Say NO when you want to say NO!

In any situation speak what your heart tells you to. Not what your mind recommends you to.

This will ensure that you don't leave any situation in Life untouched by your perspective and you live your Life on your terms. Happily. Let's understand this better. We are forever saying no when we must be saying yes. And saying yes when we must be saying no.

Take an example. You visit someone. And your host asks for coffee, tea or beverages. You wouldn’t mind a coffee. But you end up saying no. Here’s another one. Your boss asks you if it is fine for you to stay back after work to discuss the upcoming budget meetings. You know you have promised to drive the kids around and buy them ice-cream today. You actually want to say no, but you end up saying yes. Right from these simple, often banal, situations to more important, Life-related choices, we are making uncalled for compromises. This is why many of us are perpetually unhappy. Think about it. A large part of your Life has been spent pleasing others__a father, mother, siblings, in-laws, bosses, children, neighbors. You have become a ‘pleasing slave’__one who is addicted to pleasing, being nice, others at the cost of one’s own happiness. It is an addiction. It is suicidal. Resultantly, you are not living your Life. You are just suffering. Stop this nonsense. Now. If you want to work in way that you feel enriched, fulfilled and productive, say what you are feeling, not what is merely ‘appropriate’ in the given situation or context.

We used to work with a client. A large corporate here in India. Their CEO, a wonderful human being, is personally very close to us. We worked with that company as consultants for over a decade. But in those years, we had become part of the furniture in their organization, we had stopped adding value, because we had stopped speaking up, preferring to be “nice” to the CEO who, effectively, is a very poor manager. Finally, some years ago, we quit that engagement. A few weeks ago, the CEO approached us through another common professional source, asking if we would be interested in engaging with the company again. In the period when have not been engaged with the company, the CEO had helped us with many challenges we had been faced with in Life. Yet, despite our deep gratitude to this CEO, we declined to re-engage. The CEO called me. And expressed his displeasure at our refusal. I replied: “I must confess this may be coming across to you as if we are professionally arrogant. But I want you to know Sir that if we don’t operate from our inner core, from joy, we can’t create value in your organization. And your style of working is not compatible with ours. Hence we will not be happy. Being happy is critical to our living. We want to be alive to each moment, not dying, feeling suffocated in an environment such as the one you lead.” I said this with a straight face. It must have been devastating for this CEO perhaps to hear this. But he later sent me a text saying, he appreciated my being honest. Another friend, a world-class entrepreneur, who I had added on my personal Facebook page, started using my wall for promoting his brands. I ‘unfriended’ him on Facebook and sent him a mail saying while I appreciate his genius (he is one), I do not quite accept his treating my personal space as his commercial billboard and also told him that his brands don’t need any of these small-time publicity gimmicks. He wrote back, after several weeks of silence, how much he valued my views.

So, when you speak up and share what your heart is experiencing, you not only enhance your happiness quotient, you also create value in your circle of influence. Now choose: do you want to be in a constant ‘pleasing-mode’ and so be always unhappy or do you want to live happily forever? It’s a no-brainer!