The art of saying "No" - How did you learn it?

You have to learn where "always YES" is coming from. Tackle that and be happy forever, saying "no" with a smile. :)

I think saying 'No' becomes easy when you are able to articulate it politely and without causing offense. In my line of work, I have had potential clients lowball me. On one hand, I need their projects, but cannot say yes to move ahead. So, instead of saying 'no, sorry', I say it more politely like "Unfortunately, that does not work for me. Can we do this instead?". It keeps the conversation going while also having conveyed what you needed to say.

I struggled for a long time until I joined Mckinsey, and they taught me a framework mostly to deal with demanding situations. Might look like I plug but just sharing as its fitting. I wrote extensively about it here: https://twitter.com/supermode_/s...

To say "No" to something you need to first have a perspective about it. You will have a perspective on it if you have cared about the subject enough. 🧐 So start caring about what you are building, who you are building it for, and why are you building it. 🧘‍♂️ When you do, you will have your opinions and will be able to meaningfully answer with a "yes" or a "no".

Short answer is - the hard way. Saying "No" doesn't come naturally to any of us. We say yes to most anything, something's work out and most don't. It's only when I looked closer with an intent to find out why am I being unproductive or not making progress - is I realised I wasn't valuing my time, attention, and purpose correctly. My focus was wavering. The problem is one can read all the books, anecdotes from others, create frameworks - but it is only through personal experience that you learn the art of saying no. Because it is NOT the outside world that forces you to say yes, it is your voice from inside.

Initially, I said yes to all feature requests. At some point, it became very clear that the product will become bloated quickly if we keep doing that and now we only approve those features that many customers requested and that fit our product vision. For all other requests, it is a polite "no".

I was struggling with it too. In my case, a simple exercise worked pretty well. I told myself that my default first answer will be no to all for some time😉 The person who asked me to do something could always convince me to change my mind, and very often my final answer was "yes." However, it was always followed by reasonable discussion and solid arguments from the requester. Most importantly, this trick set up my mind to raise more questions and have a deeper think about request. In my case, the fact that I often agreed to some things was due to a lack of proper thinking about the topic and an automatic „yes” answer. If you give yourself some time to think about the request you are more likely to answer „no”, and if you eventually say „yes” it is usually a thoughtful decision.

through practice: Just say NO.

I started doing it more when I started feeling what is going on inside me when I make a decision or communicate one. And now the voice is so loud that I can't ignore it.

By being taken advantage of to the point where it really bothered me, and over the years, I started to say no. Its the same scenario on why would a dog sit on a nail, why won't it stand up> It squeecks and cries... Well, because it isn't hurting enough, yet. And funny thing is, when I started doing that, I actually got more money. I lived at a place which I rented and lived with the owner and I was a guy that would go to the shop many times for free etc... then I started to say no and they paid me now to go. One of many stories. The mindset applies in other aspects of life. Eventually you get enough of bs and you start to change, as long as you want to - as some people want to stay under the radar the whole time, but you don't grow that way.

tell your honest reasons why you're saying NO and sometimes people rework on their side and give you better stuff.

Still learning it :)

Great point to discuss but still looking for better ways to say no.

once you just start it becomes empowering and therefore it becomes compelling and easy

Still learning, but it's definitely really important :)

Still learning. A very hard thing to apply

Setting boundaries by learning to say "no" has been one of the best things I've ever done and once you start saying it, it becomes very easy to do

Finding clear and kind ways to say no.

Learning to say "no" is an important skill to have in order to maintain healthy boundaries and take care of yourself. It can be helpful to practice saying "no" in your head, set clear boundaries with others, be assertive when you do say "no," and consider offering an alternative solution if you can't do something that someone has asked of you. Remember that it is okay to say "no" and that you are not obligated to do everything that others ask of you.

You must have courage to say it