I was bowled over this morning reading a great article in Business Insider that held a good tool for the Nice Guys and the People Pleasers of the world. It was an approach to saying No and turning down requests I hadn’t thought of before.
Here’s the pertinent piece of the article:
Overworked and overburdened is a recipe for unhappiness. So if you want to be happy, get some quick wins by saying no.
But say no the right way: say “I don’t.” Believe it or not, using the phrase “I don’t” is up to eight times more effective than saying “I can’t.” It’s more than doubly effective versus a simple no.The Journal of Consumer Research ran a number of studies on this difference in terminology. One of the studies split participants into three groups:
- Group 1 was told that anytime they felt tempted to lapse on their goals, they should “just say no.” This group was the control group, because they were given no specific strategy.
- Group 2 was told that anytime they felt tempted to lapse on their goals, they should implement the “can’t” strategy. For example, “I can’t miss my workout today.”
- Group 3 was told that anytime they felt tempted to lapse on their goals, they should implement the “don’t” strategy. For example, “I don’t miss workouts.”
And the results:
- Group 1 (the “just say no” group) had 3 out of 10 members stick with their goals for the entire 10 days.
- Group 2 (the “can’t” group) had 1 out of 10 members stick with her goal for the entire 10 days.
- Group 3 (the “don’t” group) had an incredible 8 out of 10 members stick with their goals for the entire 10 days.
What do *you* think?
Take care, Peter
