Learn the art of saying ‘no’ to maintain a healthy work-life balance

One of the toughest skills to acquire at the workplace is the art of saying ‘No’. Seen as a considerable problem especially for people who are just starting out in their careers. Contrary to this, saying ‘Yes’ to everything that comes your way at work seriously over burdens you and chokes your bandwidth. All of this can cause mental stress and anxiety.

Saying ‘No’ becomes a crucial situation in order to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Firstly, one should understand that there is nothing wrong in saying ‘No’ and you won’t tick off your subordinates or seniors.

Here are some tips that might help you equipping this skill.

• Map your boundaries: setting boundaries is an exceptional way to let others know your working style. This way you can mark areas where they should not push you so that you cordially aim at delivering work respecting each other’s spaces.
•  Make sure you are actually saying no: rather than dodging the situation with “Umm, I’m not sure” or “I don’t know yet if I’ll be able to…” Clearly state out your denial. When you don’t communicate properly it gives a sense that you are leading on that person and eventually they might lose their trust in you. So it’s better to just say a ‘No’ out loud.

•  Try to probe in the request and before denying: if you straight away jump into saying a ‘No’ then you might come in like an apprehensive person. Pose a “why” to their request and probe further, and then judge if you can or cannot accommodate the request, bases which you form your response, that could be as simple as “I cannot take this up right now since all my resources are full or work”. So make sure that you explain your reason to them.

• Mellow your tone: sometimes you might come out as rude if you say ‘No’ anxiously, so take a step back, take a breath and very politely deny, assuring the other person that you deny it in good faith.

These are some simple tips that you can follow to ease your work-life by simply saying ‘No’. However, if you are still skeptical or scared, just practice in front of the mirror a few times and you will be sorted!