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How to Say “No” to a Friend or Acquaintance

June 21, 2023

How do you say “no” to a friend or acquaintance when they ask you for help? It can be really hard to ask for help, even from your friends. When someone asks me for help, I’m thinking about how difficult it must’ve been for them to ask for help. I naturally want to say yes not because I want to do the thing but because I want to reward them for having the courage to ask for help. Even though you’re compassionate, it doesn’t mean you have to say yes. I think this leads to more people who say yes than they should.

It’s important to recognize the way we say no to our coworkers will be different from the way that we say no to our friends or acquaintances.

Here are 8 tips for saying “no” to your a friend’s or acquaintance’s request:

Try to understand the request.
Take the time to ask questions. At least making the effort to consider the request. When you ask questions about their ask, you may find out they actually need something else or you may be able to think of another solution.
If you need more time or information, tell them when you can give them an answer by.
Think about how you feel when you ask someone for help over email or text message and they don’t respond. Do you get worried about how they might be thinking about you? I’ve experienced times where friends have totally ignored me when I’ve asked for help and I was left worrying about how my request made them feel. So when you need more time to think about something, it’s important to just respond to say that. You could say, “I’ll let you know at the end of the week if I can do it.”
If the request is easy to understand and for you it’s a clear-cut “no,” respond as soon as you can.
They might be worried and wondering how you’re feeling about their request. If you can’t do it, just let them know the sooner the better. A lot of people, if they don’t want to say yes, or if they can’t say yes, then they just don’t say anything at all. I think if you know it’s something you can’t do, just say that immediately. It’s better than dragging it out.
Say “no“ and offer an alternative solution.
“I can’t do that, however, I can do this.” I’ve been asked to attend fundraising events and to make cash donations. Instead, I have offered to donate my services so they can auction them off. When you asked questions about their request, you may have come up with alternative solutions, so share them. You do want to be helpful, even if you’re not the one who can directly help them.
Share why you need to say no and what your priorities are.
It could be helpful for the person to understand why you were saying no. This doesn’t require a long, apologetic explanation. In fact, the shorter the better. I’ve shared “It’s really difficult for me to meet up in person, so I will have to say no.” or “I won’t be able to make a donation because my priority giving areas are this and this” or “All of my resources are dedicated to my family right now.”
Don’t give them hope if this is something you’ll never do.
Think about if this is something you’d ever be willing to do or not. For example, some people have asked me to pet sit and I know I will never pet sit. In this case, I just let them know I have no experience with pets and I would not be a good candidate for pet sitting.
Welcome them to ask you again if you do want to be asked.
Sometimes you have to say no because you’re not available to help them out. If that’s the case, you can let them know by saying “I can’t help this time, please do ask again though.” It lets them know that even though you can’t do it now, it lets them know they can still ask you again in the future.
Wish them good luck.
Even if you can’t help them and you don’t know anyone who can, wish them some luck so they can get the help they need.

If you can say no to your friends and acquaintances more easily, then you will be practicing setting your boundaries and limiting how many things you do out of a self imposed sense of obligation versus out of true desire.

Which of these strategies resonates with you? I’d love for you to share your thoughts in the comments section. If this was helpful, please share it with a friend or post it on social media.

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How to Say No Professionally to Your Boss or Co-worker

June 14, 2023

“How can I say no to extra work from my boss or colleague professionally and without making enemies?”

We’ve all been in situations where a coworker or our manager or even our manager’s manager has asked us for help to do something that we don’t want to do or that we don’t have the capacity to do. It could be very difficult considering the power dynamics. It’s important to recognize that the way we say no to our friends/acquaintances will be different from the way that we say no at work.

The first stage is to demonstrate that you’re trying to understand and consider their request with these four steps:

1. Paraphrase the request to confirm understanding.

You could say something like “just to make sure I understand your request, is this what you’re saying…?” You may even find out what you think they’re asking for is different from what they think they’re asking for.

2. Try to determine if you’re the only one who can do it the extra work.

Determine if there’s someone else on the team who could help you with the extra work. You may feel you are deflecting on work if you do that, but think of it as you are sharing the responsibility and opportunity for exposure. Perhaps your coworker hadn’t thought about asking certain people because they just don’t have as much exposure to them. There’s an opportunity for you to play “connect the dots” and you can say “I think so-and-so can help you.”

3. Try to understand if their deadline is fixed or flexible.

If you’re willing to do it, yet you need more time, try to see if you can negotiate the deadline. Sometimes people feel more urgency than is actually needed. Try to understand what they’re thinking about by determining this deadline.

4. If you need time to process and let them know when you’ll get back to them.

People often just want to hear a response, whether that is in the affirmative or negative. Yet so often, if we can’t respond in the affirmative, we don’t even respond in the negative. You will earn a lot of goodwill if you respond as soon as possible and offer when you can get back to them.

In the second stage, decide if you still want to say no. If you still want to say no after you have discussed the request, take these five steps to say no professionally:

1. Share what you have to give up doing if you fulfill their request.

Oftentimes when people are asking for help, they don’t think about what you might have to give up in order for you to accommodate the request. You just have to tell them.

2. Ask them what they think you should give up or delay to fulfill their request.

After you tell them what you’re working on, you can turn the question onto them and ask what they think you should give up. This also signals you do have to give something up in order to fulfill their request and it will make them rethink their request. Sometimes people make requests that are not thought out because they just want to get some relief.

3. Share alternative solutions to get their needs addressed.

You may know other people or resources in the department that they don’t know about and they could actually use to fulfill their request. Even if you just say “you may want to check with so-and-so, you will start to be seen as helpful.

4. If the request makes you uncomfortable, say that.

If you’re not sure how to explain why, just say, “I don’t know why, I just don’t feel comfortable doing this.” There could be so many different reasons for why you don’t want to say yes to this request. If it makes you uncomfortable, share that.

5. Reinforce your desire to be helpful and that you want to focus on doing your current job/task well.

You want to end the conversation on a positive note. Let them know you do want to be helpful, and yet there’s just so much other work, and no relief in sight, so you have to say no.