How to Say NO — 5 Top Reasons Why We Always Say Yes

This type of behaviour, especially in the long term, just creates a negative effect, because more and we’ll have to say yes, to reach the expectations that others have made of us.

What happen? That cater to them, our needs are secondary, neglect our personal / professional commitments and so on and so forth, and we eventually become stressed in an exaggerated way. Before you learn to say no need to find out why we can’t do it. Here’s the top 5 reasons why we always say yes:

– We feel obliged to help others
– We fear conflict
– We want to be appreciated
– We are afraid of losing an opportunity
– We don’t want to ruin relationships

If we want to be more specific the real reason why we do it, is because we are afraid not to please others and, as a result, the other might have a bad opinion of us. Researches show that it is easier to answer with a yes to a request because to say no makes us uncomfortable and brings out negative emotions, such as guilt, shame, fear.

In the unlikely event that we say no, we become more likely to say yes to all subsequent requests. Why? Because the sense of guilt that comes from the fact that we said no that one time determines the need to remedy the “damage” we did when we refused to say yes the first time.

Lucia Giovannini‘s article was published in Wall Street International.  Go to ORIGINAL.