Then why is it often so doggone hard to say!

“Do you want to go shopping?” a friend asks.  Or “Do you want to go grab a couple beers?”  And away we go—despite the fact that, just two minutes earlier, we were day-dreaming about the perfect way to spend the afternoon.  What’s up with that?

Why is Saying No so Scary?

We agree to things we don’t genuinely want for a whole host of reasons.  And some of them are good ones.  We might be acting out of kindness, for example, or from a desire to be helpful, and willingly giving up our own preferences because we decided that the other person’s need was greater than our own.

But all too often, we give in to the requests for our time or resources out of fear.

We’re afraid that we’ll hurt somebody’s feelings, or offend them.  We’re afraid that our refusal will start an argument, or that we’ll be alienated from a group.  So we “go along to get along,” even if going along isn’t what we genuinely want, or even when it involves a compromise of our values.

Sometimes we’ve been trained by authority figures—parents, teachers, spouses, employers—that saying no is impermissible, and that bad consequences will follow if we don’t comply.

We’re afraid others will think we’re rude, or selfish, or stingy.  We’ve been taught from the crib, after all, that nice people share.

Sometimes we fear ridicule or loss of status.

But whatever the fear, it’s almost always a clue that we need to boost our confidence in our own worth, or in the resilience of our relationships, or maybe both.

Why It’s Important to Say No

At its core, saying no is about maintaining your identity and your personal boundaries.  It tells other people, “This is who I am.”

When you want to say no, but don’t, you’re being dishonest about who you really are.  You’re showing people a false face—and robbing them of the opportunity to know, appreciate, and respect the real you.

We might think that saying no to someone might damage our relationship, but when your yes leaves you feeling frustrated, irritated, suffocated, or bored, or even angry, bitter or resentful, it doesn’t do your relationship any good either.

Saying no when you want to say no is a matter of personal integrity.  And when we’re being honest about who we are, what we think, what we want, and what we need, we feel in alignment with ourselves.  We’re living our truth.

Saying no is empowering.  It’s an opportunity to demonstrate that you own your choices.  It’s an expression of your freedom to direct your own course.

When you say no, you’re honor yourself.  You’re respecting your values and your time.

It’s Not Always Either/Or

That said, life is a messy place and human relationships are complicated, calling for flexibility and some give-and-take.   Unless your primary ethical values are at stake, it’s good to be able to negotiate and compromise, to look for common ground and for win-win solutions that meet everybody’s needs.  (One great way to learn to do that is to learn how to use the technique of Non-Violent Communication™.)

How to Say No

It’s possible—and with practice, even easy—to say no with comfort and tact.  My favorite list of graceful ways to say no is from Margot Silk Forrest, author of A Short Course in Kindness.   Check this out: 42 Ways to Say ‘No’ (or Buy Time Until You Can).

And Chris Brogan has a fabulous list of ways to say no that’s tailored for the work environment, and that every entrepreneur and contractor, especially, will want to keep on hand.

Awareness and Practice

The key to learning to say no is to be aware of what you’re feeling, to notice what writer Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen calls your “I’m not comfortable” feelings.    Learn to spot the times when your fear of saying no is surfacing, and then remind yourself that you have a choice.  Then even if you still aren’t able to say no, you’ll build your awareness.

Another way to build your awareness is to review your day each evening and make a journal entry, or even a simple mental note, of the times you said no, and of the times you were aware that you wanted to, but didn’t.

In a way, learning to say no is learning a new skill, because we’re more often taught not to say it instead  of being trained to say it well.   And like any skill, mastering  it takes practice.

The rewards are definitely worth the effort: You gain a portion of your self back in situations where you were habitually, unthinkingly, fearfully giving your power away.  

And because saying no does have that scary aspect to it, it takes courage.  Keep applying that time-tested advice:  “Fear the fear and do it anyway.”

One technique that helps is to think of someone you admire who is at ease in saying no and to model him or her.  Think of a strong leader, or someone from history, or a celebrity you admire.  I imagine him smoothly saying no without a trace of apology, hesitancy, or guilt.    Mentally place him in a scene you lived out recently where you shrunk away from saying no and watch how he does it.  See his ease and naturalness as he says speaks.   Then the next time you want to say no to something, imagine that you have become your model.  Feel his ease and self-possession and let him do the speaking through you.

Another way to practice is to make a game of saying no five times a day and then noticing the responses you got.  Say it just for practice, even when you don’t mean it, and then tell the other person you were just kidding if you must.

Or pretend that you’re an actor, and your only lines are “No,” and “No, thank you,” –but you say them in a dozen different scenes.  Practice as you pace the living room floor or say them with different facial expressions in the bathroom mirror.  Try them out in different tones of voice and in varying volumes.

The point is to get used to the sound of the word coming out of your very own mouth.  it’s not at all as scary as you thought.  In fact, it makes you feel strong.  And in time, it will be as natural and easy as breathing.

Need help learning to say “No” in your life?  I can help! Check out my coaching services.

Patting ourselves on the back or singing our own praises is considered crass behavior, self-centered, egotistical, braggadocio.   We have a negativity bias that says the way to become better is to focus on our weaknesses and flaws and to work on overcoming them.

But positive psychology is turning that theory on its head.  The fastest, most effective path to excellence and success, according to its findings, is to focus on what’s best in yourself, and to turn up the volume on the things you love doing, and that you do well.

Not only that, but getting a clear picture of who you are when you’re at your best is a powerful and long-lasting way boost your sense of well-being.   But, because we’re normally discouraged from looking at what’s best in us, how can we go about painting that clear picture for ourselves?

What’s Good About Me?

One way to find the areas in which you shine is to complete the free online VIA (Values-in-Action) Character Strengths survey.  Are you motivated by a love of learning?  A sense of justice and fairness? Does your love of beauty and excellence drive you?  Is kindness one of your top strengths? Creativity?  Taking the VIA Character Strengths survey will let you find out.

You can build a picture of your best future self—the one you’re hoping to become—by doing the Best Possible Self exercise described here.  It will let you see your potentials and the qualities that you aspire to develop.  And just doing it will make you feel good now and fortify your sense of well-being.

Or start by simply upping your awareness of your positive qualities, by paying attention to the loveable parts of yourself and the things that you do well and enjoy doing.   That’s what the questions below are designed to help you do.  Just reading through them will prompt your subconscious to start delivering up its hidden knowledge about your fantasticness.

Exploring Your Best Self

Relax and read through the following questions.  Invite the answers to them to flow gently into your awareness as you go.  Maybe take some notes about the images that come to mind.

If you like, you can get even more from this exercise by writing down your answers and then looking for patterns.   Some people enjoy using their insights as the basis for writing a “My Best Self” description of themselves.

In any case, enjoy:

• What are some things you most enjoy doing—things that make you feel energized, that you can get so lost in that it feels as if time is standing still?
• Think about the kinds of situations bring out the best in you?  Where would you be?  Who would be with you?  What might you be doing?
• What inspires you?
• What kinds of challenges turn you on?
• What makes you feel strong?
• What do you enjoy creating?
• What kinds of puzzles or problems do you enjoy solving?
• What would you be doing on your ideal vacation?
• What kinds of adventures do you enjoy?
• Where do you most often find and enjoy beauty?
• How have you bounced back after a disappointment, failure, or setback?
• How do you make other people feel good about themselves?  In what ways do you make people smile? Laugh? Feel comforted, encouraged, or supported?
• For which of your personal qualities are you the most grateful?
• When do you feel that you’re being most truly you?
• What did each of your family members like most about you when you were little?  Do you still have those characteristics today?  Which ones do you most enjoy today?
• What did your favorite teacher like most about you?  Are those qualities still something you express today?
• What do you like most about your job?
• What does your boss appreciate most about you?
• What do your co-workers value about you?
• How about your customers or clients?  What do they appreciate in you?
• What makes other people seek you out?
• Who, in your circle of friends and acquaintances, do you highly admire?   What does that person appreciate most about you?
• Who provides you with guidance?  What does that person like about you?
• Where do you find the most purpose in your life?
• What do people complement you about?  What do others seem to think you do especially well?  What do you enjoy doing for others?
• What can you do to use your Best Self more in your life? In your work?  In your relationships with others?

More Ways to Use the Best-Self Inventory

These questions are meant as a springboard, a way to help you notice the positive sides of yourself.   The things you enjoy and are good at are tools you can use to enrich your life.  By focusing on them, you can find more creative ways to build excellence and to develop those parts of your life where you’re not quite as strong.

Do a Nightly Review: Try asking yourself questions like those in the inventory as you fall asleep at night, as a kind of daily assessment of your best self.  What did you enjoy the most?  What excellence did you notice and appreciate in yourself and others?  What were the highlights of the day, and what do they tell you about you-at-your-best?

Encourage Yourself:  Print out these questions or file them somewhere that lets you access them easily.  When you have a down day or an upsetting experience, pull them out and review them to remind you about the positive parts of yourself.

Create a Best-Self Portrait: Use the images and answers from the questions to write out a description of your best self.  Or make a vision board or scrap book using personal photos, or images from the Net or from magazines that illustrate some of your best qualities.  Put a note in your calendar to update it in six months, or every New Year’s Eve, or on your birthday.  Watch how your best self changes and expands over time.

Form a Best-Self Master Mind:   Break through the taboo.  Start a little “mutual appreciation club” with a few close friends, co-workers, or your family members that’s dedicated to recognizing each other’s specific positive qualities and pointing them out.  Meet at regular intervals to talk about your own best-self discoveries and to point out what qualities you genuinely appreciate in the other club members.   This is a fabulous way to strengthen relationships.  The only rule is to focus on specific behaviors, not giving each other flattering compliments, but real feedback about things done well.

Above all, enjoy the good feelings about yourself that this inventory generated.  Let the insights and discoveries percolate into your awareness over the next several days.  Let it serve to heighten your awareness of the things you most appreciate about yourself, and that others appreciate about you.  Likewise, let it heighten your awareness of others’ positive qualities.  Mention them; see what kind of responses you get.

Your greatest room for personal growth is in the area of your unique strengths and special talents, in all the qualities that make up your best self.   Increasing your awareness of them and building on what you discover will strengthen your sense of well-being and allow you to continuously create for yourself new pathways to excellence and a thriving life.

But when the desire to excel turns into the need to be perfect, it robs us of our power.  In fact, it can stop us dead in our tracks, suck the joy from life, and keep us from growing at all.

The Pain of Perfectionism

How ironic—and sad!–that the very longing that stems from wanting to be the best can actually send our sense of self-worth into the pits and keep us from producing anything at all!  But that’s what happens when we fall prey to perfectionism.

When you’re caught in its grips, perfectionism leads you to:

• Overemphasize your setbacks and shortcomings
• Focus on and criticize flaws, mistakes and shortcomings in yourself and others
• Believe that you’re inadequate, that you don’t measure up
• Be immobilized by fear of both failure and success
• Suffer from heightened stress, ill health and depression

Changing Mindsets: Being Good vs Getting Better

Heidi Halvorson, Ph.D., author of Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals and a thought-leader in the field of motivational mindsets, has begun promoting awareness of the difference between a two mindsets that she calls “being good” and “getting better.”

Perfectionists tend to look at the world through the “being good” lens.  Their emphasis is on validating themselves—on proving how smart they are, how talented, how skilled, how good-looking, how successful.

When they take a class, people with a “be good” mindset want to get an A to prove how smart they are.  When they produce a great report at work, it’s to prove how talented they are.  When they work on their diets, it’s to look more attractive.

People who look at the world through the “getting better” mindset, on the other hand, see their goals as a way to develop their abilities and master new skills.  To them, the A in school means they learned a lot.  Writing the report at work gave them a chance to develop their talent.  Eating better improved their health.

It’s all a matter of where you put your attention, Halvorson says.  Are you looking for information about how you compare to others or to some external standard?  Or are you looking for information that you can use to improve yourself, seeing others as a source of learning and expertise?

What’s interesting about these two mindsets is the result they generate when times get tough.  People with “be good” mindsets get anxious and withdraw in the face of setbacks or failure.  People with “get better” mindsets roll up their sleeves and get to work.

The “get better” mindset allows people to be more cooperative with others, to be more responsive, sensitive and supportive, too. It allows people to see everyone as having value.   So they build more connections in the world, and keep gathering information that contributes to their own development and success.  All their experiences become fodder for their growth.

The good news is that you can teach yourself to switch lenses, to adopt the “getting better” mindset more frequently in your life.

Shelving the Perfectionist Lens

Your “be good” lenses can serve you well sometimes.  In some situations, a strong competitive spirit is exactly what you need.  But for the most part, you’ll enjoy life more, be open to a broader range of experiences, form more and better relationships, reach higher levels of success, be more motivated, and have more resilience when you look at the world through a “getting better” lens.

Here’s how:

1.    Strive for balance.  Nobody’s telling you to stop wanting things to be better.  Valid criticism has its place.  The key is to recognize that few errors are fatal.  While excellence is a worthy goal, in a whole lot of cases, good enough is good enough.  It really is okay to let the small stuff slide. Remember the Pareto Principle: “Of the things you do during your day, only 20 percent really matter. Those 20 percent produce 80 percent of your results. Identify and focus on those things.”

2.    Become aware of your criticisms and complaints.    Becoming aware of an automatic behavior is always the first step to changing it.  Set an intention to notice when you’ve put on your critic’s hat.  Set up little triggers to help you remember it.  A couple years ago a whole “anti-complaint” movement swept the country where people wore a brightly colored wrist band to remind them not to complain.  Whenever they caught themselves complaining, the participants moved the band to the opposite wrist.  It was a great trigger.  You could try that.  Or just put sticky notes where you’ll see them.

3.    Try asking yourself positive affirmative questions: “Why am I noticing so many good things now?”  “Why am I seeing so many strong points now?”  “Why am I appreciating myself so much now?

4.     Work on boosting your positivity ratio.   When you notice that you’re focusing on mistakes, faults, or shortcomings, stop.  Just stop, midstream.  That’s a first step—and it may take some practice to master.  Your critical focus is a habit and breaking it means stepping outside your comfort zone.   But you’ll be trading that small discomfort for the big rewards of a broader, happier, more productive world.  Then, as soon as you halt your critical statement or thought, look for three good things, three strengths, three qualities you can appreciate or enjoy.

5.    Exercise your self-compassion.   Remind yourself that it’s human to make mistakes. How you do is not who you are.   You, like all the rest of us, are learning as you go.  And that’s not only okay, it’s healthy and wonderful and leads to a richer, greater life.

If you need to be perfect at something, become a perfect experiencer.  Let yourself feel the whole range of human emotions—even the disappointment of failure, or loss, or of only winning the bronze.  There’s real joy to be found in letting go of perfectionism.  Let yourself experience appreciation for our incompleteness, to be touched by how hard we try, to be thrilled by the process of mastering and excited about becoming more each day.  Be in the journey.  It’s where the treasures are.

If you have overcome perfectionism, leave a comment and share with us how you did it or how your life has changed.

Graphic: stock.xchng

He did all the things that make sleeping easy.    He ate well, laughed a lot, and enjoyed his family and friends. He worked building the kind of huge cranes that lift train cars and ships.  It gave him plenty of  exercise.  He kept to a regular routine.  He found time to play.

What reminded me of that t-shirt is the number of complaints I’ve heard this week from people for whom sleep is elusive or in short supply.  If we held Sleep Olympics today, I thought, we might be hard-pressed to find any entrants.

Sleeping Well Matters

Sleep is critical to our well-being.   How critical?  To get an idea of the costs of getting too little, read through the shocking statistics in the graphics at the end of this post.  The facts speak for themselves.  Not only can we not be at our best if we’re not sleeping well, but we’re putting  our very lives in jeopardy.

If sleep is in short supply for you, you need to give it some serious attention.  Move it up on your list of priorities.  Make a commitment to begin doing the things that will allow it to come easily for you.   Sign up for this free four-week e-course  that will teach you the skills for falling asleep quickly every night.   Or just start with these quick tips if your problem isn’t chronic.

The Benefits of Good Sleep

Getting enough sleep pays off for us in wonderful ways.  According to an article from the Huffington Post, the benefits of good sleep lets us enjoy include:

• Improved memory;
• A longer life span;
• Reduced blood pressure and health-robbing inflammation;
• Enhanced creativity;
• Improved performance;
• Improved grades at school;
• Better impulse control and improved attention;
• Enhanced weight loss (up to 56% more!) for dieters;
• Reduced stress;
• Fewer accidents;
• Less risk of depression

Other articles say it reduces your risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and possibly even cancer, too.

With all that going for it—and the huge risks you face by doing without—there’s no doubt about it, making sleep a priority is crucial to your flourishing and success.   And who knows?  Maybe if you get really good at it, somebody will give you an Olympic Sleep Champion t-shirt!

Created by: MedicalBillingandCodingCertification.net

If I could wave a magic wand and banish just one thing about most of us, I’d whisk away our habit of beating ourselves up and put a new habit of self-compassion in its place.

“Hey! That’s not me,” you might say.   “I don’t beat myself up!”

I’d like to believe that’s true–that every single person reading these words had somehow escaped the trap of self-criticism and blame.  But the trap is such a pervasive one that even the strongest and healthiest among us falls into it from time to time.

The only difference between the strongest and healthiest and the rest of us is that they recognize the trap and scurry out of it pretty quickly.

Now I don’t have a magic wand, but I have pinned down some clues for recognizing the trap, and I’ve rounded up some tips for breaking out of it in fast order.   And just in case you (like most of us) happen to fall into it from time to time, I’m going to share them with you right now.

Recognizing the Trap

I started out by calling beating yourself up a habit.  And it is.  It runs on autopilot, without our even having to give it a thought.  That’s why it’s a trap.  We fall into it before we even notice that we’re there.

So the first step is to learn to be alert for the trap.  It comes disguised as nasty things you say about yourself:

•    I’m so stupid/clumsy/ignorant/sloppy/homely/fat/lazy/dull/worthless, etc.
•    I can’t ever do anything right.
•    I’ll never learn to . . .
•    I’m can’t stay on a diet/make myself exercise/get myself to tackle that project, etc.
•    I’ll never be as good as him/her/them.

That kind of thing.  The kinds of things that put you down in some way, that tell you that you have some negative quality or trait, or have made some mistake, or failed at something  that makes you a second-rate human being.

When you find yourself thinking any thought that says you don’t measure up in some way and you feel as if you never will, that’s a sign that you’ve fallen into the beat-myself-up trap.  Those are the clues.

It’s important to know that, and it’s important to understand, too, why it’s a trap.  It has the power to drag you down into such darkness that you forget completely what a fine human being you truly are.   It sucks out your energy and makes you vulnerable to fear, bitterness, anger and self-loathing.  It can rob you of quality relationships and even make you ill.  And who wants to be there!

Self-Compassion: The Way Out

But lately, a lot of attention has been given to the practice of self-compassion, and it offers us a three-part process for putting a stop to self-cruelty and becoming, instead, our own best friend.

Putting self-compassion into practice turns all the dangers of the beat-yourself-up trap right around.  According to Dr. Kristen Neff, http://www.self-compassion.org/   instead of self-created miseries, the practice of self-compassion offers:

•    Feelings of happiness, optimism and curiosity
•    Decreased anxiety, depression, and rumination
•    Fewer feelings of failure and inferiority
•    More resilient feelings of self-worth over time
•    Less self-criticism and perfectionism
•    Stronger buffers against negative social comparison and public self-consciousness
•    Social connectedness
•    Less anger and close-mindedness
•    Emotional intelligence and wisdom
•    Greater initiative and mastery of goals
•    Fewer eating disorders

Additional research  shows that when we practice self-compassion, we ‘re less vulnerable to fearing that others are judging us badly, that we’re not as shy, and that we’re less likely to fall into conflict with other people.

That’s a pretty impressive list of results, wouldn’t you say?  And if you’re familiar with the character strengths that contribute to well-being, you’ll recognize that many of them show up on this list—optimism, curiosity, resilience, social connectedness, the ability to love and be loved, and wisdom for example.

In short, then, self-compassion enables us to bolster the personal qualities that lead to our greater flourishing—to living happier, more meaningful and fulfilling lives.

Putting Self-Compassion to Work

Practicing self-compassion begins, as all positivity practices do, with paying attention.   First you need to notice when you’ve fallen into the self-cruelty trap, when you’re berating yourself.  Set an intention to be alert for the clues I described above, especially at times when you’ve screwed up or failed at something or when you’re going through a hard time.

When you notice that you’re starting to beat yourself up, choose to adopt one of these three self-compassion attitudes instead:

One Self-Kindness

Self-Kindness means that you take a gentle attitude toward yourself.   Dr. Neff describes it as “being warm and understanding toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate.”   It’s accepting with sympathy and kindness that none of us can always be or get exactly what we want, she says.  When we exercise self-compassion, it empowers us to do whatever we need to do to improve our situation.

To get a more in-depth understanding of the way self-forgiveness helps and strengthens you and what it feels like, I invite you to watch Dr. Neff describe self-kindness in this video:

Common Humanity

The second attitude that contributes to self-compassion involves seeing your setbacks, failures, and difficulties as experiences that you share with all humanity.   Instead of magnifying the problem as unique to you, as if you were the only person ever to have to suffer it, you can comfort yourself by recognizing that plenty of other people go through the same kinds of experiences, the same kinds of mistakes and failures and circumstance.  It’s just a part of being human.

Remembering your common humanity keeps you from getting too self-absorbed and falling into self-pity.  It strengthens you by reminding you that others are dealing with the same, or even worse, problems.  It lets you feel more connected with others instead of thinking that you’re singled out or isolated.

Mindfulness

Positivity Life Coach Steve Safigan explains the mindfulness component of self-compassion as meaning that we “take a balanced view and keep our emotions in perspective.”   We don’t ignore them, and we don’t get lost over-thinking those parts of our lives that we dislike, taking them as a sign of personal inadequacy.

Dr. Neff says that it means seeing things just as they are—no more, no less.  Mindfulness is being aware of your painful or stressful emotions so that you can be compassionate toward them, she says.  It helps lessen our tendency to exaggerate and build dramas around our problems so we don’t get carried away and make the problem bigger than it really is.  It allows you to respond to the real situation constructively instead of over-reacting.   It keeps you centered in the present, where you can comfort yourself and choose the best next step.

It really does boil down to learning to be your own best friend:  caring, sympathetic, understanding, honest and warm.

And if I had a magic wand, that’s what I would wish for all of us, beginning today.