In the first three months of her employment, Xiaoli turned around like a top every day. During a chat, Xiaoli told me that she was in a bad state recently, with poor appetite and poor sleep, and often felt tired and wanted to cry.
With the deepening of the chat, I found that one of the important reasons why Xiaoli was so tired was that Xiaoli didn't know how to refuse.
Xiaoli also admits that she is really "soft-hearted" and always dares not refuse others. But what Xiaoli is most worried about is that once she says "no", she will hurt others and destroy interpersonal relationships.
In fact, as long as you think about it carefully, you will find that the consequences of "not having the heart to refuse others" are actually worse than "rejecting others directly and explicitly".
Because I don't know how to refuse others, when I can't finish the things assigned by others with good quality and quantity, I will not only make myself busy, miserable and full of resentment, but also destroy the relationship with each other sooner or later.
Now that I understand the importance of reasonably rejecting others, let's take a look at five ways to politely refuse others. These five methods are extracted by referring to some contents in the book Energy Management and combining with my own practical experience.
1. Pause for a while before making a decision.
When others ask you unreasonable demands, don't promise them in a hurry, but try to pause before making a decision. Don't be afraid that this little pause will make the conversation between two people look awkward.
You know, silence is better than sound here.
As a psychological counselor, I know very well that an excellent psychological counselor is often very good at using the art of pause, rather than always leading the conversation. The moment of pause or silence is often the moment when the other person really begins to think, and it is also the moment when the psychology begins to change.
If the person who assigns you the task is smart enough, he should know that your pause or silence is also a gesture, and he himself will reflect on whether his request is too much at this pause.
Perhaps, before you speak, the other party has already said, "I'm sorry, is this request a bit too much?"
Learn not only to say "no", but also to say "but"
Simply saying "no" can sometimes make the other person feel a little embarrassed. If you can use "but" to elicit other help you can provide, it will make the other person feel much better.
Therefore, in order to politely refuse others, we should master the useful sentence pattern of "no, but …".
For example, a friend of mine planned and organized a large-scale psychology lecturer training camp and invited a well-known psychologist in China as the keynote speaker. My friend also wants me to sign up for this training and give him a performance. Because I have a good relationship with this friend at ordinary times, I also want to go over and pay tribute to him. But the time just conflicts with another important arrangement of mine.
So I said to my friend, "Sorry, I may not be able to attend this training. But if you run a second training camp, I will definitely participate. "
Later, this friend really ran the second training camp. Without saying anything, I flew from Shanghai to another city to attend this training camp.
Let me have a look at the latest timetable and give you an answer.
If the other party invites you to do something, and you think it's easy to hurt the other party by refusing it directly, then you don't have to say "no" in a hurry, but say, "This job is good, but let me look at the schedule first to determine whether there are other plans for that day, and then I'll get back to you, okay?"
In this way, you will set an effective buffer before rejecting the other party. Let the other person have a psychological preparation in advance, so as not to make the other person feel that you are a very cold person.
In addition, people who decide whether to say "no" according to the timetable will also make others think that you are a reliable person, who knows how to manage time and is good at drawing a clear line.
4. Show your superiors what you are busy with.
In fact, for many professionals, the most difficult thing to refuse is actually the task requirements put forward by superiors. What needs to be clear here is that if you are energetic and fully qualified for a task, you should actively complete the tasks assigned by your superiors.
However, when you feel that you are too busy and your superiors have arranged many new tasks for you because they didn't notice your situation, then you should learn the art of rejection.
What you need to do at this time is to show your busy things to your superiors truthfully, so that your superiors can realize your current situation and then make more scientific task allocation.
A friend gave me a real case. On one occasion, his leader arranged many tasks for him at one time, but he still had many tasks given to him by his previous leader. If you refuse the leader directly, your friend is worried about offending the leader. If you take on these new tasks, your friends are worried that they will not be competent and everything will be screwed up in the end.
On second thought, my friend wrote an email to the leader. In the email, my friend listed all the tasks he is currently doing. After carefully analyzing the current situation, he said to the leader in the email: "If you need me to do these new tasks you have arranged, then I may have to put aside those tasks you gave me before. I don't know if you think it's okay? "
After receiving the email, the leader expressed his understanding of his friend's situation and quickly assigned these tasks to another employee of the company.
5. After rejecting each other, see what help you can give them.
If you can seriously think about the real purpose behind a request made by the other party before rejecting the other party, and then see if you can provide effective help in other aspects, then even if you refuse the other party, the other party will not be angry.
For example, a very good friend of mine wants me to give psychological counseling to a child in his neighbor's house. But after knowing the specific situation of this child, I refused my friend's request. Because I am not an expert on children's psychological problems, I don't have enough experience in this field.
But I know a psychological institution that does a good job in psychological counseling for children, so I recommended this institution to my friends.
In this way, even if I turned this friend down, this friend thanked me because I helped his neighbor find a suitable counselor.
Written in the last words:
After learning these five methods, some people may still be afraid to use them in reality. After all, I am still worried that refusing others will offend people.
In fact, for anyone who is afraid of rejecting others, it is necessary to remind himself repeatedly that reasonable rejection of others will make the other party feel uncomfortable from the beginning, and he will feel uncomfortable because of it. But in the long run, reasonable refusal can not only win precious time for your own development, but also win the real respect of others.
In the book Essentialism, the author mentioned how to "refuse others" in exchange for "respect":