can adapt to be as helpful as possible – but, ultimately, the other person has a choice in how they receive it. Your job is to deliver the message well. If you make yourself responsible for their happiness, you’re taking responsibility that doesn’t belong to you.

When you say yes because you hate saying no

Listen, if you love to be generous, that’s a good thing! But there’s a difference between generosity and being a doormat. Being generous has to come from a place of ‘I’d love to’ rather than ‘I have to’. When you say yes too often, when really you want to say no, this will lead to resentment.

Generosity has been described as a fruit of the spirit. Fruit nourishes and replenishes you. If you’re feeling drained by giving too much, giving from a place of empty because you ‘can’t say no’, that’s not generosity, that’s something else. Generosity has to be a choice from the heart, not from a place of obligation, duty, guilt or expectation.

But here’s what happens when you stop trying to please everybody: you let go of the stuff that’s not right for you – and clear space for what is

A good friend invited me to join her on a project recently. I love her work and her style and would relish the opportunity to work with her. But the role was not right for me at that time. After much deliberation, I realised the only reason I hadn’t said no straight away was because I didn’t want to say no to her. It turns out that she had picked up that my heart wasn’t in it and had already found someone else. As she put it, ‘I can’t really have someone who doesn’t want to be there.’ You see, if an opportunity’s not right for you, you’re not right for it either. I wouldn’t have done it any justice if I had said yes.

Similarly, I had a journalist request a while ago, asking if I would comment on seasonal marketing for small businesses. She had picked up on a guest post on my blog so, instead of saying yes and trying to fit myself into that space, I put her in touch with the person who wrote that blog post, who is an expert in that area. As a result, I didn’t spend hours figuring out what I would say, worrying about an interview that had nothing to do with my strengths and expertise, and I had so much more mental clarity to focus on what was right for me and my business instead.

Over the years, I’ve found that every time I say no to an opportunity that’s not right for me, a better opportunity comes along.

You stop mind reading and ask for what you need

‘I’m really tired tonight, love. Shall I get a takeaway or do you want to cook?’

‘I need some help with this project – do you have capacity to take on an extra client right now?’

‘Is there any reason why you’re often 15–30 minutes late for key meetings?’

‘I need to dive into this report now, but I’m free at lunchtime if you need some help figuring that one out.’

When you ask for what you need, and ask others what they need, you can come up with a solution together. No more mind reading!

You honour who you are – and let others do the same

When you stop trying to be all things to all people, you do your best, most impactful and most satisfying work. You give your best from a place of plenty and find you have so much more to give. Not only that, you give others the opportunity to step up and give their best too.

Be yourself. When you honour who you are – and who you’re not – you also honour and accept others for who they are.

Leading those you serve

I have a local taxi company that’s very reliable. Their prices are consistent, their drivers are always on time and they don’t dawdle to rack up the meter. By all accounts they offer excellent service, until something goes wrong. I once ordered a taxi to pick me up from the train station at 11:30 pm. The train had already been delayed when I called, so I explained that I hoped to be at the station for that time. As it happened, I was delayed by a further 10 minutes. By the time I arrived at the station, there was no taxi in sight. I called the company.

‘Well, you booked it for 11:30. When you didn’t show, the driver left.’

‘Ok, but my train was delayed.’

‘You could have called us.’

‘True, but the signal on the train isn’t great – plus, I already told you it was running late.’

‘We had no way of knowing if you were coming. The driver can’t afford to wait around for no shows.’

‘You knew I was on a train. There’s not much of a chance I’m not going to show, is there?’

‘Well, I can send him back.’

‘How long will that be?’

‘10 minutes.’

‘Never mind, I can see there’s a taxi at the rank. I’ll take that instead.’

‘So, you’re saying you don’t want a taxi now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Fine.’ Hangs up.

Well, that was a pretty poor outcome for both of us. The driver and the company lost out on a fare. As the customer, I felt let down. Nobody wins.

What is interesting about this conversation is that nothing the taxi company did was wrong, as such. But the way in which they did it left them out of pocket and the customer feeling let down. They were enforcing boundaries that were pretty fair, but hadn’t been communicated. And, when questioned, their response was defensive, which of course got my back up too. With hindsight (which is a wonderful thing), here’s what they could have done differently:

• Set clear expectations about delays: ‘Our drivers will wait for five minutes max. If you’re delayed longer than that, you need to let us know.’
  
• Acknowledge the dilemma: ‘I’m sorry about that. Our drivers can only wait for five minutes, as we often get no shows. What I can do is send someone back. They’ll be there in 10 minutes. Would you like me to do that?’
  
• Offer a better solution for the future: ‘Listen. Next time, give us a call when you’re 10 minutes away. That way we’ll be able to get a taxi to you by the time you arrive and there’s less chance of your train being delayed at that point.’
  

Setting the boundary upfront would have also prompted me to offer to pay for waiting time, which I would have been happy to do (I don’t want the driver to be out of pocket, but I’d rather not be a lone female hanging around a train station at that time of night). They could have said yes or no to that, but at least I would know exactly what to expect.

On another occasion with the same company, a taxi turned up at my house to take me to the airport, but didn’t knock on the door. When the time had passed, I called the company. ‘Well, they waited outside, but you didn’t come out’, they said. I wasn’t told I had to look out (maybe I missed taxi etiquette school?). Apparently, they saw that the curtains were closed and took that as a sign that no one was at home. Of course, the curtains were closed because I was about to go to the airport.

Since then, it turns out that they actually have a ring-back service – two rings on your number when the taxi arrives. But I only found that out when I specifically asked: ‘Do I need to look out for them or will they knock?’ I have resigned myself to the fact that, with this company, I have to take the lead in any conversation if I want to know where I stand. This is a shame, as if they had taken the lead in setting expectations, they would have far more delighted customers and fewer missed fares.

How often do you feel aggrieved when your boundaries are crossed? How clearly have you communicated them? How much have you assumed that they will know? How much do you lead your customer and set their expectations or do you leave it up to them to second-guess and mind read?

Often, we think that serving means to let someone else take the lead and to respond or react as appropriate, whether that’s customer service, serving our community, our boss or our family members. We ask them what they want and we endeavour to give it to them. When what they want crosses a line of possibility or appropriateness – in our minds – we find ourselves in conflict.

But that places a huge amount of responsibility on the person we’re serving: to know what’s possible; to know what’s appropriate. If you walked into a restaurant of a certain calibre, you would expect the waiter to guide you to a table, give you a menu, tell you if anything is not available that day, maybe give you some recommendations or specials of the day and ask you what you’d like to drink. Yes, if you asked for a different table or an alternative side dish they would also respond to that. But if they simply said, ‘What do you want?’ when you arrived, that would be pretty hard work for you as the customer, let alone the waiter and the chef!

Sometimes we serve best when we take the lead, when we define what we have to offer and how we work best, when we do the hard work of working out the best way of meeting our customers’ needs, when we set clear expectations up front and guide the customer through the experience:

• I serve my children when I offer them a balanced meal – rather than asking them what they want (chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate).
  
• I serve my clients when I let them know my working hours and availability.
  
• I serve my colleagues when I tell them I can give my best answer on Friday rather than a rushed and hurried one now.
  
• I serve my church when I tell them that I don’t have the capacity to give that project the attention it deserves.
  
• I serve my husband when I ask for help with the laundry rather than huff and puff with resentment that I have to do everything myself.
  

How can you serve your people better, by taking a lead, defining boundaries and setting clear expectations?

How you work best

If you’re a designer who works best when you get a feel for your client’s passion, style and personality – and are much more inspired by an intimate chat over coffee than a detailed project brief – then tell them that. If, on the other hand, you need a structured brief to work from and your client is notoriously bad at providing detail, then acknowledge that there’s a translation job to be done first:

‘I’m going to email you with a summary of what we’ve agreed. What I’d like you to do is to reply and confirm I’ve captured everything accurately before I start working on it.’

If you prefer to digest things internally and give your best input when you’ve had time to think, ask your clients to email you their ideas or an agenda before the meeting, so you can be prepared. Let them know that’s how you work best. If they surprise you with an idea, don’t be flustered, accept it with the enthusiasm it was offered and buy yourself time by saying, ‘Let me think on that and come back to you’.

On the other hand, if you think best on your feet and in conversation, then reply to the email with, ‘Let’s talk about this. I’d like to understand a bit more about… How’s Friday for you?’.

If you like to have the whole picture before you begin, then ask for it. Explain that once you know what you’re doing, you will go away, get it done and come back to them with everything complete. If, on the other hand, you prefer a step-by-step approach and prefer to get feedback along the way, agree some checkpoints in advance.

If you’re holding dates for someone, how long will you hold them for? I once spent a week holding one opportunity at bay while I checked if someone else still wanted a date they had asked me to hold a few weeks ago. I couldn’t get hold of them in the end and had to release the date. It was time-consuming and frustrating for me and I worried about disappointing the first client. Graham reminded me that for this reason we have a policy of holding dates for one week and that when we’re clear about this upfront, clients benefit from the certainty of having their dates on hold for a week and know that, if they take longer than a week, those dates will get released and may be booked by someone else.

How do you work best? How often will you check in? What’s the best way to keep in touch in between meetings? What if things change? Addressing some of these questions upfront not only makes life easier for you, but also gives others more certainty in dealing with you.

Here’s what happens next

One of the confirmation emails I love to get (yes, I’m probably a bit strange like that) comes from MOO (moo.com), the company that prints my business cards:

This answers questions that I have right now (What happens next? Anything I need to do right now?), questions I might have later (What if I need to talk to someone?) and even sets my expectations in case I was expecting to be able to talk to them in French or on a Sunday. Most of all, I love it because it’s friendly and it’s positive. It doesn’t tell me that they’re unavailable at the weekend or that they don’t speak any other languages, it tells me when they are available and what they can handle. It also doesn’t leave me to dig for contact details – it gives me a first port of call (FAQs) and an alternative (real people). And as it happens, MOO now does have a range of languages spoken in their Customer Service team.

’What happens next?’ is a question that your clients/colleagues/boss might have. If you can take a lead on this, you give them clarity and save yourself some potential distractions when your focus is elsewhere.

How available are you?

Do you have email on 24/7? Does your phone buzz when someone tweets you? Do you wake up to that familiar red light flashing on your BlackBerry? What about the times when you’re in a meeting? With a client? On the phone? When you’re travelling, driving, at a conference or attending training? When you’re off work? On holiday, with your kids, on a date, in the bath or asleep?

Whether you like it or not, there will be times when you’re not available to answer emails – and, probably, arguably, plenty more times when you could do with being less available. Yes, there’s often an expectation that an email requires a quick, or even instant, response. Yes, some industries and organisational cultures actively perpetuate this expectation. But I wonder how much of that expectation do we set ourselves?

Here are some examples of how you can actively manage expectations.

Email signatures

Paula, our Client Happiness and Logistics Manager, has this on her email signature:

‘Please note we run a “4 Day Working Week” here at Think Productive, so I am out of the office most Fridays. If your issue is urgent, please call the office line below.’

And Matthew, our London Ninja has this:

*** I check emails once a day. If your matter is urgent, please call me. I am unavailable by phone and email on Fridays.***

I have also seen this work well with job-share and part-time workers, as well as people whose job involves travel, days in meetings or between different office locations. Being upfront about your availability means people know when they can get hold of you. It also means that they can pre-plan. If there’s something you need from Paula or Matthew before the end of the week, ask them before the end of Thursday.

Email autoresponders

If your role requires you to dive deep with focused attention as well as being responsive to customers, you could take your inspiration from this accountant’s email autoresponse:

‘Thank you for your email. I am likely to be in a meeting or immersed in a client’s work. So that I can give them my undivided attention and focus, this inbox is checked once a day. If you need me more urgently than this, please text or leave a voicemail on my mobile xxxxx and I shall respond to you as soon as I am free.’

Or, for a more humorous approach, this is one recruitment consultant’s email autoresponse:

‘Thank you for your email.

Those that know me well will realise that the remnants of childhood hyperactivity mean that I can be distracted by the slightest thi…ooohhhh, look, a chicken!

To be more effective, and ultimately serve you better, I am only accessing emails at 12.00 pm and 4.00 pm daily. If your issue is urgent and requires my immediate attention then please call me.

Thank you for your cooperation.’

Often, when we send an email all we want to know is that it’s in hand and when we’ll get a reply – instead of wondering if/when we need to chase. Knowing with confidence that someone will get back to me within 24 hours allows me to park it on my waiting list and forget about it for the next 24 hours, rather than play a lottery of wondering if it will be a super-fast 2-minute response or whether it will take weeks of chasing. And, of course, offering an alternative for emergencies covers the more urgent requests – which are usually far less common than we think.

Voicemail

If you call my mobile and get my voicemail, you’ll hear something along the lines of:

‘Thanks for calling, I’m probably with a client right now, helping them to replace stress and overwhelm with playful, productive momentum. If you’d like me to do the same for you, leave me a message and I look forward to speaking with you soon.’

I never feel guilty about letting calls go to voicemail because it usually makes people smile, doubles up as a marketing message and lets my clients know that when they are with me they get my undivided attention.

Open-office hours

My local doctors have an open surgery every morning from 8 am. If you need to see a doctor and don’t have an appointment, just turn up, take a number and wait in line. A coach I know has set open-office hours when you can call for help in between sessions. If you call and the number is engaged, that means she’s talking to someone else – try again in 10 minutes. If you call and get through to her, you know you’ll have her undivided attention for the next 10 minutes.

My coaching clients have access to my online diary, where they can choose from available slots rather than wondering about my availability or playing email ping pong to get a date in the diary. A copywriter I know communicates her availability on her website: ‘I’m now taking bookings for May’, to set expectations upfront.

If you’re out of the office a lot and your team find it hard to track you down, you might find it helpful all round to let people know when you’re in and when you’re available, to avoid being pounced on when you reappear: ‘I’m travelling on Monday, in meetings Tuesday to Thursday and back in the office on Friday.’

Afternoon tea

June Dennis, Head of University of Wolverhampton Business School, schedules afternoon tea sessions for her students. She will let them know a time and place each week where she is available to answer any questions and discuss their work. She will even buy them a cup of tea.

This means her students know exactly when and where to find her, without having to hunt down her office hoping they’ve chosen a good time, and she gets to be less in demand during the rest of the week. It also means she can give them her full attention during that time. These are often incredibly useful conversations, where she finds out far more about her students (who’s pulling all-nighters and surviving on caffeine, who’s dealing with bereavement, who’s struggling with home sickness) and can signpost them, advise or encourage them much more than in snatches of conversation when she’s busy.

What if my boundaries have already been crossed?

It’s one thing to set boundaries, but what happens if you have already allowed your boundaries to be crossed, or if you haven’t been clear enough in setting them in the first place?

‘People are used to me being available after-hours.’

‘I’ve already said yes when I should have said no!’

‘I said yes to fill the gap in the short term, but fast-forward nine months and there’s an unspoken assumption that I’ll carry on filling in the gap. I’m feeling a bit taken advantage of…’

When your boundaries have already been crossed, it can be a bit tricky to extricate yourself. If you’ve promised to deliver, you may not be able to pull out immediately or entirely. If you’ve set an expectation, it may take time to change that expectation and there may be some diplomatic retraining needed and some comfort-zone stretching for you.

Take small steps: ‘I’m in the Welsh mountains this weekend so probably going to be offline. If anything comes up, just drop me an email and I’ll pick it up on Monday.’

Find opportunities to revisit and redefine boundaries: We’ve been working together for six months now. It would be really good to review how this is working.’

‘This project has really taken off – it’s approaching the point where it’s going to need full-time dedicated support. Let’s talk about how we transition to that.’

‘I’ve taken a deeper look and I think it’s actually going to require a lot more than I initially thought. I don’t have the time/expertise to do it justice right now. I’d love to support you in a different way, though. How about…’

Refer to the common outcome you share: ‘Our customers need to feel valued, for sure. I’m wondering if there’s a better way to achieve this. Can I run some ideas past you?’

Help others to set boundaries: ‘Listen, I’m on call this weekend so you might get some emails from me – I don’t need you to look at them or take any action until you’re back in the office, ok?’

Ask for help: I remember one workshop where a delegate admitted that she found it really hard to say no. Her boss was in the room and said, ‘Thank you for saying that. That’s really good to know because I go to meetings and say yes to more work for our team because I think you have the capacity. Now that I know that’s not necessarily the case, I can take that into account!’

Sometimes, when we’re used to having our boundaries crossed (or not setting them in the first place), we may not be very used to asserting our own value and the validity of our boundaries. Others around you may see your value much more clearly than you can and can support you in setting and resetting your boundaries.

How to say no

Do you sometimes find yourself saying yes when you really mean to say no? Perhaps it’s that really juicy opportunity or the bright, shiny, new idea that’s luring you off-track? Or maybe a scary boss, a demanding client or a very important person has put you on the spot? Perhaps, like me, you’re a natural helper who finds it hard to say no because you hate letting people down? Or maybe you’re worried that, if you say no, they’ll never ask again?

Saying no is a skill most of us have to practise. There are a rare few who find it comes naturally to them: ‘No. It’s just a word. What’s the big deal?’. For the rest of us, there comes a point where we realise that, if we want to be able to choose what we say yes to, we need to learn how to say no comfortably, authentically, pleasantly and effectively. So here are some examples to help.

When you want to say ‘not right now’

Yes, you want to help but, no, not right now. Right now, you’re in the middle of drafting a delicate email, you’ve already got someone else breathing down your neck, a report deadline that’s looming at 12 o’clock, and a meeting that starts in 10 minutes. It’s not that you don’t care or don’t want to help, it’s just really bad timing. So, if ‘No, I can’t right now’ feels rude, abrupt or inappropriate, try saying yes on your own terms:

‘Yes, I’d love to hear about that. Can we talk at 4?’

‘Yes, I’m available tomorrow at 10 and at 3. Which would you prefer?’

‘Yes, let’s explore this properly – can we set up a meeting?’

‘You know what? I’d love to give that some proper thought. Could you email me the details so I can take a closer look?’

‘Yes, I’d love to help. Given my schedule, the earliest I can come back to you is… Would that work or do you want to find someone else?’

When it’s a ‘not this time’

It may be an event, opportunity or favour you’d normally welcome but, this time, it’s not right for you – for whatever reason. I had plenty of these responses when asking for early reviewers for this book, so here are a few of my favourites:

‘Sounds great. Sadly, I have to practise my ruthlessness on this one and say no. I’d love to, but I’m full up at the moment.’

‘I love to read – especially your writing – but won’t be able to meet the deadline.’

‘The timing won’t work for me this time… do please keep me in mind for future feedback.’

When you want to be supportive in a different way

Some of the best ‘no’ emails I have received are ones where people are genuinely encouraging:

‘This sounds like a great opportunity and I’m so pleased for you. I’m fully committed with my current projects/speaking schedule/clients, but I’d love to support you by [introducing you to someone who can help/promoting the launch/donating a raffle prize/giving you something else].’

When it’s a ‘thanks, but no thanks’

‘Thanks so much for thinking of me. That’s not really my area of expertise, but I can recommend…’

‘That’s very kind, but I’m going to have to decline.’

‘To be honest, this isn’t really my thing. You’d be much better getting x on board. Do you want me to introduce you?’

‘I’m going to pass on this one – but thanks for asking!’

Instead of ‘I can’t’, say ‘I don’t’

As we looked at in Chapter 3, ‘I can’t’ signals impossibility and incapacity. It makes us feel powerless. Instead, ‘I don’t’ sends a different signal to our brains. Whether we say it out loud or just to ourselves, it reminds us that we choose what we commit to and it feels good to honour our internal commitments:

‘I don’t access my emails at the weekend.’

‘I don’t specialise in that area.’

‘I don’t take calls in the evening.’

‘I don’t travel more than twice a month.’

‘I don’t take on work where I can’t give my best because that doesn’t serve anyone.’ (Ok, that had both I don’t and I can’t in, but you get the idea.)

When you need to enforce boundaries

‘In order to honour my existing client commitments, I only have a limited number of consultation slots available. You’ll find them here…’

‘I’m afraid that’s only available to our workshop delegates, but I can point you to these three tips on the blog that will help you get started…’

‘I’m fully committed for the next …, but I do have availability from July onwards.’

‘I’ve promised myself no new projects until this book’s written and, now that I’ve told you, I have to stick to it!’

‘My blogging schedule/speaking availability/advertising budget is fully committed for this month/quarter/year. Ask me again in…’

‘I would love to help you out, but I already made commitments to other [co-workers, clients, etc.] to complete their projects today. It wouldn’t be fair to them not to follow through on what I said I would do. I will be sure to fit this in as soon as possible. Thanks for your understanding.’ (Elizabeth Grace Saunders)² ‘Thanks for your interest in meeting with me. Unfortunately, that will not be possible for the foreseeable future. In order to honour my existing commitments, I must decline many worthy invitations like yours.’ (Michael Hyatt)³

‘Ah, that’s an intriguing possibility, but I’m afraid that my own Ninja rules of life don’t permit working on the weekends. Plus, I doubt the delegates would thank me/us for stealing a possible day of rest from them, given how hard the team is working right now? Hope that’s ok, I was very tempted to say yes, given your keenness to get us in ASAP – but I need to stay authentic to my own Ninja principles!’ (This was my Ninja colleague Lee’s response to a request to run a weekend workshop for a team who couldn’t find time in the week to fit in training. They did, eventually, come back to order, many months later, and the sessions were delivered in work hours, on weekdays.)

When you’re totally not interested

I used to find conversations with door-to-door sales people, street fundraisers and cold callers annoying and awkward. Now I see them as an opportunity to practise saying no!

‘Thanks for asking. This one’s not for me, but good luck!’

‘My regular giving budget is fully committed already.’

‘I haven’t got any advertising budget at all I’m afraid, but thanks for asking!’

‘We’re really not going to have a conservatory. Please don’t waste your time with us.’

‘Love your energy, but it’s not for me, thanks!’

Incidentally, as someone who makes and follows up on sales enquiries, I love it when people do say what they mean, instead of giving me a generic ‘not yet’ reply, which could mean ‘keep in touch’ but, equally, could mean ‘I wish you would stop emailing me, but I’m too polite to say so’. Knowing who genuinely wants me to follow up and who doesn’t gives me clarity, which means I can stay on the ball for those who do want to continue the conversation and, equally, serve those who are no longer interested by leaving them alone!

‘It’s not on the cards, I’m afraid. If something changes I’ll let you know. Leave it with me.’

‘It’s gone on the back burner, but still definitely interested. Ask me again in two months.’

‘I’m still waiting on… hope to have an answer by…/check with me again next week.’

Practise

Saying no is a bit like a muscle. It can feel uncomfortable if you have not used it for a while, but the more you use it the easier it gets, and the more you realise the world really doesn’t end when you do. I have also realised that I would much rather be asked and given the opportunity (and freedom) to say no, than not to be asked at all. When I feel free to say no, then others are free to ask – which means the times when I want to say yes, I can do so wholeheartedly.

Over to you